Date: May 8, 2212
They said it right, Great Wall of China can actually be seen, and it appeared like a fine outline of a dragon tattoo on someone’s chest. Wonderfully awesome was the view of Himalayas, somewhere there’s the riders’ pilgrimage called Ladakh. So, mesmerizing was the sight of Indian peninsula incising the three great seas so deeply. Incredible were the northern lights, the aurora borealis, and equally divine the moon setting on one end….
“Slept?”
“Armour?” Done!
“Goggles?” Done!
“Helmet?” Here it’s!
“Alarm?” Set!
“Sleep?”, I beg, someone please hunt down some sleep for me.”
LNSD or Last Night Sleep Deficiency is not new for the riders. From the accounts of my great grandfather, who rode the old iconic Bullet in India, I know riders who rode more than two centuries ago, have also had problems in sleeping on the night before the ride. Medicos call it LNSD, we call it – no we don’t call it anything, we have just got habituated to it.
This is sort of anxiety, anxiety to witness the thrill of Life that is about to be offered in a few hours, when I would ride my latest M-ron 1800 on its maiden ride to Moon! Yes to moon! After Neil Armstrong’s first Step on moon, M-ron became the first 2-wheeler capable to ride in no-gravity to sub-gravity atmosphere. To earn an M-ron, I spent my whole life, well not whole life, just the time between my first dreams of moon the day I could save dimes to be able to buy it! And, now tomorrow morning, ahh well today morning I will be on my maiden ride to moon! About, M-ron, I prefer not to indulge in the technicalities, as those have got interest in Bikes would be knowing it, for rest – a ride tale would be just better :)
Who the heck has started listening to these barks at this hour of night? Oh, shit, it’s the alarm I set at night and don’t know when fell sleeping or rather pre-dreaming the ride. Within an hour, I have to meet Akshat at the launch centre. Even millions of miles already done on physical roads and the virtual simulators, a Pass-Certificate with Highest score into Space-Ride maneuvering couldn’t kill the anxiety of riding a bike into the space; hell, I feel anxiety on even a small 1000 miles a day ride!
Right to time, I met Akshat at our favorite chae-joint, had our favorite flavours but didn’t talk anything about the ride; probably he too was talking ridiculously with his inner self about his maiden ride. Fuelled by the nuclear-core of the yester years’ IronMan, M-ron doesn’t require a spacesuit; it has got everything in its monolith body! And, that’s why it’s just more than any other monsters of the worlds of mythology; but cooler than any i-thing world has ever seen!
5:55 in morning, we were on our bikes. Low payload, just enough capsules and drinks for an almost 240 thousand miles of ride; all tested and verified through the last week, we met the Ground Control man Alexander aka Lex, and clicked the ignition button. 0 to 5,000 mph in 5 seconds and we left the runway in seconds to rev our engines to reach the escape velocity of 11.2 kmps (25,053mph) in next 10 seconds. A thrust, well felt, heartbeat easily audibly echoing in our M-rons and we were into the space.
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| M-ron taking off (Recipe to build this Superbike: NASA's image for background, Imagination and Powerpoint for the Bike) |
“Congratulations Vikalp and Akshat, you escaped!” Lex’ words echoed in my earphone. I put the Bike on Auto mode, took a deep breath, “hey Lex, you would have been with us Man! Thanks! Akshat, you cool”,
‘’Cool, ohh, I forgot to set my thermostat, that’s why I was feeling like on Mumbai’s street, he he he,” we all broke in laughter, as Akshat continued, “Thanks for reminding Vik! And, thanks Lex, keep in touch man….we badly need you on Auto mode!”
I dig out my Leica M-9, a gift from my grandfather, and clicked my first in-space photograph of the earth as seen on my rear view screen. Awesomeness reminded me the words, that some feelings are better be enjoyed than clicked, and fact that we would be orbiting earth for next 3hours let me to keep my Leica aside and appreciate the beauty, not just to devour!
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| Aurora over UK (Credit: Andre Kuipers) |
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| Setting Moon (Credit: Andre Kuipers) |
“Slept?”
“Naah, just lost!”
“Yeah man! Same here…. Hey, tell me one thing, what are we? Astronauts or Riders??”
“Hmmm…mix it, and let’s be Astroiderds or Ridenauts?”
“He he he, Astroiders would be good, it rhymes with Asteroids - big enough to cross the barrier of atmosphere and reach our lovely Earth. Oye, lovely se yaad aya, how’s your girl?”
“Damn you! Enjoy the beauty man, within an hour we have to start riding towards Moon, these are the only minutes we have got to praise our Earth.”
We were still 238,750 miles from moon. Few clicks by us, few tests by Lex and we blasted M-ron’s engines towards moon. Top speed 50,000 mph, almost double of what the human beings could achieve in 20th century, 200 years back! It was almost 5hours ride, more like any other chae paani ride, except that we weren’t into the woods and the greenery but just the unlimited space where end is just anywhere in any direction with thousands and millions of lamps glowing, twinkling, floating far far from us. I just thought, within few hundred years, someone would be riding to those stars and galaxies too, like who would have thought in my great grandparent’s time that one day someone would ride to Moon. Lost in space and thoughts we reached moon, you know the feeling of reaching the destination grows on you and I felt as we got closer and closer to moon. With his craters he looks so mysterious. M-ron was back to manual mode, Lex was directing us little maneuvering and with speed closed to 5000mph or so we diagonally entered his atmosphere. Riding almost parallel to the moon’s surface with a little inclination towards the ground we rode our way into a crater slowly.
“Congratulations guys! We made it!”
“It’s you Lex, who made us to do it! We are just the instruments man, hats off to your engineering! Kudos!”
With our intelligent protective suites on, we came out of M-ron, the first thing we could think of was to kiss our bikes….
As we kissed M-ron through our shielded headgears, our intelligent suite shouted…."Eeeew….it’s HOT!” and we all burst into laughter.......
(Not much into fiction, this is my second such post. Written in response to a Forum challenge by ~ Leo ~ on Indiblogger. Space pictures have been taken from Astronaut Andre Kuipers's blog, that he shared with public through his twitter account. M-ron is conceptualized by me, aerodynamics not tested, users discretion advised.)
Wow! This was fun! Amazing imagination! :)
ReplyDeleteSo you went on a bullet to the moon...hmmm...ok you are truly a Motorcycle passioner!!! Nice build up...perhaps you could have created a series--and we could have followed through all the adventures
ReplyDeleteThanks Antarik! Glad that you liked it... :)
ReplyDeleteBtw you have got a very peculiar name, something special about it?
Thank you so much Bhavana ji...and thanks for the idea too, would try to build up a series on it :)
ReplyDeleteYou have taken the challenge seriously and done a great job working out the details etc. Enjoyed reading.
ReplyDeleteWow! It's indeed a pleasure that the Magician of Words liked it :D Obliged!
ReplyDelete