This month I had been busy writing for a 50000 words novel for NanoWrimo. http://www.nanowrimo.org/en/participants/ng-xin-zhao/novels/problems-try-this/stats
Below is a section (chapter) in my story.
Here are some of the links where I found my inspiration from. And the story is roughly set in half a billion years from now, in the same earth of Milky Way galaxy. Tell me what you think if you got time to enjoy the long story below! Sorry for all the grammar, English mistakes. I'll polish it later. Got to write more! Highlight for the story!
Prince
Ajita grew up being the best in absolutely everything that he learned.
He’s the best sharpshooter in the planet, best martial artist in all of
the martial art form that he had ever learned, best in all of his
studies, mathematics, physics, biology, chemistry, psychology,
comparative religions, 140 different human languages, and 290 different
alien languages, economics, business, finance, music, medical, all sorts
of engineering and all sorts of sports. In the galactic wide Olympics,
he had to step down in order to allow for others to win after winning
gold, record breaking gold too, 10 times in a row for every event that
he entered.
Using
a child prodigy to describe him would be an insult to him, because he
mastered all those within his first 100 years old, which in the context
of the lifespan of humans then, he was still considered a toddler.
Yet,
the Prince already has 3 different palaces: Vardhamaanaka,
Siddhaarthaka and Candra, each for the three seasons of the year: the
rainy season, the cold season and the hot season.
The
palaces grew up from the ground, literally it was tree growing
technology. The trees were genetically engineered so that they provided
for all the internal air circulation, cooling system, water delivery,
fruits growing at all sorts of places for people to eat whenever they
want to, and rooms custom made and all of these were genetically written
into the tree’s DNA and RNA mechanism, which is quite thick compared to
the tree’s ancestors.
In
addition, the tree also sucks up the trace minerals in the ground to
form 7 types of gemstones within themselves. As the palaces grow too,
people help to put more of the gems into the interior and exterior part
of the palace. Gold, silver, lapis lazuli, seashell, agate, pearl, and
carnelian decorates the palace to make art forms that are unique due to
the complexity of grow patterns from the trees.
The
palaces were seven storeys tall each, three underground and four above
ground, with millions of rooms in each floor, thus, they have the size
of a small island. A heptagon of wall, made of gold, silver, lapis
lazuli, seashell, agate, pearl and carnelian each, supported by the
additional growth of the trees from it’s extensive roots. At the gate of
the palaces, is a pandal, or door arc that is covered with elaborate
and beautiful decorations of the 7 gems and diamonds, platinum, emerald,
ruby, sapphire, topaz, amethyst, alexandrite, aquamarine, citrine,
garnet, opal, onyx, peridot, tanzanite and tourmaline.
On
the roof of the palaces was specially designed leaves and branches that
simulates the music from five different types of musical instruments.
Some branches were hollow, and grow in the angle that catches wind to
blow inside it. Inside the branch, the wind can escape through a series
of holes, governed by the leaves which decides which ones opens and
closes. This is the woodwind instrument.
The brass music instrument was similarly constructed, but instead of
having hole along the branch, these special type of branches have
internal coating of the alloy of zinc and copper, and grows in
complicatedly long winded way. Along the complicated route, there were
some parts which can be closed off by leaves to vary the length of the
branch, thus producing the different sound effects of brass.
Stringed
instruments were generated when the fibres of the trees were stretched
and tuned to different tensions, and being plucked by nearby branches
which rustles with the wind, but not completely following the wind, as
there are some active cells in the trees which were deciding the music
that is being played.
The
percussion instruments were formed by hollowed out tree trunks and
branches that taps on them. Some of them have very thin skin left, thus
it sounds just like a drum and some of them have metals coated on them,
thus sounding like a glockenspiel.
Finally, some shapes of the inner tree trunk were like the human vocal cord, thus giving voice to the whole musical scene.
The best part about this is that the type of music is controllable via a computer interface with the tree.
Inside
the palaces, on the wall which is integrated with the computing
imagery, 3D effects of lines of palms, lions, elephants, coaches,
peacocks, swans, curlews, storks, eagles, garudas, dragons, aliens,
supergods, creepers, trees, lakes, oceans, ships full of gold, silver
and coral. Jambudipa and other great continents, Ketumati and other
great cities, and other cloth paintings shining with the colours of the
rainbow.
Everyday,
showers of flowers fall upon these palaces from the trees that made
them. It is literally the ideal living quarters. Of course, the trees
were treated to be fire and heat resistant.
Even
with all these in place, Prince Ajita never did asked for more. In
fact, he was just concentrating on his studies, trainings and education,
not bothering with the luxuries that he was born into and also not
becoming arrogant because of that too. In his mind, the things that he
learned was far greater and more valuable than the material stuffs. Yet
he did not despise the material wealth that he was born into, he indulge
in them whenever he feels like resting or after a day’s long of
thinking and studying. Thus had he lived his childhood.
On
his 123rd year, there was a galactic wide celebration that involves his
father, scientist supreme of Utopia. His father was supposed to share
in a wonderful story about the struggles and triumph of human spirit on
this day which is called Earth Day. Curious about this celebration too
and proud to see his old man standing tall, he decided to join in. This
celebration is usually done at smaller scales, and once every thousand
years, it becomes a planet wide celebration, every fifty thousand years,
it is a galactic wide celebration, with podcasts of it to be
transmitted to all corners of the galaxy.
Subrahmana
started, “the story that I’ve to tell you, all of you who gathered here
is a gruesome story, yet it is a story that should be passed on, to
ensure that we and humanity as a whole do not ever suscumb to such
dangerous tribulations and near extinction ever again.”
The
atmosphere was silent, quiet, with everyone paying full attention in
the supreme scientist’s words even if they had heard the story a
thousand times before. Prince Ajita was iimpressed by this attitude.
They were all standing or sitting on a green clearing, with a wild life
sanctuary behind them a stark reminder of Earth Day.
“According
to legend, long ago, all of humanity was originated from one planet,
back then the planet was called Earth. Now we believe it is this very
planet, where the spread of humanity to space began. However, it was not
without struggle. There was a point in time, soon after the invention
of the classical computer and the planet wide internet, where humanity
lost a lot of it’s own kind due to mismanagement of the planet.”
“We
have reasons to believe that at that era, recycling needed to be
encouraged, yet a lot of lights and energy were wasted without care
about the next generations.” There was a lot of gasps and disgust shown
by everyone who listened to this. Prince Ajita looked around and saw
that the retinue of 84000 people who accompany him were reflecting and
being disgusted by the actions of humanities’ ancestors towards the
planet.
“Not
only do the humans of that period mismanage their only planet, their
only home, they were not appreciative of their own morality, of life
itself. It is said that there was a country at that time where almost
every family has a hand held projectile weapon, called a gun. And
accidents happens every year, up to 10000 people die, more than half by
suicide.”
The
people who listened to this began to shiver and shudder in horror.
Prince Ajita himself can feel goosebumps crawling on his skin, he felt
nothing but compassion for the people of that age. How could people be so ridiculously foolish and unappreciative of life? He wondered.
As
if his father read his mind, Subrahmana continued, “according to fossil
evidence, the humans of that time were much smaller than us, and the
planet much more populated, at it’s peak, Earth hold 12 billion people!”
Now a wave of shocked disbelief passed through everyone.
“It
is because of these reasons that we believe that they have very short
life spans. On the order of decades of years. But even so, computer
simulations show that in supporting that population, there should not be
a problem. Yet, there was also fossil evidence of the most cruel thing
yet that I have yet to say. Please brace yourself.”
Everyone
was already quite nauseated and just feeling sad for their ancestors,
now they prepare themselves for the worst to come.
“There
was fossil evidences of animal farms, where they breed animals just to
kill them. The size and frequency of the farms suggest that the total
number of animals that the breed to kill at one time is more than the
total human population. The amount of plant needed to support such a
size decreased the feeding capacity of the total human populations and
thus part of the human population necessary suffer from hunger. 1
billion people have not enough food to eat, and 6 million children die
from hunger every year. Let me tell you too, that their children is up
to 12 years old only, not ours 300 years old.”
Prince
Ajita felt deeply moved by this. He is indeed still a child in Utopia’s
standards, but to think of children in the past to not have lived long
enough to even learn some simple Physics that he had learned, not even
have the opportunity to grow up and have a chance in living happily.
The
people around him were by now weeping openly, it was a celebration that
always started out solemnly, up to a critical point where the good part
of the story is supposed to bring their spirits up.
The
prince quietly moved to under a tree, to be under its shade and away
from the masses of crowd who were weeping. He found a bit of peace and
sat there cross legged, there he continued to listen.
“There
came a greater time of distress, after which our ancestors finally
realized the folly of their ways and repented deeply. While repenting,
they carved down on a piece of giant artificial diamond, what
transpired. This language defied translation for 30 million years since
it’s discovery, but in the last 3000 years, one brilliant linguistic
managed to crack the code, written in binary, and here what it says.”
“‘We
are the survivors of the bloodiest war that humankind has ever seen
yet. There was a group of us, ranging from 4 to 10 years old, there was
no one who could live beyond 10, due to the various types of diseases
that devolved the human body to only generate a lot of short burst of
energy. Energy we needed to survive. I am aged 9, witness to the bloody
war happened when I was 4 one of the youngest in hiding, now with the
last shred of laser technology I am engraving this memory to the largest
diamond we had artificially created just for this purpose. For the
purpose that future generations will not repeat our mistake. Once is
enough for the whole humanity. Therefore remember your history, for
those who do not is bound to repeat it.’”
“‘I am Avel,
and the bloody 7 days war happened during my 4th years of age. It was
half a lifetime ago, yet I remembered it clearly as yesterday. Each of
us humans were genetically engineered so that we would had various kinds
of superpowers. Many of those involves animalistic superpowers which
might alter the appearances of ourselves. There was a virus that
spreaded, most probably via sexual transmission to almost all of
humanity. The virus made us see each other’s powers to be much amplified
than it really is, and we saw no more of the humanity is left in the
others. Everyone sees everyone else as animals, dangerous wild beast to
be tamed or destroyed. And the destruction happened.’”
“‘I
was fortunate however, for there is a wise leader who said to us that
let’s us not kill and be killed, let us instead retreat to the last of
the forest of earth. We’ll build a fort and remain guarding there,
eating fruits and roots of the forest. We hid for seven days, and at the
end of it, we emerge from our hiding places to meet with seas of blood
and rotting flesh. Ten billions dead bodies all over the earth, every
shoreline of the sea we saw was filled with blood, deep red blood that
seemed to threaten to remain there forever. It became pinkish by now,
even after five years the waves can’t wash away the awful things that we
did to ourselves. The remainder of us rejoiced in seeing other
survivors and we all realised that it is because of our evil ways of
killing that these suffering befall humankind. Let us now do good.
Starting by not taking life.’”
“‘And
so, we abandoned our eyepiece, which allow us to see into augmented
reality and think that the real world is a game, that lead to less
resistance towards killing others. Now, after five years of not killing
anything. Not even animals, real animals. We seemed to be enjoying a bit
of increase in lifespan and beauty. Our children seems to be maturing
at a slower rate, aging slower too. One can only hope that it means they
will live far beyond our limited 10 years of age, and prosper. Here
ends this record which has the sole intention of asking all of our
descendants not to commit the wrongs we had done and learn from the
mistakes of the past, so that you do not repeat it in future.’”
The
people who were listening was inspired. They stopped crying and paid
full attention to what the supreme scientist was saying now. Prince
Ajita, however, was already long missing and no one has yet thought to
look for him.
“From there onwards, humanity has gradually increased in morality and the knowledge of science. We build...”
The
prince knew of what was the development that lead to the galactic
republic and perhaps this is the reason he allowed himself to be
distracted by a worm that was in the leaves near the trees. Before his
eyes, the worm was eating into the leaves, leaving a lot of holes and
growing fat, suddenly, a praying mantis leaped onto the bug, and killed
it. The mantis was slowly enjoying his fat meal when a frog jumped in
and pulled the mantis into its mouth via its long tongue. Then behind
the frog, came a snake, it ambushed the frog and eat it whole. Just as
the snake was slithering away, an eagle from the sky sweep down and
grabbed the snake in its claws, peck it and brought it back to its nest,
where it slowly digested the snake.
The
prince of course had learned all these before in his biology holovideo,
but to see things up close and directly, he saw that while the worm was
eating, the essence of the leaves were eaten. There is no inherent
leaf, as the materials that made it is being digested to become part of
the worm. Then the praying mantis came along and eat the worm. There is
to be found no worm qualities in the praying mantis, the worm is
insubstantial in itself, just like the leaves were. The frog too, it
eats the praying mantis, but does not become the praying mantis itself.
Now even the form the of the mantis is gone. Then the frog is
transformed into parts of a snake. Making everything before it seems
more and more removed from memory and reality. Had they really existed
before? If so, they certainly do not exist now. And finally the snake is
killed by the eagle and eaten. There is yet another level! If one thing
cannot exist on its own forever, by what reasoning and property can
there be a self of the thing to carry on? And if the self is the thing
that is being eaten, then the self is a changing self, that is not worth
clinging on to.
Having
reflected thus, he calmed down and focused on his breathing. Letting go
of whatever that is happening outside of him, he quickly attained to a
stage where his mind has only one thing. That thing is his breath. So
concentrated was he that the usual mental process of awareness and
sensing of the five physical senses were shut down as his mind remains
in peace and calm, focusing on his breath. Feelings of great joy and
happiness arose within him, he smiled and by all means looks serene.
It
is about this time that the story by Subrahmana was finished, and the
multitude of the people listening started to be aware of the prince
Ajita being in a deep state of concentration. Subrahmana seeing his son
being in the seated position, crossed legged, came to his front and pay
respects to his son, for having achieving this deep state.
At
Prince Ajita’s 500th year, the mark to adulthood is celebrated by great
dancers and performances specially made for him and presented in his
palace. All year long, there was dancing, singing, music, 3D holographic
videos, video games, quiz competitions, sportsmanships,
sonic-screwdriver-to-escape-the-room competition, movies, cartoons, tea,
fun camps, debates, and all sorts of entertainment in the palaces that
he visits, on the floors that he visits. Of course, there are also ample
time for rest. In fact, there are special rooms for resting, one have
the full jungle effect, without insects; another has the beach effect,
on the ground floor, near the sea, well, it is a real beach; yet another
simulates underground pood, deep and cozy, smooth and calm. By now, the
prince had slept in about 30% of all his palaces and yet there are
still places in which he had never been to.
These
sleeping chambers number seven thousands in total, has umbrellas with
handles made of gems, beds covered by multi coloured sheets, and well
decorated with treasures from all ranges of time. Each time he entered a
new chamber, there will be someone who stands ready to explain to him
the significance and history of the decorations that he wishes to know.
As a result, his knowledge of the entire galaxy, sometimes, even of
things beyond the galaxy increases.
At
each of these rooms, beautiful, fragrant, and delicious fruits are
ready to be plucked and eaten anywhere. The prince eats them when he
feels hungry and the rest of the fruits were to support the rest of the
people in the palaces.
At
each of these seven floors, there are seven thousands dancing girls who
will dress up and await to dance. They accommodate to the prince’s
desire and changes so fast, he is constantly amazed by their
adaptability and flexibility. Once, he just finished watching the first
six Star Wars movies in 7D (3 for visual, 1 for each of the other
senses) and was exhausted by the effort, before he goes to bed, the
dancing girls were dressed up as female jedis, and make for the gesture
that smooths and calms him to sleep. The leader of the dancing girls was
dressed up like Princess Leia, in bikini form, and she was gently
rocking the prince’s head to sleep.
Prince
Ajita smiled, after looking at the girl who was putting him to sleep,
he immediately forgot about Star Wars and the associated memories with
it. She was by far way more beautiful in real life than the actress in
the movie. She is Candamukhi,
one of a kind, unsurpassed in beauty, within the planet and even once
in a galactic beauty pageant, won the top prize in all categories of
love, compassion, generosity, smile, kindness, and physical
characteristics, which are beauty of bones, beauty of muscles, beauty of
complexion, beauty of hair and beauty of age.
As
she puts the prince to sleep as she had done since they were 50 years
old, the prince felt blessed to sleep in the arms of a girl not too
tall, nor too short, nor too thin, nor too fat, nor too dark, nor too
fair. In her exquisite beauty, she is more divine than human. Sandalwood
scent that issues from her body and the scent of water lilies from her
mouth made him comfortable and cozy. The glow from her body covers the
area of a sphere with radius of 6 meters. As he rest his head, he found
that her body is as soft as a well cleaned cotton as always.
Thus has he been put to sleep by Candamukhi half of the nights. This year, it was almost every night.
Finally,
the day of his 500th birthday had arrived, and there was a special
arrangements from both his father and foster father to surprise him.
As
he walked into the main chamber of his palace, he found all sorts of
manners of beautiful girls stand ready waiting for him, with the High
Chancellor Sankha and the supreme scientist, Subrahmana. After greeting
his parents, he inquire for the purpose of this rather unusual
gathering.
“Why,
my son, it is simply time for your 500th birthday! This whole year had
been a celebration of this day, for the day that you entered into
manhood. The day that you pick a wive with you.” Subrahmana hugged his
son and exclaimed.
Sankha
added on, “you are showing great promises in the ways of governing
having passed all of the test and trainings with the best score
possible, I am inclined to want to give you the title right now, but as
it is, tradition dictates that before ruling a country, one has to know
how to handle a family first. So don’t worry Ajita, take your own sweet
time to develop a family and raise your child to his own manhood age,
after that, I’ll impart this city for you to govern for 500 years, and
increasing from there, you will eventually inherit the whole of Utopia,
then the galaxy and it is up to you then to extend your reach to the
universe at large.”
“Thank
you father, so the selection of my wife will be amongst these young
beautiful ladies here?” Prince Ajita inquired, secretly hoping that Candamukhi is there in the crowd.
“Yes,
my dear Ajita, here are the kingdom’s treasure, that I give to you as a
wedding gift. Give one to each of the girls below to see how do they
react to you. If you found one whom you know you can live with and
connects with your heart, then you will know who is your wife.” the High
Chancellor Sankha said.
Prince
Ajita nodded and sat down at the throne seat, both of his father and
his mother retreated to the second floor and watched the proceedings
from there. The prince breathe in and out once and smiled, gestured for
the first girl to come up and say her name.
“Gabriella, my prince.”
“Here’s a necklace, Gabriella.”
“Thank you my prince.”
The next one came up, she was Diana, then Alex, Camila, Chloe, Maya, Jenniffer, Britney, Katie, Rachel, Ruby.....
The
treasury was depleting, and half a day was spent before the last of the
treasure goes to Shiely. The next girl caught his heart and attention.
A
smile crossed his face as he recognised increased heartbeat, a bit of
sweat on his hands and the smile that each of them gave each other.
“Candamukhi,
I’m sorry I’ve run out of something to give you, but if you don’t
mind,” Prince Ajita took out his ring and helped to put it in
Candamukhi’s finger, “can you be my wife?”
Candamukhi
then smiled the smile that would melt most men’s heart and said, “Yes
my prince.” Then they kissed. Applause rises from all corners of the
palace as everyone knew of how long they had grew up together, and how
matching the pair were.
