Before and After Time

Planet Earth

Year 2009

The Beach

It was a very dark night and I was walking on the beach with her. The place was devoid of any life except us which made me feel pretty reasonable but the starless sky made me uneasy. I could only feel the sand I kicked into the air as I walked and the sound of the waves crashing the shore. She didn't utter a word and I realized I enjoyed the silence as much as she did. It was only a few hours back that we realized we wanted to be together and it meant something.

The darkness ahead of me continued and suddenly she gripped my hand tight. I turned around to meet her face and there was a sudden sparkle in her eyes. She was looking at me. No. She was staring beyond me. The glitter in her eyes made me feel luckier than anyone I'd known and I swam in her eyes for a long time. Something struck me. A chill crept up my spine and I woke up to the present. The sparkle in her eyes was growing and I realized we'd stopped walking. I turned to meet the source of the dazzle and what I saw made me hate everything around me. By everything I mean everything but her. It was fast approaching to tear us apart. Why am I being so mean? It was coming to gobble up my planet. And I gripped her hand tight.

Jumping around, I stood facing it like a knight protecting her with myself as the shield. Something must have hurled a hundred thousand stars towards us. They were slowly growing in size and the darkness was soon vanishing around us. It was all happening in a matter of seconds. From what I could see, the hundred thousand stars called for a backup. A billion stars were behind them. At the rate they were plummeting toward our Solar System, I could feel the heat increasing with every second ticking in my watch.

40! I could sense it was 40 degrees C. That's what we normally experience in Madras, where I come from. All the while I’d dreamt about going to the Sahara or the Atacama in Chile and experience the uniqueness there. The brightness increased and the temperature rose. I felt a faint burning sensation and I grabbed her shoulders. She was fairer than any of those maidens they describe in fairy tales. Her lips parted and she uttered a syllable. She burnt up in a flash and I felt myself burn and it was all over.

The Office

I was sitting at my desk reading an article on the Internet. Someone had sent me an interesting e-mail that provided me a link to this website that educated me on what preceded the Big Bang. It appeared all the stars, every one of them collided together building pressure which later gave way to a huge explosion. It was unbelievable and I was not in a mood for cooked up stuff.

I swiveled in my chair and found her sitting next to me. We were 14 billion years in the making.