by Anil John
THE REVELATION
Copyright © 2016 Anil John, All rights reserved.
Any unauthorized reprint or use of this material is prohibited. No part of this book can be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photo copying, recording, or by any information storage or retrieval system without express written permission from the author.
Disclaimer
The events, characters, communities or people depicted in this story are purely fictional.
Any resemblance or similarity to any actual events, characters, communities or people, whether living or dead is absolutely coincidental.
Dedicated to my son
Dev
Chapter 1
It was a lazy sunday evening this summer and unlike most of the Indian families who go out for a fun-filled weekend, me and my son decided to stay put at home to relish his mom made snacks along with our favorite chocolate milkshake, while watching a movie on television.
We started up with the Hindi movie channels and we could not find interest with the dubbed versions of south Indian movies in which our movie demi gods were doing their rounds of roars, flips and kicks beating dozens of goons to pulp in a matter of seconds.
Dev, my six year old son requested me to check with the English movie channels to find out a story more interesting and different. We started switching English movie channels on our television and found it equally boring with super heroes doing their rounds of “save the world” action.
Not because he did not like the marvel heroes or the cartoon characters on screen but he had repeatedly watched those Hollywood blockbusters time again and again.
“Daddy, find something new for me please.” He said.
I told him it would be better if we check with my old time DVD collections to find an exciting story for him.
A few minutes later, we had all our DVDs scattered on the floor. He picked up one among them and shouted in excitement staring at the DVD cover “who is this creature besides the boy? It looks funny and scary at the same time, daddy.” He paused for a while and continued “The DVD says - His Adventure on Earth.”
“It is about an Alien from space. They belong to some other planet and keep visiting our Earth in their flying saucers.” I replied.
“Wow, Aliens? I want to know more about them.”
His eyes widened in curiosity and excitement.
“Bingo, we have finally found something of your interest and let us watch the movie first and you can get all your questions addressed later.” I smiled and replied.
The DVD we chose to watch was of - E.T.The Extra-Terrestrial, an American epic science fiction family film, directed by Steven Spielberg in the 80s. This was a story of a loveable and a friendly alien who is accidentally left behind on Earth during a visit. The little E.T meets up with Elliot, who does everything he can to get his friend back home.
I saw the movie decades ago in a single screen movie theatre when I was a teen and was fascinated with the friendship of Elliot and E.T. When I grew up and when DVDs arrived, no wonder this had to be one among the classics in my DVDs collections at home.
For me, after all these years, watching it again with my son was nostalgic and above all, pleasantly surprising to recognize Drew Barrymore as Gertie, Elliott's mischievous five year old sister who is sarcastic and initially terrified of E.T. but grows to love him.
For Dev, it was a two hour journey of magic, fantasy, adventure, comedy and a friendship so innocent.
It was 9 pm, by the time the movie was over, we heard my wife Nitu calling us for Dinner and Dev was still lost in the movie he had just finished.
I patted his shoulders with a smile and sense of content and asked him to join us for dinner. He smiled back and when I turned around, I overheard him saying to himself “Elliot had E.T, I have daddy.”
Dev loves going to school but what he loves about summer vacations is he is not enforced with a routine to follow.
He does not have to sleep on time to wake up early to catch his school bus. He could do whatever he wanted to till he drops and wake up easy next morning.
Usually, I go for a walk alone after dinner. I find the night more serene than the day. I find closer to myself under the sky with a moon and full of bright glittering stars which appears to me like a million asterisks being marked by the creator, leaving his explanations for us to understand on our own.
Dev had an afternoon nap and he urged to accompany me for a walk tonight. I walked down the night holding his hands and the curious little chatter box walking by my side.
“Daddy, is an alien for real, do they really exist?”
“Where do they live daddy?”
“Daddy, what is a flying saucer?”
“Daddy, why do they come to our Earth?”
“Is there good guys and bad guys among them just like we have on Earth and in movies?”
“Ho, Ho, hold on my boy, you just bombarded me with your questions, take a breath first.” I laughed and continued,
“Umm, well, I believe, yes, aliens are for real and they do exist in our universe. They may not be as good looking as humans but they may be more intelligent and advanced than us. They too may have a planet or some place in the universe where they live but we do not know where, as we humans have not discovered it yet. Just like, humans use airplanes and jets to travel in the sky and astronauts travel in space shuttles to moon and mars, may be flying saucers are their space ships in which they travel in the universe. We call them flying saucers just because it resembles a saucer and looks like a disc and is believed to be piloted by aliens. They are also termed as UFOs which means unidentified flying objects.”
“Wow, it all seems so out of this world but why do they come to our Earth?” He asked suspiciously.
“Just like humans explore the universe, the moon or planet mars, they too may be trying to explore our planet Earth which looks so beautiful. Do you remember the satellite picture of our Earth, which you used in your school project?”
“Yeah, you are right daddy, Earth looks so very beautiful. They cannot resist themselves from coming to Earth and see how beautiful our mountains, greens, sea beaches, waterfalls and landscapes are. May be their planet is white in color like the moon or may be just red in color like planet mars.” He giggled.
“Actually, the flying saucers have been witnessed mostly up in the sky and very rare cases of their landing on Earth have been reported. Who knows, probably they would not have landed on Earth, they would have crashed instead, due to some technical failures unknown.” I continued to impress.
“Okay” He replied lost in his imagination.
“So that brings me to your last question, dude. Everything in this universe has an opposite entity, a day has a night, success has failure, and similarly there may be good aliens and bad aliens as well.”
“So how will I know that it’s a bad alien? You never know, they may gate crash my school someday.” He asked me seriously.
“Well, in that situation, you just hide somewhere and watch, a bad alien always eats shoots and leaves.” I replied laughing.
“That does not make them bad, even the monkeys do the same.” He too laughed.
I replied in a creepy voice “I did not say a bad alien eats - shoots and leaves, I meant a bad alien eats, and then shoots, and then leaves.”
“Daddy, you better behave and stop scaring me or else I will stop talking to you.” He complained with his eye lids going heavy and sleepy.
I picked him up and he laid his head calmly on my shoulders, giving me his good night kiss and felt asleep. Walking back home, I was smiling on the very thought of how I wished, I could have told him that the reality is so different from the picture he used for his school project. In o
ur real world, there is no fantastic four but a fanatic few who are brainwashed and taught that they are going to be in paradise after they blow themselves and other innocents to death.
Chapter 2
“Aack guck aack ack”
Dev slowly opened his eyes. He raised his head and looked around and wondered. “What was that strange sound?” He muttered.
He tried to listen carefully and pondered. “Where was he? Was he in his bedroom?”
He reassured himself by touching his mom and dad sleeping on both his sides. He could hear the gentle snores of his daddy.
Before he could understand anything else, he heard it again.
“Bloox, gu gum goo kir dat aack ack”
Dev sat up on his bed and switched on the bed side lamp. “Aagghh” he screamed but his voice did not come out. He tried screaming again but it seemed as if someone had made him mute just the way the way he does with his television remote when daddy or mom pick calls while watching it.
An Alien of his height was standing just in front of him.
It was white in skin with a large white egg shaped head, large compound eyes like a fly but sparkling blue in color, had no nose but a small mouth. It had short arms and legs with a thin torso. His short forearms had three fingers with projections at the end and his legs had feet with no fingers.
Dev rubbed his eyes in disbelief and felt like frozen on his bed. The alien had a sad expression but looked cute. He had a few high tech gears strapped on to his forearms.
“Glu go gum, joo muck aack”
Dev replied “I am sorry, I did not understand,” but, he could not hear his own voice.
The alien then smiled and pressed a button on the small screen strapped to his wrist and picked his daddy’s wireless headphones lying on the bean bag nearby and offered it to Dev.
Dev realized that the alien was trying to communicate with him through his daddy’s wireless headphones, which his daddy used while watching late night news on television. He placed the wireless headphones on to his ears and suddenly he could hear a voice amidst the crackling noise of a radio transmission.
“Hello…! Good evening…!.”
This was awesome and unbelievable. Now the alien could talk to him in a language, he could understand.
“Who are you?” Dev asked.
The alien was reading his mind with his telepathic ability, he spoke very slowly. “I…am Druk.”
Dev enquired hesitantly, “Where are you from?”
“I am from Planet Cygnus. It is far from planet Earth.”
“Okay Druk, I do not know what Druk means, so I will call you Dhruv instead. Dhruv means a bright star. Is that fine with you?”
“Yeah”, The Alien giggled.
“Wow Dhruv, I think we can be great friends but for now, let us get out of the bed room and go to my study room or else you will scare the hell out of mom and dad.”
Dev took his alien friend to his study room upstairs and he started showing his toys and his school projects to Dhruv. He took pride in showing his latest toy 7-in-1 solar space fleet, which daddy lately bought for him from Amazon.
Then after a while, it was morning. The sun shone through the curtains in the study room on to the walls. The alien walked all around the study room examining everything around from books to toys and objects. Dev went down to have his breakfast and left Dhruv back in his study room.
Dev found a coat and a cap from his daddy’s wardrobe for his new friend to wear.
They agreed to go to the park nearby. Dhruv examined the trees, grass, bushes and everything that was in the park. He used to pause and stare at the birds on the trees and the dogs on the streets.
Just then a bus came along the street. It stopped near the park and lots of people got on from the bus stand.
“What is it?” asked Dhruv.
“That is a Bus,” replied Dev “It is for people to travel from one place to another place in the city. I go to my school in my school bus.”
“Why don’t you Tele - transport? Now since you are my friend, I will show you. Take my hand.”
Dev was amused and took hold of the alien’s hand. He felt his fingers and palm tingling and getting warm.
Whoosh, suddenly they were off. They flew into the air vertically.
“Wow” screamed Dev, “This is fantastic, I can fly like a superman, I can see everything from up here…my house, my park, my school…”
Then after a while they descended slowly and landed on the terrace garden. Dev managed to get Dhruv back into his house without his mom or maid seeing him.
In the afternoon when his mom went for some work, they played together and talked about their families.
Dev told his new friend about his mom and dad, how they mean the whole world to him.
Dhruv also shared about his parents and started to weep. His eyes had no eye lashes but his big blue compound eyes blinked from inside and tears rolled by. “I lost them last night,” he sobbed, “The spaceship has gone back to Cygnus without me. I will never see them again.”
Suddenly they experienced the sound of a strong wind over the house.
Had not the windows and doors been closed, they would have been ripped off from the hinges. Everything inside the house vibrated for a few seconds and one of the high tech gears on alien’s forearms started beeping with a flash light.
“That’s them, they have come back for me and they are just above this house.”
Dev and Dhruv ran towards the terrace garden. A mighty spaceship was hovering above the house with lights flashing below.
As they got nearer, they saw a silver walkway extend from the flying saucer.
“This is so very awesome and unbelievable.” Dev yelled in wonder.
Dhruv stopped and turned to Dev, “You too come, I will show you my planet and will drop you back home, my good friend.”
“Okay” said Dev and they both ran along the walkway into the mighty steel grey flying saucer that would take them on a journey unforgettable.
The spaceship flew through the space so fast that Dev felt dizzy in the beginning but he felt normal after a while. He looked out of the window and saw lifted off the clouds and finally, planet Earth left behind. It was all dark now with billions of bright stars all around. After a few hours, he saw a strange orange color planet. Dhruv pointed at it in excitement and said “That is Cygnus.”
After some time, when the spaceship landed, both of them walked out along the silver walkway. Dev looked around him. Everything was different and in contrast to his planet Earth. The sky was pale yellow and the sun was bright red.
They went off to the alien’s house. It was a large metal cube. They went inside. All the walls inside were made of glass and steel. The doors opened automatically.
There was a large hall downstairs, with couches and objects beyond his understanding. Dhruv made a clap sound and waved; a huge screen appeared hanging from the ceiling and greeted them to the house.
Outside the house, there were trees and bushes of bizarre shapes and colors. Dev saw a golden capsule parked outside. “What is that?” He asked curiously.
“That’s my car,” replied Dhruv “Let us go for a ride.” to which Dev happily agreed. They climbed into the capsule and it took off. They flew around sector Pegasus.
After a while, they landed on the top of a building. Lots of other shiny capsule cars were also parked there.
“Where are we?”
“This is our Fun Lounge”
Loud music and noise was approaching by. Inside there were many other aliens who were dancing to an eerie music and chatted to each other in a strange language. Dev found it boring as there was nothing to eat or drink but he was not amused because back on Earth his alien friend had shared that his species did not survive on air, food or water.
After some time, there was a beep and Dhruv touched the screen on his wrist a few times and said it was time to go home and they went back to his house in their flying capsule.
They went int
o the house and Dhruv switched on the large screen on the wall.
There was an alert message. It said “Dev, come home, wherever you are.”
Dhruv waved at the screen and Dev saw live images of his parents. His mom was crying and his dad looked terribly sad.
“This is our satellite catching live feeds and images from the coordinates of your house on planet Earth, they are looking for you.” said Dhruv.
Dev felt like crying and his eyes became wet, “I must go home.”
Dhruv hugged him and said “Yes, I know my good friend, time to drop you back home.”
Dev walked down the silver walkway to the mighty spaceship with tears in his eyes.
“Goodbye Dhruv” he waved.
He got seated inside and he could see his alien friend’s face on the screen inside the spaceship. He saw a sparkling tear rolling down the cheeks of his alien friend.
The engines roared and the flying saucer made the move. “Come back one day” screamed Dev, waving at his friend and the flying saucer lifted off in lightning speed.
All he heard last on his headphones was “Yes, I will” and the voice transmission ended followed by a long beep.
Dev rested himself back on the seat, closed his eyes and took a deep breath. The spaceship sets off towards planet Earth. He knew he would reach his home and will be with his mom and dad in sometime.
“Dev, you have slept well and enough, now see it is too late, I have been calling you since long, you haven’t had your breakfast till now, wake up son.”
“It’s mom and I am back home” he thought in his subconscious mind.