Reaching For The Heaven

story by Sameer Raote

Ambition and ignorance are the two driving points that make us do incredible things. King Raghvan Kai of the 6th pre-millennium (i.e. six thousand years prior to common) was like that.

Many years prior to the common era Kai kingdom was very advanced in the field of physics, chemistry, biology, etc. One of the subjects they fell short in was Astronomy. Under the leadership of Raghvan Kai they had mastered the terrestrial skills, but they still lacked the knowledge of the heavens.

I call the sky heavens because that’s what they used to believe. In those times the common belief was that the sky is a ceiling with holes cut out to let the light from heaven fall on the land of mortals. The biggest hole was the sun, followed by moon and then other tiny planets in the sky.

Raghvan lost his mother the time he was born. His father used to say that she went to the heaven. He actually believed that. (To some extent that is true but we’ll talk about that some other time). So when Raghvan started making new inventions he did this with intention to take him to the heavens.

There was a phase in Raghvan’s scientific life when he was excited to learn genetic manipulation. Raghvan and his team of mad scientists had found a way to manipulate the DNA to produce enhanced individuals. Those capable of doing incredible feats.

This was theory at first as they produced many beings that were failure. They were stronger than humans but they started lacking the intelligence of a human. It took a long time to make a deadly combination which eventually became a success in form of a baby boy called Bigul.

Bigul was a cute little kid with slight ape like features but with incredible strength. He grew old very fast and with age he started developing his true abilities. The ability to fly.

While creating a genetically engineered being the plan was that they would have the strength to jump really high. Using that ability that person will jump high enough to reach the heavens, see what’s there and report back.

When they saw this kid Bigul exceeding their expectation they wanted to carry out that test early. They didn’t want him to grow fully because in theory they believed that he will lose his powers by then.

While most scientists agreed one of them, a woman named Anuja disagreed. “He’s just a kid.” she argued. “He does not understand what’s right and wrong.”

“What if he flies up and the light kills him. Being a kid he will stop at nothing?”

She argued, resisted the decision but no one else cared. For them Bigul was just an experiment.

Now, a kid cannot be trained like a soldier. They had to find different ways to make him do things. The scientists who took care of Bigul told him that the sun in the sky is a very juicy fruit. They tempted him saying ,“You should taste it. It’s the sweetest. You’ll love it.”

Hearing that Bigul immediately was tempted. He agreed to go there and bring some back for them. The day when he was ready he started jumping. Higher and higher every time.

It was a sight to see. Many people were gathered there. The scientists had cleared an open ground for him. When he went very high he landed that hard crushing the ground. He still kept on going higher since he didn’t reach the heavens.

“Higher” “Higher” “I have not touched the heavens yet.”

He kept on repeating. After some time the situation got dangerous. Every time he landed bigger crater was created in that spot. Scared for life people went away. Only the scientists and Raghvan Kai stayed in their magnetically hovering vehicles.

It was fascinating to see him jump. Every scientist had a different theory about the heavens. They were waiting whose theory would come true. Everyone was happy to see this experiment except Anuja.

Anuja cried to see Bigul jumping. She feared it would end badly for him. Eventually it did. As the crater size kept on increasing the scientists moved farther and farther away until from the point where they were Bigul appeared to be a tiny dot that went up and down.

This one time the dot went up, came down and then it didn’t go up. Bigul stayed on the ground. The scientists tried contacting him but he did not respond. Anuja was the first to run to him.

What she saw was very scary. Young Bigul’s hands and feet were swollen due to excessive jumping. There was dried blood stains all over his body. Bigul was almost unconscious when he kept on murmuring.

“I tried… I tried… reaching the fruit. But the sky… kept on moving… far… and farther… away from me… then I couldn’t breath…”

Basically he had reached the point where air was very thin to sustain him but since he was just a kid he couldn’t put it in proper words. It was a great lesson but a failed experiment in the eyes of great Raghvan Kai.

All the scientists left him to die except Anuja. She took him to medical care and let him heal. She spent days and nights by the kid’s side while he healed. She knew that this was not over. The scientists will come to Bigul again for another test run unless she does something about it.

“Something like a memory block. Yes! A memory block!”

Psychology was another subject the brainiacs of Kai had mastered in those times. They were capable of using this knowledge to manipulate people’s thoughts. This was particularly helpful to convince people to willingly volunteer for deadly science experiments.

For the first time this knowledge was to be put in good use. When Bigul started becoming conscious again this memory block procedure was conducted on him so that Bigul will forget how to trigger this power of flight.

It worked. When Bigul was fully healed Bigul was unable to fly any more. When the scientists realized that they let him free to live the rest of his life like any normal child.

Anuja willingly accepted the role of his mother. One because she was the only person who cared for him and another being that this child, Bigul, was engineered from her DNA. The only question that bothered her was this,

“If in future there comes a need for Bigul to fly again. Should I let him have this power?”

Fortunately she didn’t have to answer it right away.

We have come to the end of this story but as a story teller I have to tell you that many years down the road Bigul does learn fly again but that’s a story for another time.

END

written by Sameer Raote

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