There wasn’t much more he could do, they were pretty sure of that. He wasn’t though, naturally. What he thought was immaterial, how could he know?
It was dark outside, the kind of dark that reduced trees to shadows, and the wind in them to a phantom. The kind of dark that was so opaque even the houses looked like blocks of black within the larger black, so black that it went on forever.
Where were the stars he wondered? Where had they gone?
Of course, he could not know; how could he, when they did not?
The stars had left, left for good perhaps, or perhaps merely stepped into the jury room. They were discussing them, all of them, including him and the others. The stars themselves were divided into two, one and the others: the one was trying to argue in favour of them, from below, on earth, while the others were pretty sure there was nothing that could be done.
On earth below, he kept looking for the stars.
It was quite a mystery what happened to them, but like all unsolved mysteries it had slowly been forgotten, and was now accepted as an unanswerable problem, like who or what or where God was. By then, on earth, god had been forgotten.
No one discussed whether he was alive or dead, whether he had a purpose, no one spared a thought for his game of ludo, or chess or whatever it was he played, or whether it was game at all. No one argued whether or not he was all knowing, or what the limits of his knowledge were. He had been forgotten, just like the stars.
Had the stars known this, they’d feel proud of the company they were in. but as it stood they could not, and more importantly, they did not want to know. They were more interested what he was saying to the rest of them. He was of course the star arguing in favour of man.
It was becoming increasingly difficult to refute him, because his argument was about the most basic reason for their existence, to watch over man. That was true, but there were limits to even that duty, weren’t there? Were they?
No one knew, and the celestial jury was still out, and earth had forgotten what stars were, and what moonless nights looked like. It was just a uniform, solid black. Not even the kind of black that shines of the roofs of cars, or the glinty black that looks so good on a women’s body, but the kind of dirty black that develops from leaving something in the open for too long or around smoke stacks.
They did not think it was black, it just was to them.
The stars were wondering if there was a mafia amongst them, one that would shut up this wise guy for good, so that they could go back to their lives of simple shining… there was his argument again, shine on what?
They were meant to shine on earth, but it was earth that had blocked them out, so now what? Well ‘now what?’ was a good question, and the argument was about its appropriate answer… there were only two left in contention. One was favoured by everyone except him, because it was the simplest and happiest for them, the other was argued by him because it was the right one. And no one could dispute that.
Meanwhile on earth, no one looked for the right answer anymore. They were more interested in finding more, more of anything, sex, money, gold, sex, knowledge, wisdom, sex… etc. and they found it too, largely because everyone was looking for the same things. They’d set up networks and share the same things endlessly till everyone had everyone and everything in endless copies, and there was still space to want more.
They did have a Mafia, and they could have had the star searcher, as we shall call him, taken care of, but he was too insignificant. The mafia would want something in return for taking care of the star searcher, and no one was willing to have a one sided transaction, after all killing the star searcher did not really get them much.
They just let him be.
He was quite glad of it. He’d spent quite sometime collecting everything he wanted, which was much less than everything, which is what everyone else wanted, and so he was now satisfied, except of course he could not find the stars.
I’m sure he was not happy.
Though every few hours he’d learn something new, he’d learnt why the stars existed, all the kinds of stars, their nature, and their make up, the colour of the stars. Yes stars are racist; they believe that stars of different colour should play different roles in society. Red giants for example are meant to entertain, white dwarfs were wise old beings, and with Nutron stars, guided the rest of the stars. The average yellow to blue star was just a producer of energy, useful energy, and the black hole was meant to get rid of it. None of them felt their role any inferior than the others; in fact, everyone took pride in being what they were. And respected, in a very non-covetous way the others’ capacities, the nutron stars were well aware of the fact that to lead they needed the yellow stars, and the yellow stars were aware that they were too young, in celestial terms to lead a pack… the red giants performed for all the stars together, no one was ever barred from a presentation. (Of course they hadn’t been one for the longest time, because of the debate.)
In the celestial jury room all the chairs, if you can call them that, the stars sat on were at the same height, and oriented circularly around the same point, in such a manner that everyone was equally close and distant. It is complicated.
The star searcher knew some of this, of course he did not know much about the jury room, but he’d heard of some of the smaller meetings called constellations that humans before him had been a witness too.
He was so absorbed in his search, that he did not notice the fact that a lot of people did not like him. They did not like him because he was different tot them, he had much less that most, yet he was content with it, it made no sense.
“Right from school, he’s been like this,” his school mates would say, “we’d all be busy collecting rocks, and grass and leaves of trees, and the bark… he’d just pick a few blades of grass, and weave them together into a mat… the teacher could do nothing about it.. We never saw him collecting his information, but he had it all when it was inspected. Oh yes, he’d type out the location on his drive of everything we had, and the teller would tally with its value… he never bounced a single test, though he never paid attention at collections. He was freakish and weird.”
They were sure he did not deserve a place in the gene pool any longer. They could rest in peace, no one would marry him. Because, in the self preservatory mechanism inherent in all species he’d been passed over as damaged reproductory material, his was mutation that would not go any further than him.
If he had four arms, perhaps it would change things a little. Four arms are pretty useful to hold things with you know double the usual capacity. But he didn’t. He did not realise he’d lost the chance to get sex, forget the eight degree of more sex that his school mates were now looking for.
He did not really care, especially now.
The stars on the other hand were trying to argue with the arguer (which is a good name, because there are too many to know exactly which one it was), that there was no way in which they could return to the earthen sky. This was largely because the sky was dirty, black, like soot. And they could no longer penetrate it with their light. The sun gave evidence of it. He was closest to the earth, bright enough to at regular intervals blot out the rest of the stars; even he could not get through the black blanket. His light and warmth just bounced off the top layer of free ions that had become the top of the atmosphere.
They were ungrateful, those of the earth, and nothing more could be done for them.
The arguer accepted this, nothing could be done now, but things would change, perhaps in a million years things would be good again. They couldn’t abandon their watch because of black out, it had to be a phase, and they must wait it out.
How do you argue with an optimist?
On earth they did not know, they had none.
The star searcher was the closest thing, and he too was not too sure if he had anything to be optimistic about. Though now he knew for sure what stars were, and how they shone, and till when. And how over time it changed, the sky that is, from blue to brown, then rust red and finally black.
He read how in a last desperate effort to get rid of the black, trees had been planted… perhaps if he found what trees were he’d have an answer.
But in the blackness he could see no green, and no one grew things anymore, they just used them, to the eighth degree of more. And the things knew nothing of course; they just were, in the blackness.
The star searcher learnt that to find trees, he’d have to learn a lot more. So he set about collecting things he could learn from. His frenzy to find out was so great that he almost rejoined the gene pool, he was searching for more in the same way that the others did, if anything with a little more gusto.
They almost thought he was turning normal again. Not that he could, obviously what ever it was that had made satisfied him with the little he’d had earlier was still part of his system, like a worm, was dormant until the right command sequence ran through his infected system again. They weren’t cynics
After all without optimists you can’t really have cynics, just as without light there can’t be darkness. They knew this, but did not understand the blackness just the same.
Now of course the star searcher did not either, in fact he was not even bothered. He was more interested in finding out about trees, and other things that were green. Perhaps he should have been more bothered about finding out what green was, but in a world completely black who’d imagine they could be colours?
They too weren’t interested in the black or the green. They were merely interested in finding a way to shut up the arguer. There wasn’t a legal one, nor was there a loop hole in his argument, so they were trying to find one in the basis of his argument. Now the base was something established a long time ago. It had changed since then, slowly, sometimes in a manner recognised, sometimes informally, and they were pretty sure they could find something he’d not be able to answer.
They had found a few things, that were not exactly fool proof, and so they were looking for more, with the same zeal that was appreciated on earth. The arguer was unaware of this he’d grown tired of answering the same question over and over again. Had been a cynic he’d have realised that the questions were mere decoy’s to keep from thinking while the real Big One was being composed. But then he was an optimist and to them nothing bad can be on the horizon, or under the table.
The Big One was in itself a problem; no one knew how to compose it. Some favoured a simply composed question that would make the time it took to find an answer fuel to mockery, and also make arguer’s argument seem rather weak, because it could not counter a simple statement. Others were of the mind that a simple question could probably be answered and that since most questions contained in themselves a hint to the answer, it could well back fire. They were in favour of a long winded document like those issued by governments to their subjects explaining new rules. In the end they won out.
The star searcher was having a very difficult time. His zeal had impressed many women. They found his zeal very appealing, it was almost as though he did have four arms and was working with all of them at the speed of eight.
They liked it, and he almost on many occasions was welcomed with arms and lips wide open to the gene pool. Only he did not notice, he was too busy looking for green trees.
But in a world of black within black, how does one see green? The star searcher did not realise it was a colour, in fact he did not realise what colour was. To him black was not one amongst many, it was just was, to the eighth degree of more.
The stars were still busy discussing the question, and looking for a way to find another 18 sub clauses because that would lengthen the question by two more units. They did not really know what the question was, and that was the brilliance of the plan. The arguer could not answer satisfactorily a question that wasn’t.
If nothing else, they could carry on with the meeting, which would be better than having to return to the seclusion of shining. Of course in their excitement over the question they did not realise, they were still shining, and on nothing. The question was to be the product of a genius, a genius wasted.
All genius is wasted, but some is rediscovered later and glorified, the star searcher was looking for the genius of the trees, hoping for something similar.
The stars did not want the question to survive, to mark their brilliance they were ashamed of it, or perhaps of the fact that it made them proud.
It was dark outside, the kind of dark that reduced trees to shadows, and the wind in them to a phantom. The kind of dark that was so opaque even the houses looked like blocks of black within the larger black, so black that it went on forever.
Where were the stars he wondered? Where had they gone?
Of course, he could not know; how could he, when they did not?
The stars had left, left for good perhaps, or perhaps merely stepped into the jury room. They were discussing them, all of them, including him and the others. The stars themselves were divided into two, one and the others: the one was trying to argue in favour of them, from below, on earth, while the others were pretty sure there was nothing that could be done.
On earth below, he kept looking for the stars.
It was quite a mystery what happened to them, but like all unsolved mysteries it had slowly been forgotten, and was now accepted as an unanswerable problem, like who or what or where God was. By then, on earth, god had been forgotten.
No one discussed whether he was alive or dead, whether he had a purpose, no one spared a thought for his game of ludo, or chess or whatever it was he played, or whether it was game at all. No one argued whether or not he was all knowing, or what the limits of his knowledge were. He had been forgotten, just like the stars.
Had the stars known this, they’d feel proud of the company they were in. but as it stood they could not, and more importantly, they did not want to know. They were more interested what he was saying to the rest of them. He was of course the star arguing in favour of man.
It was becoming increasingly difficult to refute him, because his argument was about the most basic reason for their existence, to watch over man. That was true, but there were limits to even that duty, weren’t there? Were they?
No one knew, and the celestial jury was still out, and earth had forgotten what stars were, and what moonless nights looked like. It was just a uniform, solid black. Not even the kind of black that shines of the roofs of cars, or the glinty black that looks so good on a women’s body, but the kind of dirty black that develops from leaving something in the open for too long or around smoke stacks.
They did not think it was black, it just was to them.
The stars were wondering if there was a mafia amongst them, one that would shut up this wise guy for good, so that they could go back to their lives of simple shining… there was his argument again, shine on what?
They were meant to shine on earth, but it was earth that had blocked them out, so now what? Well ‘now what?’ was a good question, and the argument was about its appropriate answer… there were only two left in contention. One was favoured by everyone except him, because it was the simplest and happiest for them, the other was argued by him because it was the right one. And no one could dispute that.
Meanwhile on earth, no one looked for the right answer anymore. They were more interested in finding more, more of anything, sex, money, gold, sex, knowledge, wisdom, sex… etc. and they found it too, largely because everyone was looking for the same things. They’d set up networks and share the same things endlessly till everyone had everyone and everything in endless copies, and there was still space to want more.
They did have a Mafia, and they could have had the star searcher, as we shall call him, taken care of, but he was too insignificant. The mafia would want something in return for taking care of the star searcher, and no one was willing to have a one sided transaction, after all killing the star searcher did not really get them much.
They just let him be.
He was quite glad of it. He’d spent quite sometime collecting everything he wanted, which was much less than everything, which is what everyone else wanted, and so he was now satisfied, except of course he could not find the stars.
I’m sure he was not happy.
Though every few hours he’d learn something new, he’d learnt why the stars existed, all the kinds of stars, their nature, and their make up, the colour of the stars. Yes stars are racist; they believe that stars of different colour should play different roles in society. Red giants for example are meant to entertain, white dwarfs were wise old beings, and with Nutron stars, guided the rest of the stars. The average yellow to blue star was just a producer of energy, useful energy, and the black hole was meant to get rid of it. None of them felt their role any inferior than the others; in fact, everyone took pride in being what they were. And respected, in a very non-covetous way the others’ capacities, the nutron stars were well aware of the fact that to lead they needed the yellow stars, and the yellow stars were aware that they were too young, in celestial terms to lead a pack… the red giants performed for all the stars together, no one was ever barred from a presentation. (Of course they hadn’t been one for the longest time, because of the debate.)
In the celestial jury room all the chairs, if you can call them that, the stars sat on were at the same height, and oriented circularly around the same point, in such a manner that everyone was equally close and distant. It is complicated.
The star searcher knew some of this, of course he did not know much about the jury room, but he’d heard of some of the smaller meetings called constellations that humans before him had been a witness too.
He was so absorbed in his search, that he did not notice the fact that a lot of people did not like him. They did not like him because he was different tot them, he had much less that most, yet he was content with it, it made no sense.
“Right from school, he’s been like this,” his school mates would say, “we’d all be busy collecting rocks, and grass and leaves of trees, and the bark… he’d just pick a few blades of grass, and weave them together into a mat… the teacher could do nothing about it.. We never saw him collecting his information, but he had it all when it was inspected. Oh yes, he’d type out the location on his drive of everything we had, and the teller would tally with its value… he never bounced a single test, though he never paid attention at collections. He was freakish and weird.”
They were sure he did not deserve a place in the gene pool any longer. They could rest in peace, no one would marry him. Because, in the self preservatory mechanism inherent in all species he’d been passed over as damaged reproductory material, his was mutation that would not go any further than him.
If he had four arms, perhaps it would change things a little. Four arms are pretty useful to hold things with you know double the usual capacity. But he didn’t. He did not realise he’d lost the chance to get sex, forget the eight degree of more sex that his school mates were now looking for.
He did not really care, especially now.
The stars on the other hand were trying to argue with the arguer (which is a good name, because there are too many to know exactly which one it was), that there was no way in which they could return to the earthen sky. This was largely because the sky was dirty, black, like soot. And they could no longer penetrate it with their light. The sun gave evidence of it. He was closest to the earth, bright enough to at regular intervals blot out the rest of the stars; even he could not get through the black blanket. His light and warmth just bounced off the top layer of free ions that had become the top of the atmosphere.
They were ungrateful, those of the earth, and nothing more could be done for them.
The arguer accepted this, nothing could be done now, but things would change, perhaps in a million years things would be good again. They couldn’t abandon their watch because of black out, it had to be a phase, and they must wait it out.
How do you argue with an optimist?
On earth they did not know, they had none.
The star searcher was the closest thing, and he too was not too sure if he had anything to be optimistic about. Though now he knew for sure what stars were, and how they shone, and till when. And how over time it changed, the sky that is, from blue to brown, then rust red and finally black.
He read how in a last desperate effort to get rid of the black, trees had been planted… perhaps if he found what trees were he’d have an answer.
But in the blackness he could see no green, and no one grew things anymore, they just used them, to the eighth degree of more. And the things knew nothing of course; they just were, in the blackness.
The star searcher learnt that to find trees, he’d have to learn a lot more. So he set about collecting things he could learn from. His frenzy to find out was so great that he almost rejoined the gene pool, he was searching for more in the same way that the others did, if anything with a little more gusto.
They almost thought he was turning normal again. Not that he could, obviously what ever it was that had made satisfied him with the little he’d had earlier was still part of his system, like a worm, was dormant until the right command sequence ran through his infected system again. They weren’t cynics
After all without optimists you can’t really have cynics, just as without light there can’t be darkness. They knew this, but did not understand the blackness just the same.
Now of course the star searcher did not either, in fact he was not even bothered. He was more interested in finding out about trees, and other things that were green. Perhaps he should have been more bothered about finding out what green was, but in a world completely black who’d imagine they could be colours?
They too weren’t interested in the black or the green. They were merely interested in finding a way to shut up the arguer. There wasn’t a legal one, nor was there a loop hole in his argument, so they were trying to find one in the basis of his argument. Now the base was something established a long time ago. It had changed since then, slowly, sometimes in a manner recognised, sometimes informally, and they were pretty sure they could find something he’d not be able to answer.
They had found a few things, that were not exactly fool proof, and so they were looking for more, with the same zeal that was appreciated on earth. The arguer was unaware of this he’d grown tired of answering the same question over and over again. Had been a cynic he’d have realised that the questions were mere decoy’s to keep from thinking while the real Big One was being composed. But then he was an optimist and to them nothing bad can be on the horizon, or under the table.
The Big One was in itself a problem; no one knew how to compose it. Some favoured a simply composed question that would make the time it took to find an answer fuel to mockery, and also make arguer’s argument seem rather weak, because it could not counter a simple statement. Others were of the mind that a simple question could probably be answered and that since most questions contained in themselves a hint to the answer, it could well back fire. They were in favour of a long winded document like those issued by governments to their subjects explaining new rules. In the end they won out.
The star searcher was having a very difficult time. His zeal had impressed many women. They found his zeal very appealing, it was almost as though he did have four arms and was working with all of them at the speed of eight.
They liked it, and he almost on many occasions was welcomed with arms and lips wide open to the gene pool. Only he did not notice, he was too busy looking for green trees.
But in a world of black within black, how does one see green? The star searcher did not realise it was a colour, in fact he did not realise what colour was. To him black was not one amongst many, it was just was, to the eighth degree of more.
The stars were still busy discussing the question, and looking for a way to find another 18 sub clauses because that would lengthen the question by two more units. They did not really know what the question was, and that was the brilliance of the plan. The arguer could not answer satisfactorily a question that wasn’t.
If nothing else, they could carry on with the meeting, which would be better than having to return to the seclusion of shining. Of course in their excitement over the question they did not realise, they were still shining, and on nothing. The question was to be the product of a genius, a genius wasted.
All genius is wasted, but some is rediscovered later and glorified, the star searcher was looking for the genius of the trees, hoping for something similar.
The stars did not want the question to survive, to mark their brilliance they were ashamed of it, or perhaps of the fact that it made them proud.
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