Iris

Chapter 1.

Deep sonic booms shatter the vast silence between them. Waves on waves of rolling thunder begin to rock the stratosphere and sharp electrifying sparks of crimson red and violet skate across the midnight sky. Her deep purple eyes reflect the forked lightning as she stares at him in apprehension. Where would they shelter from the impending rain? They were traveling by foot across the Russian taiga, tens of kilometers away from any semblance of civilization. Their mission, deemed Operation NightFox by their superiors, was a weary and dangerous one. They were order by Commandante Groetheron and crew to cross the Siberian wasteland in the severe black of night to avoid apprehension by the Hinterland Executioners that sometimes habituated this bleak part of the world. However, their stealth was at this moment being thwarted by the glow of the electrostatic discharge drowning out the darkness. Yet, no one would be mad enough to be out here with them in this weather, so at least they had that much going for them.

Then the hell above released its demons upon them. Frozen rain began to pelt them with the force of steel ball-bearings that had surpassed their nature-ordained terminal velocity. They were being rifled; their lead-lined helmets taking the most-unjust punishment.
"Quick! We'll wait-out the rain under those coniferous trees over there" shouted the ruddy man to his partner over the deep-guttural sounds of the sky while pointing to an outcroping of sad-looking evergreens 100 meters away from where they were. The couple made a dash toward the trees and no sooner did they leave their previous location that a bolt of lightning slams into the ground where they once stood. Both were knocked off their feet by the aftershock produced by the 170 gigawatt pillar of energy that collided with the earth.

Holy shit! We were almost toast," the man thinks to himself. His eyes turn towards Adisa who lies listlessly supine on the frozen taiga besides him. She is out-for-the-count unconscious. He crawls back up on his feet and with the rain mercilessly beating down, he drags her the remaining distance to shelter under the canopy of the evergreens. He removes from his mauve and grey camoflauged military-issued rucksack an aged banana, slowly pealing it with the most gentle of hands. All he can do now is eat his plantain and wait out the relentless storm, hoping that Adisa will come-to shortly. He chews. And then chews a little more. And chews. Half way down his blackened banana, his wife slowly opens her eyes and lets out a harrowing moan. With her in his arms, he gently rock her whispering sweet nothings in her ear: "Boo-makuda, boo-makuda darling, don't you cry. Wipe them salty tears from your eyes. And should you need a helping hand, look no further for I'm your man." She crooks her head up in his direction and smiles with delicate lips and whispers almost inaudibly, "Sweetheart, my brain feels like a jackhammer pounding away on unyielding reinforced concrete. What' happened?" He tells her as they resume their mission into the hell of the night. Before they know it, there mission is over and they instantly teleport to another time another place. Together forever.

Chapter 2

Ultraviolet and beautiful, her eyes glimmer in the light of the late afternoon sun. Her smile stretches into the horizon when she sees him. More than handsome, he is a work of art. Progeny of the mighty Dionysus and his industrious wife, his charm is infectious. A tall ruddy man with long auburn hair and sparkling eyes of gold, he returns a smile of equal affection. The couple have loved each other across lifetimes, and in this age of madness, their fire burns without satiation. This moment, like all others marked by the waxing and waning of the tide, is precious and priceless. Tears have rarely fallen from her radiant eyes because they share a bond no element of nature can separate. Their magnetism is apparent by the way they wrap their arms around each other during their weekend meanderings across the boardwalk just outside of their condominium. It is only when he must leave her for weeks at a time throughout the year that it rains in her beautiful mind. Yet she understands the imperative of his work as a high-ranking official based on the dark-side of the moon. Nonetheless, when he leaves, he doesn't really separate from her as the unitary pulse of their enamored hearts stretches across the distance.

Somewhere right outside their beachfront villa, they hear the happy sounds of seagulls participating in their aerial competitions. These sounds only distract them for but a second before they embrace each other with the sentiment of an untold millennium apart. Their lips gently caress. As the amber sun falls beyond the horizon, so do they onto the silk sheets of their King-sized bed. Seconds turn into minutes; minutes into hours, and when they awake to the light of the new dawn they remain tenderly entwined.

Already, the mercantile streets of Mumbai are bustling with the sounds of a multitude of merchants pedaling their homemade crafts and local produce. Even through the walls Adisa and Aamir can clearly make out the audible voices of the digsha selling his curried banana mashalkis and the clickety-clack reverberations of rikshas traveling across the ancient cobbled streets. The smell of sweet jasmine and coconut rice permeates the air. A gentle breeze sends these smells through the slightly cracked open window and this rouses them from the warmth of the silk sheets wrapped around their bodies.

"I want to stay lying in this bed with you forever," Adisa delicately whispers into Aamir's ear. He sits up in the bed and responds with a kiss. "I love you, sweetheart." He holds her attention with his eyes and then asks, "Would you like to go out for breakfast? We can pick up some mango pancakes from Sampath. He sells them until 11 am on Saturdays." She agrees and minutes later they arise and prepare to leave. As Aamir throws on a pale magenta kurta pajama he takes a minute to admire his wife's sensual body as she dresses. Her black hair, long and wavy, reaches the gentle curves of her breasts. She leaves it loose and the hair compliments her rich brown skin. She is relatively tall compared to most Indian women. Her beautiful long legs seem to go on forever. She dons a saphron-colored sari, expertly wrapping it around her slender hips. Yet it is the deep violet color of her irises that transfixes Aamir's eyes. They form a violent sea of color resulting in an infinite depth to her gaze. Many a man and women alike have drowned in her eyes.

They put on some sandals and then head out through the lofty arches that delineate their home from the street. As they walk hand-in-hand down the busy corridor that makes up Erakina Street, they are pressed against a multitude of brightly-garbed locals trying to do the same thing they are. Ten minutes later, they arrive at an impromptu tent where the peddler named Sampath calls out to those passing by in imperfect hindi, "Dig-gi-li, dig-gi-li, DOO! Come eat the finest of India's food!" He sees the couple and beckons them over. On one counter there is a vast assortment of exotic spices in their separate little canisters. The strong scent of vanilla wafts through the air as it radiates in waves from the portable stove where the pancakes are prepared.

The pancake is exquisite. The delicate slices of mango are melded into the rich batter with a hint of manuka honey and cooked to a golden hue. Adisa and Aamir share one giant saucer-sized pancake between the two of them, washing it down with a spicy chai latte each. They then proceed into town for the adventure of a lifetime.
Before they know it, there adventure is over and they instantly teleport to another time another place. Together forever.

Chapter 3.

The sun’s plasma ejected from the blistery surface with the power of 300 megaton neutron bombs. More, if you counted those from the corona. The sun spots would surely cause disruptions today in the communication networks set up on the dark side of the moon. Within the nether-regions of Earth’s satellite, where the darkness bordered on the oppressive, Aamir worked. His meta-memory assignment was a trying one. The objective was to link the meta-memory mainframe of the military base to the thermo-nuclear investigation stations located 1.2 nautical miles below the surface of the Indian Ocean back home. The distance between the two locations, as you can imagine, was vast. Yet, the new holographic electron-beam channels that Aamir was setting up would easily bridge the distance with much greater velocity than the preexisting archaic system of ion wet-wear waves. Uplink times between the bases would be decreased by a factor of 96 to 1. 

With the laborious task before him, he ought to be submerged in concentration, yet his mind was elsewhere. He thought on the radiant smile of his wife and how her mesmerizing magenta eyes always seemed to penetrate into his soul with a mere glance. He was enamored!  Just the thought of the smell of her soft mahogany skin while their bodies were intertwined was enough to start a fire in his loins which mirrored the intensity of the sun – not to mention the awe-inspiring brilliance of her mind! They could, and often would, have stimulating conversations on the workings of the universe for days at a time. If only she were here now. What radical ideas would they be discussing?

He wished to speculate more on this, but there was a mole-hill of work to be done.  Within range of accomplishment, but still some ways to go. The sooner he finished, the sooner his desire to see Adisa would be satiated.   “My God, these data points will be the death of me!” Aamir murmured to himself. “I suppose that Sampath down in IT would be able to handle this better than me. Yet I’m the triple Ph.D with an additional honorary doctorate in digital upquark technologies, not he. Ironic, to say the least.  Sampath would be done by now. Oh, Uranus! I shall quit for today (there really was no today, because of the unchanging position of the moon relative to the sun, but Aamir’s heart was back on Earth with Adisa, so his concept of time followed accordingly.) He gathered up his rather extraordinary tools made out of carbon fiber nano-tubes, placed them in his iridium-woven satchel, and this he hoisted over his broad, muscular shoulders. His neck was a thick as an ox. Adisa found it sexy. Anyhow, off he went, to his quarters to dream in peace of his wonderful partner waiting for him ever so patiently.

Chapter 4.

Meanwhile, the woman of his dreams, 364,403 Km away, labored over the quantum entanglement puzzle before her. It had almost the right amount of complexity to distract her from the thought of her love far away.  According to the Heisenburg Uncertainty Principle, she should be able to teleport this Tupperware container of mango-curried chapattis to Aamir without interruption from the sun’s sinister ejaculations. Yet try as she might, her brain’s synaptic connections were not firing to the intensity required for the solution to congeal. A solitary tear began to creep from out of one of her beautiful purple eyes, but this she quickly brushed away. However, she could feel the primordial heart vibrations of Aamir within her, and this brought her comfort.  Ever so often she would have these vivid memories of flashing lightning and peltering rain upon her. Her mind would project the images and sensations of a delirious hump through a cold, ominous forest on an important military assignment of some sorts. She had no idea of where these came from, for she was no soldier. She was a worm-hole physicist. She knew of W-particles and twelve-dimensional string theory precepts, not of subterfuge war strategy or hostile survival tactics.

Adisa was enjoying her life in Seatle, Washington. The distant citadel of Mount Helena scattered the ephemeral glow of the sun at dusk as a kaleidoscope would. When her husband was with her, they would go on challenging hikes within the coniferous-canvassed mountain-side. Those times were her most enjoyable ones, trekking hand-in-hand, often with a ruck-sack strapped to their backs which contained a small two-person bivouac. Her career was a rewarding one, but it set her aside from the general populace. She was imbedded within a society of consumers. She was not one of them. Productivity and innovation were here realm of existence.

As a child, she was an eccentric and quirky girl, yet she had a certain magnetism about her that pulled people into her life and tugged at their sensibilities – especially the men. She chose to remain aloof, however, until she encountered the perfect soul to complement hers. And in Aamir she had found and made this seldom-seen connection between two individuals. Their dating had carried them through five springs before she had proposed marriage. There was no hesitation in his response, and two months later they had had their wedding ceremony 10 meters below the Caribbean surface in a magnificent submersed glasshouse with spectacular views of the atoll coral reef as well as the tropical kissing-fish that loitered in front of the structure with relentless curiosity. Attending were 20 of their closest friends and relatives to witness the exchange of vows, which were composed as sonnets. From that point on their life’s journey took an unfortunate twist. Aamir received a promotion and was discharged from a laboratory position in the University of Rotterhaam to the dark-side of the moon for a long-term assignment.

And so they carried on, forced to only see each other on the weekends. She was never tempted by the fruit of another, yet she was bombarded by all sorts of odd brainiac suitors while her husband was away. The doors to her love organ, that is her heart, would always remain closed to everyone but her soul mate, lover, and father of their scion. Yes, they would have a whole empire of children only to be rivaled by the notorious Genghis Khan. But only if the forces-that-be allowed.

You see, while she was a believer in the formless, omniscient, omnipotent All-mighty, her conception of a higher power was indicative of a radical departure from typical thinking. She believed that there were multiple universes that each contained an infinite number of realities. These manifestations of existence were orchestrated according to the logic of a god-like conductor. Yet the sentient beings of the orchestra had the flexibility to produce whatever expression of music that their imagination would allow. Sometimes, this resulted in a cacophony of sound while at other moments, the resultant harmony was on a cosmic scale only describable by the most elevated superlatives.  Adisa believed, with steadfast faith, that somehow she and her husband existed together in all sorts of unique environments throughout time and space.

TO BE CONTINUED…