Past in Future

-Tapomoy Sarkar, Class XII, Techno India Group Academia South Kolkata

Emita is now alone on her Earth. Here, humans have not yet been born, nor have the animals, a primitive planet with its majestic vegetation and mighty rivers. She is the only unmute creature in her beautiful nightmare.

Her space capsule had crashed on Mother Earth’s twin sister. She and his crew were on a nine-year journey to the Cainto Z23 planet in the Alpha Centauri B system. They were in cryosleep. Suddenly the emergency system activated. Due to a neutrino blast, their spacecraft had been severely damaged. Emita had evacuated through her space capsule but fell into a black hole. She got attracted to it with the utmost force, like the hell was waiting for her.

The capsule travelled through that infinite black. The lightspeed capsule appeared stationary to her as if time froze. Suddenly the black turned to white and she was thrown into space. She fainted. When she woke up, she was in Earth’s primitive stage.

After two years, she is now accustomed to nature, building her small cottage from wood and planting some food crops. She has someone to talk to. It’s Recene, the 19th-generation AI companion. Recene’s life is coming to an end as the solar panel has already malfunctioned. They were left with a few days of power.

Emita spends most of the time watching the river. She has named it Rafiki, which means friend in Swahili. The melodious and relaxing sound of Rafiki has been the reason for her positivity. During depression, nature’s voice is her companion. At the bottom of the infinite cosmos, only nature and the girl sit face to face in silence, one in extensive sunlight and another in diminutive shadow.

She is the first astronaut from Kenya. She kept thinking about her family. She was frustrated with the population and pollution prevalent in her country and the earth. So, she decided to go on this dangerous mission in 2064. She seems to be happier here being with Mother Earth.

Suddenly one day, a rocket-like thing from elsewhere lands on Earth. The rocket descends spectacularly. Its engines burn bright red. She feels both defensive and curious at the tremendous structure. The glistening steel bulk has strange letters and images, but it is not any of the letters she knows. The rocket opens and emerges strange beings in human form—not the usual humans she used to see on Earth. They were somewhat smaller yet advanced. When they open their helmets, it is revealed that they are humans.

Emita approaches them. They are awestruck, but recognise her through their seventh sense. They reveal to her that they are from Earth. The year is 3857 AD. They have evolved into a Type 3 civilization and have found a way to make large-distance wormholes. Using them they reached the end of the universe at the intersection of black and white holes and travelled to the parallel universe. The time dilation has made her time travel 1793 years in the future.