The Re-rise
লেখক: Abanti Pal
শিল্পী: টিম কল্পবিশ্ব
It was pitch black, as black as it could be at the bottom of hell. Yet, a warm moist endless vacuum clung heavily, almost embracing me at the point of the rise of my consciousness. I realised I was taking birth. I lay stark awake, gathering my surroundings. Where have I come? In the numbing darkness, questions haunt me about my being. Am I born well past the apocalypse, after the universe had died into the null and the void? Will I lay in eternal darkness for the rest of my days? More importantly, then, who am I after all? What is my origin?
A shrill cry somewhere overhead made me break free of my reverie and intuitively pop my head out the surface. Oh, blinding light! I shut my optical sensors as I just began to realise, I was not levitating in the endless cosmos. I am serenely embedded on the surface of the Earth. The moist embrace is all soil and water. Now, light warmth begins to spread through my sensors and rejuvenate me from thousands of years of dormancy. It must be the sun overhead. In the new light of my birth, I am finally beginning to remember my origin! I fancy the cool wind playing with the tuft of my hair overhead. Ah, my hair – that would be the first fresh leaves germinated from the pod I stored in my tummy. The secret code of life is again unleashed upon the barren lifeless planet. The tender leaves flutter in glee with the first taste of photosynthesis.
Whoa, am I awkwardly hanging on the surface, almost ready to tumble off the face of the round globe? I had protruded too much, with no soil to protect my body. As I prepare to dive back into the realm of the dark underground in search of deeper roots, the shrill cry resurfaces once more. To my horror, I see a large bird hovering above me. It swoops down below and takes a sharp peck at me, grabbing me by the neck as it neatly ensures I don’t escape back to dormancy. Oh, fellow! I am bound to be awake and deliver myself, don’t you see my shoots? I am the IndieBot, symbolic of the ancient humans from the Indus Valley civilization that marked the onset of organized human growth. I am the first of the nanobots to be activated after forty thousand years of the catastrophe that almost destroyed Earth. I am bound to re-rise and re-flourish the dead planet with life. From the genetic code that the ingenious reigning humans had buried deep inside the tectonic plates, I revived to make my claim. The time has come. The bird flies off, apparently confident I will not break the rules. I notice its large metallic wings gliding smoothly in the soft air, never making a noise as its feathery shield gives it the appearance of an enormous hawk. The drone had self-activated itself some time ago and the planet reached the required saturation point for re-growing life. It was now ready to nurture me and my lot.
The broken moon hung in precarious proximity to the lone Earth. Forty thousand years back, when it had been hit by a rogue asteroid, the water had come gushing. The planet had been swiped lifeless by the onset of the Water Age. But man – he had prepared well in advance. He had prepared a semi-biological, semi-robotic miniature creature and lulled it to sleep until conditions were favourable. Now I come, as the water recedes and the temperatures scale up. The atmosphere was still a mess, but I could handle it, one step at a time. I would grow into a gigantic tree in time. Thousands in my army would join me to make a forest. The replenished atmosphere would then trigger the rise of the florabots, the faunabots, and ultimately the mammobots. Man himself will be born again. I, the IndieBot would ensure colonies of the other bots would make life possible. It’s the only Earth we’ve got! As I gather, we are encrypted well inside the core and spread across millions of miles.
I squirm to make myself comfortable in the tender soil, propagating my now tiny roots deeper, sucking in the earthy sap and soaking in the mellow sun. Is the sun dying out? Why is it dimming out at primetime, when the show is just kicking off? As I ponder, I catch the wasting moon edging meticulously towards the sun, almost but never fully eclipsing it. There it crept to swallow the light, but an eerie halo surpassed its gloomy shadow and illuminated the world. A new world, where the Renaissance of Life was just beginning, a world which will never again see an eclipse in its day!
