Half the world was waking up from the stupor of excessive revelry. The other half was in the throes of wild merry-making and would be waking up to a similar hangover in some hours. It was official and the world was celebrating its continued existence. It had not ended. It was still here; still spinning away at speeds that the human species was too minuscule to experience.
She had been invited to, and had in fact attended, one of the doomsday parties the previous evening. But she had excused herself a few minutes before the countdown had begun. She had walked home and en route to her apartment had heard a few explosions – the very predictable fireworks, almost as if to goad the universe into similar violence.
As she continued staring out at the calm now, her chain of thoughts was broken. Someone seemed to have texted her, again. She had stopped reading after about twenty of the congratulatory and cheerful messages. All of them contriving to showcase the superior sense of humor and good taste of the sender. But the look of irritation on her face changed to surprise when she saw the message. She grabbed her coat and purse and dashed out. Waving down a taxi, she stammered the address - at least the bits that she remembered. The taxi arrived at what looked liked a sorry excuse for an apartment complex. It was newly built and gaudy. The walkway succeeding the gates was lined on either side by hodge-podge of topiaries. The vestibule of the building that she entered had extensive plaster of Paris decorations and cornices which covered almost every surface. She hit the elevator button but quickly realized that it was in need of repairs. She took the stairs and arrived at the apartment number that she remembered. This at least had been easy to remember – three one four. She rang the bell and waited. A seemingly disoriented voice called out, “Who is it?”
“It's me, Aria. You texted that there was something urgent and important, remember?”
“Aria? Aria who?”
“Aria Prasme, your student? You just texted?”
“Oh, did I text you? I didn't mean to. Come in though.”
She pushed the door open which creaked a little in the process. The professor was seated with his back towards her. He seemed to be looking out of the window in a very pause-for-dramatic-effect way. She shook her head slightly and wondered if she had made the right decision in coming. She went closer to the window and instantly recoiled at the stench of alcohol. She considered fleeing the scene for a moment, then gathered her wits and said, “Er.. Professor, what did you mean by you didn't mean to text me?”
“I meant I was trying to text Ashley - Ashley Sceil. But the damn auto-fill changed it. I was - and still am, I think - too out of it to notice.”
She twisted around on her heel facing the door, and then turned back unsure of the protocol, “I can leave.” She had no intention of hanging around. On good days she loathed him and his classes. On bad days she dreaded them.
“Huh? No, you can stay. I suppose I do need to discuss the theory with someone.”
“Professor, you're as you say, out of it. We can discuss your theory in class tomorrow. Goodbye”, she turned to leave.
“Tomorrow could be too late. Please, sit down. I won't take a minute”, and he vanished into his room. He came out five minutes later looking marginally better than before. At least he seemed to have washed the smell of whiskey off of him. She was sitting at the edge of the chair that he had perfunctorily pointed to. He went back to the chair that he was seated in earlier, turned it around and settled back in the same half comatose looking posture.
“So, what is it that can't wait till tomorrow?”
“Aria, this has always been your problem. You do not have one patient bone in you.”
“Professor, I came here to check on you because your text sounded like you were in trouble. If you've called me here to talk about my character flaws, I would be more than happy to call Ashley or anyone else who you think is patient enough to put up with you and your whims”, she was surprised at her new found courage.
“Yes, Ashley works better with me. But that is because he has a more open mind. He's more accepting of new ideas. While you continue to work on the same drudgery and merely enhance the work of the people who have come and gone and you’ll get all the grants and awards and be known to the world. However, this might not come to pass, and hence is of barely any consequence. Also, Ashley isn’t around.”
“You think Ashley is better than me because the answers don't come to me in a dream? Yes, I know all about your little club at the university and how you people think that you're something special because you imagine the answers. Good to see that R.E.M. has at least one use – feeding your already inflated ego. Thank you for the insults. I think I'll be leaving no-”
“Sit down Aria. If you had wanted to leave, you would have done so by now. No, you're much too intrigued as to what I have to say. You might as well listen to it. And we do not dream up the results but they do actually come to us. It'll all be explained-”
“Look, I took your class only because I needed the credit. But now, I don't think it was worth it. Yours is the first class I'll be dropping next semester and-”
“Assuming there is a next semester, you're welcome to do that. Meanwhile, would you be kind enough to fetch my notes from the table there.”
As exasperated as she was, she had to admit that his classes while bordering between the rational and irrational, not to mention being frightful at times were interesting. At least for the people who could stomach horror stories along with his penchant for the dramatic and the need to jump endlessly from one arcane topic to another. She wanted to hear whatever madcap theory he had, so she went over to the table, picked up a sheaf of papers which had been scribbled over extensively, blew the layer of dust on top of them and took them to him.
“It doesn't look like you've done any work on them in the recent past.”
“That's a beautiful term - recent past. It is one of the few oxymora that I actually enjoy. And I've been working out the details in my head. This work that you're holding was done months ago.”
“Okay. So this is pretty heavy. What is it?”
“Calculations, hypotheses, events. All related to what should have happened yesterday and didn't.”
She smirked, “Professor, honestly? You are telling me that your urgent situation that just couldn't wait was a discussion on end of the world?”
“Yes Aria. And I'll tell you my reasons for it. Before that you need to understand something about the sodality which you refer to as the little club. What we do in that club is theorize, debate, calculate the specialties and the generalities of our planet and the universe. The theories, ideas and the answers that we find are mostly through a process called the subconscious awakening. It is exactly what it sounds to be. The answers that we're looking for are buried deep in our subconscious and we need to access it to move ahead.”
“But if that is true, then you're suggesting that we are somehow central to the universe. That we are something special when we clearly are not at the centre of anything. Not our planetary system, not the galaxy and certainly not the universe.”
“That may be and I'm not suggesting that only we are special, am I?”
“You're talking about aliens now?”, she began shaking slightly with laughter, “I should have known. You can jump from one topic to another like quicksilver. Why do I even bother?”
“You bother because you sense there is truth in my hypotheses, however nonsensical they may sound. And because you are searching for the same answers. In fact our entire species is tuned to find out how the universe is ticking.”
“How the universe is ticking. Very pop-science-y.”
“Well, pop-science does have its uses. Not everyone can see the universe in terms of equations and invisible atomic components.”
“Yes, I guess not.”
“Okay, so coming back to our discussion, as I was saying, we try and access the subconscious and look for answers there. The sheets are a little disordered, but I did manage to number them. Can you find pages thirty six to fifty?”
After a few minutes of arranging and re-arranging she managed to sort out pages thirty six through fifty, “Here are the pages. What am I looking at?”
“You do know what led to the conclusion that yesterday was the day when it all should have ended? Good. Now, I know that for every million people who trusted the Maina calculations, there were a few thousand who said the calculations were wrong. For whatever reason, sheer skepticism or ignorance or belief in other prophecies. But the fact remains that the predictions were wrong. That is not to say the calculations were wrong.”
“Firstly, you mean the Namas calculations I suppose? And secondly, I don't understand. If the predictions were wrong then stands to reason that the calculations were wrong too.”
“The calculations were precise. Our, or if you prefer their, interpretation of the calculations was wrong. You say Namas but I still say Maina. To explain this, I have to jump - as you put it - to another topic. What do you know of xenoglossy?”
“That it is ridiculous and no one in his or her sane mind acknowledges or credits it as something that can happen without fraudulent manipulations.”
“Very good. Just as I had thought, once again, you're limited by what others think. Xenoglossy as documented is, I'll grant you a whole lot of poppycock. It is however a misunderstood concept. First mistake associated with it is that it is considered to be the proof of re-incarnation in case of believers. In case of skeptics, it has always been made out to be hoax or a byproduct of an underlying mental illness. Both these assumptions are wrong. The seeds of language are already present in the brain of every individual. You must've heard it a million times that the human brain is a remarkable organ. But no one really understands it or even the extent to which it is remarkable.”
“Which language? The seeds of which language”
“All the languages that have been spoken in the human history. Some even consider mathematics to be a language. And it is one of the world's most astoundingly unifying language.”
“And what does this have to do with the Namas-Maina confusion?”
“Look at the first sheet that you're holding, sheet thirty six. In the extreme right hand, you will see five symbols.”
“Yes, what about them?”
“These are the letters from the Maina or Namas alphabet. They spell the name of the civilization that they belong to.”
“So what you're convolutedly trying to say is that those symbols spell Namas“
“Or Maina. Now look at the first and the fourth letter.”
“I can't see anything particularly significant about them, except that the first letter looks like the extension of the fourth one.”
“Yes and you know how we write m and n. You append n to itself and you get m. This is the first clue. The letters m and n also occupy the centre of the alphabet that we use. This is pretty much the same in case of this script as well. It would be presumptuous to assume that Maina language so closely resembles our language but this similarity exists in few of the other languages also.”
“Okay, so what we know from this is that the first and fourth letters could be m or n. How do you figure out which is which?”
“We figure that out by looking at the way some of the other words are spelt. Some words are easier to pronounce when spelt with an n instead of an m. For example, plant. If you replace n with m, you get p l a m t - plamt which isn't that easy to say, or as nice to hear. So when you look at other words, you come to the conclusion that the first symbol would have to be M and that fourth symbol would have to be N. Proceeding similarly, we get other letters and they combine to spell Maina. Now coming back to what I was telling you about xenoglossy. We have something called as the language loop in our brains. This is what helps us in deciphering and responding to languages. By stimulating the right portion of this language loop can trigger an understanding of languages which a person has never consciously learnt. This stimulation can be remote or local. In case of remote stimulation, we use our subconscious.”
“And the local method?”
“Hooking up the brain to electrodes, of course.”
“Of course. Look, it all sounds mumbo jumbo to me. Something right out of a sci-fi movie.”
“Look around you. You're living in a sci-fi movie. The things that have been achieved today would have been inconceivable a decade ago. I know how clichéd it sounds but it's the truth nonetheless.”
“Fine, I'll try to keep an open mind at least for the next few inevitable hours. So what does this have to do with end of the world? Why the long lecture about xenoglossy”
“Because that is how we, the members of the sodality, discovered Maina. We were able to hit the right spot of the brain and understand or rather recognize the letters, syntax, phonetics of the Maina.”
“But why specifically Maina, why not any of the other ancient languages?”
“It will become clear eventually. For one thing, Maina isn't a single language. It is a bunch of languages which sound alike, something akin to dialects. So, each of us was handed a mixture of some of these languages; as if to help solve an elaborate jigsaw puzzle. And it happened like what happens to carrier pigeons. Each of us kind of homed in on the Maina languages. It was like our brains were radio receivers tuned to specific Maina frequencies. Anyway, once that happened, we began deciphering the calculations and the writings that were available to us. A few weeks ago, we combined the results and that is what constitutes the contents of the sheets that you're holding. You can read through them. Or I can give you a pop-science-y summary of what's in there.”
“I prefer reading through.”
“Sure. Meanwhile, I must apologize for being a terrible host. I haven't offered you anything. Would you like some breakfast?”
“Thank you, but no. I'm not particularly hungry. I can have some tea though, if you can manage it.”
“Of course. I'll put the kettle on. You can use the table there to peruse the sheets.”
Fifteen minutes and two cups of tea later, she looked up from the sheets, “This is all very impressive and I concede that it might be even possible – the xenoglossy bit. But how do you account for the fact that we are still here? The world has not ended, has it?”
“You do not have the complete picture. I told you that these calculations were done months ago. Since then I’ve been working out the remaining bits in my head. I haven’t had time to put them on paper, simply because there is too much information flowing in since the past few weeks. It’s like a floodgate has opened. Any time I shut my eyes, I see Maina tablets and numbers. Ashley was sent to the epicenter to try and make sense out of the whole thing.”
“Epicenter?”
“The supposed site of Maina civilization’s existence. Of course, if the findings that we’ve made so far are correct, then there never was a Maina civilization to begin with.”
“Hold up! What?”
“You heard me. There never was a Maina civilization. Not in the sense in which civilizations exist at least. There has been no evidence of any civilization-like activities. No trade routes, no earthenware, no weapons, and not even basic house structures. All that the Maina people seemed to do was build temples and write – a lot.”
“And you tell me this now? Any theories?”
“Several. I’ll tell you about the one that I think is most probable. One of the recurring themes of the Maina scriptures was end of the Earth. Very specifically of the Earth, not the solar system or the universe. I think it is the Maina who have been causing it.”
“Have been causing it, meaning causing end of the Earth. You are talking in present continuous.”
“I’m talking about the extinctions that have taken place over the years.”
“You think they were man-made events caused by a civilization which never existed. That sentence is the mother of all what’s wrong with this picture? questions.”
“I never said man-made. I do not believe they belong to Earth.”
“But they leave behind clues about the impending destruction of Earth? What is that supposed to mean? That they are a bunch of sadistic serial-killer aliens?”
“Could be. But I would think that they need us to observe the universe. Over all the cycles, they discard the results and start afresh when we do not seem to be giving the right results.”
“So, the Maina are experimenting on us? Like the mice from that book?”, and she began laughing.
“I don’t know what they are but I’m positive of two things – they are not from the Earth and they need us to study the universe. To what end, I’ve no clue, as yet. One other thing that I’ve managed to decipher is about the extinctions.”
“You mean you think you know what wiped out the dinosaurs?”
“I mean I think I know what wiped out our species.”
“Is that a riddle? Or are you talking about cyclical time?”
“It has to do with time. There are cycles certainly. Cyclical time could be a possibility. But I think not. You see what the scriptures seem to imply is that every time the Maina people slash beings slash call-them-what-you-will decide to discard the results that they have found, indirectly through us, they end the existence of earth - but not physically. The Earth continues to exist in space but not in time.”
“And how do they do that? I’ve been trying to keep up with you till now. But this goes a few kilometers over my head.”
“I haven’t worked out all the details yet. But this is what everything that we’ve worked on so far seems to suggest. You know about space-time as well as any of us. You know about time dilation and all the related theories. I’m not able to figure out the specifics of this attack – if you can call it that.”
“But I’ve looked at the calculations in your sheets. If they are accurate, the event should have taken place some months ago.”
“That’s the problem, isn’t it? The calendar and the numbers are not accurate. An analogy might help. The writings that we have seem to have a protective shield. Only it projects into the minds of the observers. Every time we get close to the answer, the calculations go haywire and become fuzzy. Like the stealth shields. Keeps the core from being detected. I had to send Ashley to the main site to read the tablets. That seemed to be the only way to find out the missing puzzle pieces.”
“Seems like a good enough plan. You can discuss the rest with Ashley on his return. I don’t see why you had to have this talk today.”
“Because even though the final piece is missing, we can still form a picture. The Maina have waited long enough and the cycle is going to repeat, soon. And I cannot discuss it with Ashley on his return because he has gone missing.”
She was at her wit’s end, “I don’t understand. Missing? Were you at all planning to tell me this?”
“As a matter of fact, no. I did not want to tell you this. It is upsetting news but he’ll turn up eventually. He’s vital to the work that we do.”
“What can we do?”
“What we’ve been doing ever since the beginning of time. We wait.”
And then the clock chimed twelve. The day was twenty second December, 14012.
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