Dating : Moonhope

Blog first published in the year 2091, On GodBlogs.mvrse without any author credit, is being reproduced for all our readers due to popular demand.

I arrived on Earth’s (☼SolarSystem956) Moon @ 12.55 P.M GMT on October 11th, 2090 (☼Earth☼☼Time). My first step on it wasn’t a giant leap for anybody except for my friends who were forbidden to travel to this remote grey territory J (☼Earth☼☼NeilArmstrong). Before my step on Earth’s Moon (☼Earth☼☼Moon), I spent a few days orbiting it in a space hotel called the Grand Bhatt. The five-hundred room hotel was smaller of the three-fifty orbiting the moon. It was shaped like a stack of four giant rings joined to a large cylindrical tube placed on its central axis (☼Earth☼☼SpaceStations).

The standout thing about the hotel were its employees. They called themselves ‘Soonlings’, an abbreviation for people who were soon to be ‘Moonlings’, 😀 (☼Earth☼☼Communication☼☼☼Emos). They wore beautiful silver-white clothes to match the colour of the moon, with a kind of net design to resemble the moon’s craters (☼Earth☼☼Moon☼☼☼Craters). They used humour in everything and hugged a lot. Hugs is something I love; they give my heart so much strength and so much peace, for I can actually feel a person’s heartbeat and match its rhythm. But not everyone in the hotel was happy like me, some people were sad, I could feel their pain, my heart knows things instantly.

A note on my heart — it’s very sensitive, it’s an evolutionary feature. My genetic predecessors had opted to progressively move towards being extra sensitive. So I am, what I am. I cry instantly, I laugh instantly, I trust instantly, I love instantly, I know no other way. My heart doesn’t calculate, my heart believes in itself and I believe in my heart.

My journey to Earth’s Moon began after a catapult in a large, cylindrical shaped, semi-transparent capsule called the ‘Silver Galactic 134’ with four other people, at an excruciatingly slow speed. Our catapult was scheduled at 11.15 am Earth GMT, after the catapult of ‘Mars Moon 127,’ ‘Tranquility High 65,’ ‘Crater Zipper 4378,’ ‘White Moon 52,’ ‘Earth Friend 638,’ and my favourite ‘Destiny Changer 11.’

My fellow passengers and I cracked a few jokes. Then everyone told their story. Violet’s story was heart breaking. She had a new disease that could only be cured in the low gravity environment of the moon. Her family and friends pooled in all their savings to get her here, but she lost them in a tragic accident just before her journey. She said her mission in life was to get healthy and give birth to a child drawn from the stored DNA of her family. The story made me cry, my light blue tears flowing freely. Everyone was taken aback by just how much I cried, but then they didn’t know me. I don’t hold back on my tears, it’s not in my culture. As such I am a happy person and I do understand that death is a passage to a different life, and living forever has its own madness. I know a few people who have lived too long. My tears were for my tough days ahead.

My family didn’t say much when they were told that I was the chosen one. They were calm, said it was my choice and said they were ok if I said no. Just before I was about to leave, we all spent some time together. We saw our favourite memories. Mine was one where all my family was in this magical lake that changed colour every few minutes. The water was cold and then this organic creature appeared taking away all our clothes, even the ones that we were wearing; leaving behind a ring puzzle that we had to solve together. I did solve it, with some help from my three brothers and two sisters, who never give me enough credit for that day.

It was a long weightless float in the rectangular capsule, fun in a way. The capsule’s Virtual Assistant (VA) showed us some interesting stories when it sensed the mood amongst the passengers had grown sombre. The best one was about the first marriage inside the capsule. It was between a earth soldier and an employee of Hotel Moonies. They had fallen deeply in love after a blind date on Moonhope. On the way back to Moonies, the soldier proposed, she said “yes”, they asked the capsule’s virtual assistant (VA) if it could officiate their marriage. The VA said “yes”. All their friends were informed. Everyone was ready in a few minutes. The couple vowed to love each other is every space. I really like vows, there is something pure about them, an intent that everything inside a person wants to accomplish. I too made a vow before coming here, that I would never return until my objective was accomplished.

It was an hour later that our capsule was caught by a large robotic arm, and stuffed meters below the lunar ground onto a moving platform. We were now one level beneath the first and only city on Earth’s Moon. The city was called ‘Moonhope’ (☼Earth☼☼Moonhope). I read there was a problem agreeing on the name, but a worldwide citizen vote settled it. A first in human history (☼Earth☼☼Democracy).

The capsule announced and Vivi confirmed, that we had arrived at the Welcome hangar at 12.55 P.M Earth GMT. The first thing everyone did after coming out of the capsule was to complete a breathing exercise, as advised by the circular ball shaped robot with blue eyes and white lips (☼Earth☼☼Movies☼☼☼Terminator) waiting to escort us. None of us felt any difficulty breathing.

Our entry into the hangar was through a grand grey stone arch, almost twenty feet high and fifteen feet wide (☼Earth☼☼Measurements), with intricate carvings luminescent in earthly blue. Everyone stood there to take pictures. I got one myself (☼Earth☼☼102Pictures.photos.mvrse). After the picture I studied the carvings closely. They showed acts of kindness, ‘A doctor treating an injured,’ ‘A hungry man being fed by another,’ ‘A mother feeding her son.’ The quote on the arch was thoughtful, “We Resolve to Endure with Kindness in our Hearts.” I heard there was a contest for the quote, must have been fun. I perhaps would have written, ‘Love is the only Big Bang’(☼Eart☼☼Myths).

People found the rolling robot with creepy moving eyes funny, I am not sure I did. The robot escorted us to a decently lavish reception area with a huge United Nations logo (☼Earth☼☼UnitedNations), and a row of large body monitoring machines to check for a weapon or virus, even though on Earth most of these practices had been abandoned after the landmark agreement (☼Earth☼☼UinitedNations☼☼☼UN2311W).

As I walked into the Hangar, I couldn’t help but notice its walls decorated with thousands of small objects. People across Earth would bring in these objects — their names on each object. My fellow passengers were surprised when I told them I wasn’t carrying anything. I was eager to check them out, especially the framed colourful butterflies, which was popular amongst the hotel staff (☼Earth☼☼Animals☼☼☼Extinct). Butterflies were so beautiful, I had never seen them in my life. In the pictures they seemed so spectacular and so delicate; a creature you would never want to hurt. I had to wait though for my checks to complete.

After my check was complete, my VA (☼Earth☼☼VirtualAssistant☼☼☼Internet) was activated and given an additional lunar module. I haven’t introduced you to my virtual assistant. Her name is Vivi, her software is designed to be less sensitive than I am. She doesn’t talk too much, but is very capable at her primary objective — which is to protect me.

I then went around the Welcome Hangar, and saw some interesting objects, butterflies first. I could see that people of Earth love history; there was so much ancient stuff — old telephones, old telescopes (☼Earth☼☼Technology), mythical gold deities (☼Earth☼☼God☼☼☼Religion), destiny crowns (☼Earth☼☼History☼☼Monarchy), replicas of famous paintings and one original painting called the Mona Lisa (☼Earth☼☼Art☼☼☼LearnadoDaVinci). The story of the painting is amazing; some say it was put on the moon to increase its value tenfold.

At one corner of the Welcome Hangar was an entry to a Museum called Perseverance. It had the history of Moon, like the first recorded description of the moon by a philosopher(☼Earth☼☼GreatPhilosophers) on Earth, the first flag placed by astronauts of the Apollo mission (☼Earth☼☼Space☼☼☼History☼☼☼☼Apollo), first mechanized rover placed on the moon and twelve others that followed it, a moon rock with the names of the team members who began the dig for Moonhope and so on.

It ended with a large sized model of Moonhope. The city was a partially transparent geodesic dome with a radius of two kilometers that was rotating on a large platform to create artificial gravity for the people on it, although gravity created was about 15% lower than Earth (☼Earth☼☼Articles☼☼☼FussAboutGravity). Situated in a crater of the north pole it was powered by the rays from the Earth’s Star (☼Earth☼☼Sun) all twenty-four hours of the day, the atmosphere was made breathable by technology marvels — giant reactors extracting oxygen from the lunar surface, from the polar ice, from the solar wind and from some supplies from Earth. Food came in from Earth through routine flights powered by sun and laser beam propulsion (☼Earth☼☼Power), making flights from Earth to Moon very cheap. People of Earth had done well to be here in their short lifespan.

After the museum I decided to get into the Pod for the city. The cube shaped pod was not large, two rows with two seats each. The first thing I saw as we entered the dome was — Earth. It was beautiful. I find beauty easy to spot and magnify, it’s one of my many wonderful traits.

The person next to me was a mine robot operator named Jas, from the continent of Australia (☼Earth☼☼Continents) coming to the city for his first job here. Mining and Tourism are the biggest industries on moon. Jas was beaming with Earthly pride seeing the city emerge, “We will survive you know,” he said.

The pod explained the landscape of Moonhope. The entire city was divided into blocks, with energy conservation as the basis of all design. We started with a glimpse of the Commercial Office block, mostly a series of two and three storied, grey colored, hexagonal shaped buildings, made of moon rock mixed with a special chemical. Unlit yellow and red sign-boards adorned the buildings. Hexagons were used in all designs on moon so as to make things easily expandable, Jas pointed out.

Next came the Tourist block, the most important one as Moonhope was primarily a tourist destination. The block buildings were large, more colorful with graffiti that covered their entire length. I could hear the noise, and see the people cramming the many open verandas. I enjoy parties, I am a fun girl. I can even do a solo while others watch me. I love water parties the most, there is something very nurturing about water for me, though there are no water parties here.

The Admin block, and the Short Stay block followed, both looked identical to the more boring Commercial brother. The pod had increased its speed. An under-construction block was next — which is where he was supposed to be. I made extra effort to see if I could spot Ank. He was the reason why I was here. The pod asked me if I was ok, since my heart beat had increased significantly.

Finally, my home for the next few months became visible. It was in the Long Stay block, built for people who intended to stay here for more than three months. The pod explained, it had a community based design, where everything from kitchens, to bathing, living was designed to make sharing more effective. I though had taken up an independent living option, because of my mission.

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A day after my arrival on Moonhope, it was time to meet Ank. I had prepared for this. My heart was pounding. When it pounds someone close enough can hear it. My heart was about to be tested like nothing before. To come here wasn’t my decision, neither did I volunteer, nobody volunteers for this, but my name came up, and I didn’t want to refuse even though I had a choice. People who asked me to do this, don’t force anyone to do anything.

He was on the roof of an unfinished house, when I saw him first. He had come in as a construction crew three months back. He was surveying a few details about the exterior of an under-construction house when I saw him. He looked like his picture. He was tall almost six feet two, a good four inches taller than me. He didn’t have my perfect body, he seemed frail. His eyes were the same colour as mine but had a listlessness to them, heightened by a peppery beard.

.

He was picked, because his behavioral sample accurately represented the average human race. That was the most important criteria for the test. The search team had spent a good four earthly years to identify him. I was briefed extensively by the team. I had come to Moonhope with the sole purpose to administer a test to Ank. The result would signify what the human race thinks and believes.

I walked up close to him and tried to act like I was a little lost. My long preparation for this included drama lessons, but that was just to get the initial equation right. I was afraid I would tell him everything soon enough. I can’t keep secrets, I am not deceitful, people even strangers are very important to me.

His eyes stared at me for a little longer than what is considered statistically normal as per Vivi, and then he asked me, ‘What are you doing in this heaven?’

Even though I knew he was going to speak to me, I had a wide grin on me — I am like that. I had his analysis, he wasn’t shy he would take the initiative to speak first seven out of ten times, which turned nine out of ten if the girl was pretty and I am very pretty.

My watery blue eyes relayed a good vibe for him. I stepped forward and offered a hello. He didn’t take my hand, he just kept staring. I was embarrassed. I blushed really hard. I wondered if he could see my cheeks turn yellow and move towards a little orange, but that’s not easy to notice.

‘I am here looking for an address’ I said softly.

‘You do look lost’, he smiled.

‘Would you show me around?” I asked.

‘I have four more hours in my shift,’ he said, he seemed amused.

‘I can wait?” I said, trying to sound confident.

‘Evening dinner on me if you are interested to be my date. There is a party I need to go to,’ he asked and I agreed.

He offered to drop me anywhere on the planet. We sat on his bicycle (☼Earth☼☼Transport), which is the dominant form of travel on Moonhope. He put me in front. It was a short fun journey. There was a small part of me that considered returning before I started this, but after meeting Ank, I felt good. My friends had told me that people don’t get picked randomly. There is a match with the test subject that happens. I never believed them.

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He came sharp at 7.30. His cycle decorated with a glowing large bow and yellow artificial tulips. He was dressed in black shirt and grey trousers. I was dressed in a silver gown.

The party didn’t have too many people. There was beer and delicious food. It was a farewell for a friend returning back to Earth, sponsored by the construction company. The friend named Hart was happy and ready. He gave a short speech in the end, with a special thanks to my man. He recounted an episode, where he got stuck in the base of an under-construction house, but Ank rescued him. We all danced in the end. My man wasn’t a dancer but knew a few steps. I liked him.

He told me he had a long shift for the next two days and asked if I would want to see the tourist block with him.

I made my first entry about Ank that day. Oh! my name is Cini.

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The Tourist block was so much fun. There were endless parties, fancy dress competitions, star gazing cafes, selfies with Earth setups, celestial shows, mad car races, anti-gravity games. Ank was surprised how good I was at anti-gravity football, where you could use any part of your body to move the ball forward. He didn’t know I was experienced at these kind of games. The view from the tallest building was what I enjoyed the most. You could see all of Moonhope, most of Earth and a stunning view of the galaxy around.

As the day came to a close we entered a bar serving drinks including a specially made moon shot, which tasted like everything else, but people were buying it. I took a few shots. I can drink. But I wasn’t going to show that. I wanted to know more about Ank. So I picked six foot seven inch giant and made him touch me. Ank fought bravely, couldn’t land a punch, but received quite a few. For the first time my wrist turned a little blue. Blue means love. My people like to give a visible expression for most feelings we experience, it’s a choice, although most people do realize there is a problem of being dependent on a method to trust one’s feelings.

We spent the night together. He wasn’t the best in bed. I have had better. He didn’t feel the difference, but I did, it wasn’t much, but it was there. It was nice in a way. It got a little tricky when he asked me about my blue wrists. I made an excuse and just let him in.

I wrote more about Ank after the night was over.

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Over the next few weeks we met often. He talked about his family, said they were all happy and having fun. He said he decided to come to Moon for a spirit of adventure. He said he always wanted to be an explorer.

We kept meeting at the community gym’s, community bathrooms, community kitchens. Breakfast and lunch had the healthier stuff, dinner was more interesting and awaited.

The craziest I saw him be, was when he took up a temporary assignment, to collect a large rock, which had been classified as interesting by rover exploring the vast surface of the moon. He took me along and kept talking about how exploration makes him happy. How the lunar rock could hold the clues for alien life and how we could turn him famous. I asked him about his curiosity.

That’s when the idea of the Test got decided. I knew it. As I said I know things instantly. The test pitches your single defining trait against love.

__________________

He moved in with me and we spent some an amazing time together. I showed him my mind. I told him about my vulnerabilities. We made love.

Then one day I knew I was being followed, and I told him about it just to see what he would do. He was amused and joked about it until I showed him. He confronted the man following me, running behind him like a madman, and I loved him for doing that. The man surrendered after a short chase and said he was responsible of keeping a tab on few people. He said it was routine.

The man hid the real reason, I knew though. My invisible bots had been tracking him, as he was tracking me. He had developed interest in me because of the sophistication of Vivi. They came across here in a random check and her responses amazed them. They tried to verify my credentials on Earth and found a lot of things missing.

‘They can’t catch you here and keep you,’ Ank said. ‘They could,’ I said, and that there is a prison on Moonhope. He said it’s too expensive to keep anyone here.

We were both questioned separately. Their systems couldn’t work on me and Ank didn’t know anything, so he answered honestly. But Vivi sensed danger and triggered a power outage. She told me soon enough.

Once the power went out, an emergency warning rang in every human ear. It was a two-hour drill, known by most on Moonhope. Everyone had to make way to different recovery bunkers located beneath the lunar surface. The recovery bunkers were stocked with all kinds of survival equipment, food, water, and batteries for enough days.

Ank was sweet, he fought and found me in the detention section. He grabbed me instantly, checked if I was ok, and told me he was prepared to give me his oxygen modules in the bunker in case they were short. He wanted me to promise that I would accept his oxygen module. Oxygen requirement for me is low, because my people have been designed to progressively require less food, less oxygen, less of everything.

It was a good time to set him up for his big test, which I was told to initiate by my elders.

‘There is a treasure here,’ I said.

He didn’t hear me at first. I said it a few more times, until he realized that I was serious.

‘Where is it and how do you know about it?’

‘It belongs to my people, it was stolen from them, and my mission here is to find it’ I said.

“I am not from this world,” I added, saying it again.

“What do you mean by that?” he stopped moving.

A few hours later we were back in our rooms. ‘This is my real face,’ I said removing the fake hair that was covering my head. I still looked beautiful to a human. I am quite human actually, with very slight differences. He seemed in shock, found it difficult to breathe, and then held my hand.

“What are we going to do?”

‘Tears had taken over me,’ I kissed him, this was going to be hard I knew. My wrists started glowing blue from both ends for the first time. It was love I was sure.

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From then on he became protective about me, and a little distant as well. The feeling hurt me more than I had expected. He tried to ignore me, finding excuses for not meeting me. When I could take it no more, I confronted him. Telling him that we were genetically compatible, that our kids would be normal in every sense — and that they could be completely human if he wanted. He kept asking for more time and wouldn’t talk much. The only time he would speak up was when we spoke about the treasure and about my planet. His curiosity always got the better of him. ‘The treasure was a small case with symbols from my home planet’, I showed him an image.

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Ank wasn’t the same to me anymore. A few weeks later when he had too much to drink he did open up. He said he felt that I was bound to go back to my planet no matter what, and that somewhere he felt I was just testing him. He told me that he didn’t believe that my wrists had turned blue because I was in love with him. He said he didn’t know what to think, but he wanted to believe me. My heart couldn’t take it, for I was truly in love.

The next morning when he was sober and ready to take me to a breakfast of waffles and cream, I decided to tell him everything. My elders agreed with me.

‘My real task here is to administer a test on behalf of my species — the Aumurs’, I explained.

‘Aumurs are a race similar to humans, and have been in existence for millions of years,’ he listened carefully to everything I had to say.

‘We are the people whom you consider Gods. We found this planet millions of years ago, saw potential for life and did our bit to evolve intelligent life, to create humans. Our people came to lead you initially and left later to help you find your own path’, I finished.

‘You created us?’ he said.

‘We searched for our God, searched every physical space in the universe, but found no evidence of anything divine’, I said and told him our story. How we debated about God, an open debate where nothing was blasphemous, and how we came to accept that — ‘Everyone Created would be searching for a Creator, even if that was God himself’. That our species decided to make ourselves the best in the universe, planned to become a beacon of unity and hope for all the good things inside everyone.

He was upset, “Or do you want to become Gods again?”

‘The test’, I said, was done once every two hundred years and was designed to see if love was the most important trait for humans, a condition for my people to engage with any species.

I told him the test would show itself in the form of a treasure, which would appear when it sensed that we truly loved each other, and that it would be irresistible, it would amplify his feelings to know things, his curiosity till they dominated him completely, and he only needed to hold my hand to stop the temptation from taking over. ‘If you open the treasure box,’ you would never see me again I said.

“Passing the test,’ did not guarantee that my people would start interacting with humans again, I explained. But I told him once he opened the treasure, my role on Moonhope would be done, and I would be instantly ported back to my planet. ‘I love you, and I never want to leave you’, I finished.

___________________________

The treasure did appear on a Sunday morning floating in the middle of our bedroom incensed with our night of love. When I woke up I saw him transfixed by it.

‘How long had he been staring at it,’ I wondered.

‘Stay away from it’, I howled, wrapping him in my arms, and kissing him like never before, like no one has kissed anyone before.

‘Hold my hand’, I held his.

He saw the treasure for a long time. It was a large cuboidal box the size of a rifle box, glowing brightly in blue, with symbols that even I had never seen. He held my hand, kissed me hard, and then jumped for the treasure box and opened it.

The next thing I knew I was back on my planet. Down in disbelief, crying and howling. My heart unable to bear the pain, it was heating up ready to explode. A few seconds later I heard footsteps. Everyone I knew was there. Everyone was crying. They hugged me one by one, held my hand and felt my pain. The elders were there, heads bowed, not looking up. My eyes were looking at them. They knew what I wanted to say. Then one of them stepped forward and said there is a note in your pocket. He had put it in my pocket before sending me back.

The note said, “In God I Trust.”

That’s when I understood the real test. The test was always between Faith and Love. It was never between his Curiosity and his Love. We were testing to see how much humanity needed faith to live together, what would happen if we told them that their concept of God did not exist. I didn’t know I was doing that to him.

‘A species has to shed their dependence on God regardless of whether God exists or not, if it has to progress’, an elder spoke out.

‘Humans are not ready to live without faith, even if God were to come down and tell them that there is no God, they would not believe…’

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For your comments

Justin: What a frivolous story!

Vina: Did this actually happen?

Arvi: Who wrote this? Why don’t you reveal yourself?

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The author has previously published a book called The Trial of 2091