The Endians
By
Joel Passy
If god had a hobby, he must've been a gardener and Chester Park was his backyard. It is a place where, peace resides. The space it occupies expands beyond any one corner of the horizon. It imitates the sky as if the whole world had been flipped over yet retained its contents. Chester Park feels like walking on a bed of clouds. The grass doesn't grow more than the height of your ankles and your feet buries deep in the cold ground. The tingling of each strand permeates up the body. Some bury their hands in the grass, stroke through it, until the tips of their finger reach the moist soil. Some claw the ground, leaving residue under their nails, while some gently brush the tiny field and comb each stem out, mimicking their own hair.
The sky, the ground and you. In the moment, it feels like the plants breathe through you. You've taken their place. You lie down. It is true that we are created from earth and will return to it someday. What a marvellous paradox is this to experience this peaceful rest above ground. And one deep breathe, sucks in all life of the universe. Then you open your eyes. They paint the sky. The green of the earth begins to blossom. Blue sky isn't blue, it is empty yet filled with an awareness of space that you only feel the depth of. And then you colour it with your lively eyes. A selected pattern of colours belong to you and no one knows what you're feeling right now. Here in Chester Park, all the senses blend into one entity, like an intersection they all meet at one point, the Soul.
When a collection of these souls gather at Chester Park, they too intersect. They have formed a peculiar congregation of four individuals. At first there is Rex, an aloof individual, who at the age of fourteen attempted suicide, twice. When Rex’s mother married a plumber who could fix behavioral problems with pipes also, the beatings had begun. The scars from it all, left a hole inside of him. His childhood begs for answers from this abuse. He never fitted with his school mates. They all came from happy families with lunch boxes full of tempting items. The only friends Rex had were animals, nature and TV. When the plumber gave away the one dear thing he loved, his blue-point Himalayan cat of the age of six. A crying sight of Rex at his balcony could be seen from the ground. The love of the animal or the lack of it drove him to madness. He jumped while miscalculating the fall which wasn't enough to do fatal harm. He clipped his leg on the lower balcony which mitigated the damage. He suffered from various broken bones and a visible slanting scar appeared on his left eye brows. Now, at the age of twenty-eight, Rex has groomed into a pleasant sight.
Then there is Emily, a twenty-two year old who appears to have a maturity of a thirty-five year old. Disconnected from her age group, she's developed a curiosity to always believe in something more than the usual sight of things. She's attracted to the discovery of even the tiniest mysteries of things and people. If perception and curiosity were married, Emily would be the only child, grown up to inherit both great features. Her dark brown eyes had a natural glint and her eye lids drooped half way, eclipsing her eyes and intensifying our curiosity of the availing moment when they appeared in full. One gaze at her face and you are confronted with an enigmatic being. The parallel between the undiscovered meaning of this mortal coil and the encoding in Emily's nature are simply a mirror in themselves.
Honora, a woman of the age thirty-seven can be seen at Chester Park practicing a form of meditation. After several deep breathes acquired from Yoga, her breathing faints to a normal capacity. All her life she has been acutely attuned to picking out normal things and panics upon awareness from inadvertent monitoring of this natural process. She can't contain the fact that this peaceful respiration is perfectly one with the present. There is tremble in new a second. Every next day she hits the snooze on the doomsday clock. She's addicted to a full, deep and round breathes. It's her fix to all the havoc around her. Along with plenty of self-help instruments, she is always on the verge of becoming a newer version of herself. A host of gurus who pepper the audience with wise words are a lifelong devotion of Honora.
And lastly there is Charlie. A man of thirty-seven, whose mom still jokes how he was born later than his due date. Everything he does passes the normal date of usual timeliness of things. Late at maturity, he stayed the same height from about seventh grade to eleventh grade. All of a sudden during one summer break, his parents installed a portion of monkey bars in their backyard. Charlie, tired of being pushed around at school, he hung on those bars three times a day for ten minutes, everyday of the summer. His toes finally started scrapping the ground. Later in life, he believes the things he feels inadequate of when they become past due, he installs monkey bars and gets it right. He's done all the right things later in life but he feels all along that they've been a mistake somehow. He has dutifully carried out his function as a son, a boyfriend, then husband, a father and now a divorcee. That saying, 'Appearances can be deceiving,' apply to Charlie.
The four of them meet every Thursday evenings during the sunset hour. Usually when it ends, like Dandelion seeds they disperse.
This evening, no one is talking. Rex is tucked around a tree. You can only see the back of his head and the rest is hidden from protruding roots. Charlie is in the settling down phase, looking in all directions of the park. Near them, there’s a statue of a woman standing on one leg, hands together and she is seemingly morphing into another pose. Upon a closer look, it is Honora. Emily is there with her arms crossed, the sun is directly on her face and it doesn’t affect her vision. Her eyes are fixed on the invisible. The other three blip loudly on her radar. She stays put without saying a word. The silence in her vicinity sucks in those around. Finally, under an open sky they unite in four corners on the cool bed of grass.
Rex fires off, ‘I am really sorry about last week. It won’t happen again.’
Honora grabbing his forearms whispers to him, ‘Listen, you are here again and we need you.’
‘But look around you, everything is shredded. Torn into pieces, this world has lost its innocence. People have lost their innocence. We need to know who we are. We haven’t understood ourselves. We are divided and controlled by the non-existent. We Human beings have very little control over how we are thrown into this cycle. We are so much alike but we all roll around in our paths. The cycles are there. We don’t know where does it begin or end. It’s a circle, it’s a zero, It’s nothing and we are nothing.’
‘Well, we are something. Aren’t we all here? All of us gathered and making conversation. I am listening to you and responding. This is as real as it gets.’ Charlie soothing him like he always does.
‘Yes, I know that. What I am after is the meaningless space...’ Rex points his finger to the sky.
‘...for which there is no end.’
‘Alright that’s it. Let’s start this before we kill each other and find the answers ourselves.’ Honora pacifies the whole argument.
Meanwhile, Emily seizes this pause and takes out the yoke from her bag. A smile surges from everyone.
‘Here’s to another great Journey.’ Emily cheers on.
The wall around the yoke increases in diameter and becomes a cockpit. Soon the entire crew is enveloped in a well lit mechanical wonder. They take their positions. Emily is the ship’s pilot. Rex leads the navigation. Charlie and Honora are the multi-tasking passengers.
The ship takes off from Chester Park. It accelerates only in up and down direction. In minutes they have blasted their way out of the outer layer of earth. From their window it is nothing but a landscape view of black space, grainy and cold. Like a glass elevator, they look down below to view the sun in its comparable shape.
Honora asks, ‘Are we going to the end of the universe this time?’
‘Absolutely, I want to see it this time.’ Rex replies.
‘What
do you think is out there?’ Honora asks him again.
‘I don’t know but only this much, the deeper we go our chances of getting lost is higher.’ Rex replies again while fixing his seatbelt.
Emily steps in keeping her eyes on the wheel, ‘Our chances are safe. We only move in one direction. We won’t get lost.’
From the backseat we hear Charlie, ‘This is great. I have my best friends with me. Nothing but space and stars. It’s so adventurous. ’
The space ship ascends deep into the heart of the universe. Like Fourth of July fireworks, clusters of stars burst and spaghetti toward the ship. The crew members have not aged. They have endless provisions. Along the journey, the ship miraculously dodges countless asteroids and solar systems.
Charlie now begins his preparation for departure to Planet Lera. From the crew point of view, it is an earth-sized planet and it reminds them of a bouncing rubber ball. The primary colour is white with a haze of crimson red, dark green and purple. They appear like smoke frozen in amber. Charlie has completed his suiting process and begins to enter the mini vessel. The four vessels are designed like tiny transparent coffins. He is launched into space and a lightning flash makes him disappear.
The journeys into other planets happen in a zap. The time is bended to conform to mortal limitations. Within a few minutes, another lightning at a higher intensity flashes in front of the space ship. Charlie is docked. He returns to his seat.
‘Charlie, you look amazing. What happened there?’ Rex inquires.
‘I feel just absolute peace. It’s funny how you think I look amazing. I lived there for four human years and never felt old. Here’s the thing, there is no notion of time at Planet Lera as governed by the people. They have no clocks. You are the clock. You determine who lives or dies. Also they handout ID cards which have ten empty slots each representing a stage in your life. If you need more stages, you get an extended ID card. With no time, there are no constraints. You work for the completion of other people’s stages and they in return help fill yours. Amazing experience. We should have it at Earth.’
‘Ok, my planet is arriving soon. I need you to tuck me in.’ Honora asks Charlie for his help.
Her planet is called Planet Qi. It is an egg yolk from a distant and not to be mistaken with a sun. She is launched into space and a lightning bolt transports her to Planet Qi. Meanwhile, Rex and Emily both had their planets chosen, instead they have decided to skip their visits in the anticipation of the end of the universe.
‘Upon my calculations, we are two-hundred billion galaxies away from earth. We will be approaching the end soon.’
‘I think I see something.’ Emily is drawn to an opening in space. Just then Honora returns from Planet Qi. She docks to the space ship and returns to her seat. Now the entire ship is engulfed in a blinding light. Their eyes reflect their true colours. The turbulence shakes them in their buckled seats. From afar, the space ship can be seen as a bullet ripping through the flesh of the universe. The light subsides.
‘I don’t believe this. Not a single star?’ Emily shrouded in mystery. In her true form now, her senses were meant to exist in this state. She feels the utter emptiness like no other.
‘Do you guys see anything else other than just darkness?’ Her inquisitive nature speaks.
‘My God. This is the end!’ Rex shouts. The end he always wanted in his life. His seat, what’s placed is an object with profound gratification.
The space ship coughs out the remaining power through its veins. Then the journey comes to a halt when the space ship blends in with the darkness. A few dim corners inside reveal their half-lit faces.
‘Damn it, we are out of Juice.’ Emily breaks the news while hurriedly pressing numerous buttons.
‘Honora, out all the people here I thought you would be the one freaking out but you seem to have a different view since your visit to your planet. What Happened?’ Charlie curious to know. Emily and Rex turn around to face her. All the attention is converged on to her.
‘Glad you asked. You see, Qians were nice to me. Upon my arrival, they strapped me to a chair, flew me at high altitude and pushed me out. I thought it was the end but then upon the impact on the ground, I bounced off. The whole planet is made up of one gigantic foamy mineral. When you’re walking on it, the feeling is that of a pavement. If you hit hard, the energy bounces off and...’
Suddenly, like thunder three bangs are heard from the main door.
‘Open up! This is a restricted territory. Leave or face the consequences. ’ The muffled voice says.
‘But we can’t leave. We are out of power. We need help.’ Emily shouts from her seat.
‘It must be the Endian police.’ Charlie whispers to the group. ‘I’ve heard of them back at Planet Lera. Once they have you arrested, they brainwash you, make you take courses in policing and then like them you arrest the next ones who enter this end. We can’t get caught.’
All four jump out of their seats and hurl towards their vessels. They suit up and enter their vessels, while the banging gets wilder. From the outside, each takes off one by one and like dandelion seeds they disperse into the end.