A fictional reality...

A Crash. Was that a thunder? No, man. It should be something else. Now, what could that be? Well, go to hell. Lemme sleep… Hey what is this.. Something is around my head…

I opened my eyes to see myself in a room ( with no doors, if you would be so curious ) with an inverted fish-tank on my head, and a tube from it to an equipment I vaguely remembered to have seen in Discovery Channel.

Where was I?

I tried hard to remember, but my memory was very vague. The last I remembered, I went to sleep on my desk at work.. in full formals. I was now in this suit fit for comic superheroes, in a place that was at best impossible.

“Hullo..”, I said. And a small device attached to the fishtank started buzzing.

“Welcome to Mars, Aswin”, I could hear through the earphones attached to my ear. “Your memory has been altered with, to make you forget all the heinous crimes committed by you. Please do not attempt to remove your breathing equipment or your space suit, and if you do so, The Earth Prison will take no responsibility for your death. Kindly stay where you are, and an Enforcer will be with you shortly…”

Could you believe that?

I tried to move, but both my legs were clamped to the stone-bed where I had been lying. And in any case, if there is a word called “tired-est”, it would fit me. Well, what could this be? Must be a dream. I’ll wake up and everything will be alright. I closed my eyes.

About a few minutes should have passed before I heard this, “Greetings, Aswin. You have fared remarkably well in MIP.. Oh, that’s the induction process for prisoners here. I am Enforcer Mike and I know you will have a lot of queries now. I am here to answer them, and also explain what is expected of you here at Mars”.

“Go away”, I said, “I ain’t game for jokes now.”

“Ha ha”, he said, “Perhaps I should record that as among the funniest replies I’ve heard till date! Now if you’d please get up before the timeout circuit puts the clamps back on your feet…”

I got up and tried standing. Felt very difficult.

“It is difficult to begin with, yes. But, if you’d be so interested as to know why you have come here, I shall be explaining to you. Let’s start with.. let’s see.. Please type “mirror” on the screen in your hand and press enter.”

I sat down and followed the order. At the press of Enter, a 3-D picture of my face, about ten years older, got projected from somewhere within my headset.

“That”, said the Enforcer, “is your face.. now.”

“Pardon me?”

“Yes, you are 42 years old now and the Earth year is 2028.”

“Pardon me?”

“Yes, record shows that your memory has been erased from approximately the 14th of July 2008, so you should probably be thinking you are 22 now.”

“I AM 22…”

“I am very sorry to disturb that feeling, but it’s been 20 years after that. You had committed a serious crime, violating our Environment laws, about an year back, that is 2027 and you are here because the Earth Tribunal found you to be very dangerous. So, to show you what Earth is, they ordered the Mars term for you. As a part of the process, your memory has been altered with and you will never know what happened in these years, even after you return to earth and read in the papers, the possibility of which will be a direct consequence of your behaviour and performance here. For your information, the Jury sentenced you to 20 years memory since records show that you were a good individual with no criminal offences till then. Any more questions?”

“Why am I here?”

“I am afraid we are wasting time here. Let me take you outside and explain what is expected of you here.”

Like a Zombie, I followed him to the corner of the room, through the wall to another hi-fi science-flick chamber and several complicated tunnels and finally out into the open, after crossing about one hundred of his kind, the blue & red enforcers.

“Mr. Aswin, Let me introduce to you, Mars !”

A desert at night, with artificial lighting, and giant machines all around, with a lot of people running around a central machine.. That should just about describe my first view of Mars.

“What is this place?”

You guessed. He must have been really pissed off. But the enforcer kept his cool. “This is the Earth Prison, and you see around you buildings that house the worst criminals from Earth, just like the one from which you came. The atmosphere lacks oxygen, and you are currently consuming some from the Oxygen generator meant for enforcers. In about twelve minutes, that supply would end, and in case you wish to live, you should log in your name at the large generator you see there at the centre and keep it running, which will generate two minutes of oxygen for every minute you rotate the handle. Unfortunately, the time measurement is only an average, and you may inhale more oxygen, as newcomers usually do, and may need to spend more than half the day there.”

I did not believe it.

He continued, “For energy, you will be taking capsules, that is a different process, the steps of which will be explained to you by the Energy Department… But, the energy you get will be a direct measure of how much work you do at our construction yard, where we are building a few more buildings to house people of your kind.”

“When do I sleep?”

“That is upto you, Mr. Aswin. It all depends on how you adapt to the condition. For every Mars day, you will get about 3 to 4 hours of sleep initially, given you work through the other 21 hours. And yes, you get about a hour more out of every day here, and in about a week or two, that will be the reason you’ll ever get to smile. Please note that we do not have any backup system to bring you back to our Oxygen supply if you run out of yours. Be careful, a lot of people have given up and they have met their end here….”

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Eight Earth years there, and here I am, back on Earth, 2036. The time I spent on Mars was a nightmare, this close to death so many times.. and that dreaded rotation when I knew I was dying.. And that energy I so badly needed at times.

Now I am thankful to God that we have air to breathe, food to eat and trees and water and what not! Earth is LUXURY! It amuses me to think I needed that punishment to realize the value of the land I had so much ignored till I was 20. (Mind you, I don’t remember anything after that). It amuses me that Most, if not all of my fellow humans were taking things for granted... things that are indeed most precious.

I do not know when people started caring.

I do not know when they realized that this is the only planet we have got.

But they did. And I realize now how much I had misused it, and abused it. I hope what I have shared here, through time, will make you realize what you have been doing all along.

This is a request to respect Mother Nature.

And to the one who started it all, I would want to say just this.. “Thank you.”