Awakening

(P.S : This is the short story from which evolved the short novel/long story titled Zephyra. Just felt like putting it here, now. P.S., btw, here stands for pre-script)

'... modified light-matter interaction between excitons and photons in ...'
'... for the first time that excitons can be controlled with an electric field ...'
She opened another book at a random page and finding the word exciton slammed it close. 'Its funny', she thought walking out of the library, ‘I never came across the word exciton until yesterday and now its everywhere I look!'
Zephyra is an undergraduate student studying physics. A hostel mate was talking to her about courses on quantum mechanics at lunch. After a long discussion on the number and kind of courses available on quantum mechanics and a short discussion on some of the things that Zephyra had learnt which she thought might interest a layman, the hostel mate had decided that Zephyra was a master in quantum mechanics. So she asked what an exciton is. Zephyra did not know and admitted it straight and sharp, despite how awkward she felt under the look the hostel mate was throwing at her. She never thought about it later. She never thought about things she did not need. She never carried much about her. Her luggage was just a backpack when she visited her parents during vacation. She did not carry a cell phone. She did not carry a iPod. She did not have those plugs in her ears – recent trend in fashion. She wore long light gowns and she looked very graceful and serene in them with her long auburn hair. The only thing she always carries, she carries it in her mind – lores on magic and legendary other worldly characters. She had washed her lunch down with a coffee and the question on exciton with a folklore the cafe-keeper was narrating. But today as she was looking for books on crystals and optics, she comes across the word in many books.
Zephyra is a curious child and never leaves unexplored anything she can lay her hands on. She is usually very scientific and modern in her thinking and outlook and is open to any view on subjects she did not study much. But today she would not explore and know what an exciton actually is. She was satisfied with what little logical explanation her intuitive brain had offered on the subject. 'It must be a state of a particle and an antiparticle which can emit light when the exciton collapses... must be something like that.. why do I care..' were her thoughts as she coldly walked out of the library. Logic came easy to her. Especially so, today, as her brain tried to give a hundred logics to explain that something preying on her mind.
Presently, she is inside a classroom attending a lecture on Nonlinear Dynamics. It is a large classroom admitting about fifty and a hundred pupils. The spanish professor is an old man with every bit of him a contradiction to every other bit: black hair and wrinkled skin, blue pupils and brown eye brows. He would appear complacent and rather lazy on the corridors and even in his office which makes it all the more surprising to attend his lectures delivered with such vigour and energy. Everybody attends his lectures, if not for anything else, to witness the dramatic change from sobriety to eagerness with which he reaches for his students; his eyes bulging large and bright, eye brows flying high above their boundaries, hands and fingers jutting out in random gestures. But none of this held any attraction to Zephyra today. Science no longer held its sway for Zephyra. Perhaps, it will never anymore. 'Having studied logistic map in detail, bifurcation and ljapunov exponent, we will now close this course with two lectures on physical manifestation of all the theory we have learnt, a phenomenon called SYNCHronisation. We will first do away with maths...', proceeded the professor, walking towards the green board. Zephyra paid no attention and was deep in thoughts about herself.
Zephyra was a Brazilian by descent, but was born and raised in India. Her mother told her stories of her grandfather living in the forests, of imaginary superheroes, of the Amazon woman. Zephyra was enchanted by all those stories. She would not sleep even at this age, with out her mamma telling her a story. She would go to sleep imagining all those stories. She fancied she had superpowers too. She thought she would one day show the abilities of feline creatures. She would imagine at school, at lunch watching her palms. She would imagine that any moment then, a claw would show itself and she would retract it before her friends see. She would imagine this everyday. Despite the daily reality, she was never disappointed. She would dream of lions, tigers and cats. She would dream of being the queen at whose feet lay those lazy feline furballs, pretending to be asleep but ready to jump to action at her command. She would dream of small adventures. She would get hurt now and then and she would lick her wounds. She would dream of becoming one with nature. Everything was as she pleased until yesterday. Yesterday, she was pushed off a cliff. She was facing the earth during her fall, feeling the winds' slippery clutches on her slim body. She was frantically looking for something to stop her fall, but there was nothing within her reach and only the earth waited 70 feet below from where she was pushed off. She did not notice who pushed her. May be it was the wind. May be it was in her head. But she no longer cared about that. She was falling. She began to imagine how her own weight, despite being way too low for her age, would crush her on impact. She could no longer imagine the strength of feline limbs supporting a fall. Fear tore at her heart while the wind ripped through her throat, across her eyes bringing tears and across her ears howling and screaming like wolves and owls on a haunted night. She wanted to look at the green wilderness surrounding her for one last time, but her head was in the clutches of her emotions, fixing the vision to the approaching terrain, calculating the impulse of the impact, wondering if her fragile bones can withstand it. 'Fragile? Feline bones ain't fragile. Oh! But what am I thinking, even in this damned hour?', her thoughts raced. But she has got no time to think about anything now. She is only a moment away ...
... from scaring herself to wake. She woke up to find herself drenched in sweat and tears. Feeling the tears on her cheeks with her fingers (her fingers were long, longer than an average woman of her age) she doubted if it was real. But her logical brain was already giving an intuitive explanation: 'must have been crying out of fear'. The dream indeed felt so real to her. She remembered the rough terrain, every stone and pebble and a worm. She remembered the heavy gravity with which she was pulled down. But she missed. She missed and woke from her sleep. She got off the bed and walked to the dressing table. She was very thirsty after the wind dried up her throat. She picked up the glass and raised her head to drink. The feeling of that vague safety turned to true horror as she stared at her image in the mirror. The glass slipped and shattered, making the noise of hands clapping!
Her attention is brought back to the classroom by the sound of the claps. She flushed thinking the professor had caught her daydreaming and has asked the class to wake her up by clapping. She was going to stand up to apologise, but the professor raised his hand signalling to stop the clapping and spoke, 'Did anybody notice anything?' A confusion of confessions from the whole class was accepted as “Yes”. 'Yes. That’s right. It started off randomly. But after a while, you heard everyone clapping in sync. Now, see this', he said, showing a video of fireflies near a river bank, 'it’s a video I had taken on my visit to Japan. The video is being played faster than the real time to mark the drama.' Zephyra watched a single flash here and there slowly begin to synchronise and a few moments later, it appeared as if all the fireflies were flashing together in a state of artificial trance. The professor spoke again, 'I am sure not all of you have heard of synchronisation before this course. I am sure most of you have never seen it happening. But now that you know what it is, I tell you, you will find it everywhere you look.' Zephyra raised her eye brow muttering to herself, 'déjà vu?' The end of the hour bell rang and the class began to disperse noisily. That noise only fell on Zephyra's deaf ears, for even now she can only hear the howl and scream of the air in her flight. Zephyra dragged herself out of the class, bumped into a few willing people, excused herself inadvertently and walked out of the common corridor towards the college entrance arch. The evening is hot. The air near the arch pillars is shimmering. 'mirage', she thought to herself. The bright saffron sun is making its way to bed steadily. She can see people leaving college in groups – twos and fives mostly. The singles are running. She felt tired. She is grateful her jealous mates are not here today to bully her. She thanked fate and chance for her much wanted solitude. Little did she know, it was not any fate or chance. Even so, she could not help thinking. Doubt, fear, hope lingered in and out of her reach as she thought of dreams and ‘déjà vu’s she had in the last few hours.
Zephyra always fancied being a superhuman. She would look at birds and animals and imagine and believe she had the power to talk to them. Little did she know that she was indeed destined with a extra ordinary power. But it is nothing like she imagined. She never would have imagined it, if she had not seen herself in the mirror this morning. She wondered, now that she knew, if she would find people like her. She has many questions. She wants answers. She remembered the professors words, '..now that you know what it is, I tell you, you will find it everywhere you look.' She wondered if ...
'Hello Zephyra!'
Zephyra stopped and looked at the stranger boy from whom the abrupt greeting cheerfully ensued. He is tall and handsome and there is something else about him that she could not put her finger on. He is standing where the pillar is, and it looked as if he was some kind of gel, letting the flesh ooze around the stones on the ground and the metal grated cylinder of the pillar.
'I know you have had enough surprises for a day and I promise this would be the last for the day'
She realised now that it was everything about him she could not put her finger on.
'Who are you? And how are you doing this..'
'Let’s just say it’s what I am. The philosophy being that there is no difference between different matter. I can manifest myself through any material. It’s my power. I have my powers just like you do yours.'
Zephyra's heart skipped a beat and just as hastily as that happened, she said, 'How do you know?'
'Oh! Everybody knows what Zephyra means! Don’t you? Though I don’t know what you mean, Zephyra’, he said casually winking.
Zephyra stood with her hands crossed, brows furrowed.
‘Ok! Well, I will be short and straight, though you can see I am tall and not so straight'; he waited for some reaction, but finding only fury, instantly turned contrastingly sober. 'The awakening signals everybody of our kind. We have been waiting for you, Zephyra. Aeon awaits you.'
'Who is Aeon?'
'You will know, in time. For now, I am to deliver this message to you. There are people like you. So have no fear. Have this', he said.
She looked at the brandished sword. 'must be made of iron', she thought receiving the heavy sword. She then spoke her thoughts out loud, 'I don't know how to use ... but why would I need this?'
'Don’t worry about your incapabilities. Raven! She will come to you and you need to stay away from her. Use the sword to protect yourself', the words were tumbling, 'Go home now and rest and don’t try and force anything', he said, beginning to shimmer.
'Wait. I have questions. I don’t even know your name..', she wailed as he disappeared. Honestly she did not know if she was glad to find another of her kind and to know that there are many more or to be disappointed at being ignored or fear the prospect of having to use a heavy iron sword against an unknown enemy. Both the adjectives made her shudder. She is allergic to iron and heavy objects. If the worst is to come, she does not even know how to use her super power. She did not have control over it yet. She has a vague idea how it manifested this morning, though she did not know why. She began to rehearse. She was falling off a cliff. She must have imagined it to be real, for it was indeed so realistic. She must have fancied using superhuman powers. She had always imagined being some sort of a cat woman. She could have imagined having healing powers. But she was falling. She was frantically looking for something to stop her fall, but there was nothing within her reach and only the earth is going to stop her fall. She could no longer imagine the strength of feline limbs supporting a fall. Fear tore at her heart while the wind ripped through her throat, across her eyes bringing tears and across her ears howling and screaming like wolves and owls on a haunted night. She wanted to look at the green wild surrounding her for one last time, but her head was clutched in her emotions, fixing the vision to the approaching terrain, calculating the impulse of the impact, wondering if her fragile bones can withstand it. Fragile? What was she thinking? But she did not have time to think about anything then. She was only a moment away from crushing herself into the relentless ground beneath. She touched the ground. Stones and pebbles almost struck her face. But she felt no pain. She woke up and walked up to the dressing table to quench her dry throat.
In a small span of attention she realised she had walked to lake side road. This road is usually deserted and it is no different now. Not a soul in sight. Looking down on the road ahead, a strong urge filled her. She dropped her bag off her shoulder. It hit the ground with a clang of the iron sword. Drenched in desire, she started sprinting. Memories returned. Logic and intuition concurred with the same conclusion. Realisation dawned on her, a black blurry mass flew beside her and as if in pursuit, she took off, unfurling her wings!
Anxiety became awe as she stared at her reflection. The glass slipped, shattered and so did the many feathers from her back, the fallen fragments of feathers and ligaments crumbling to vanishing dust!

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Jade & Raven