Date: Sat, 6 Jul 2013 08:57:22 -0700 (PDT) From: drake angel Subject: Exodus Whiskey : Chapter Two - The Miracle of Tashu Exodus Whiskey This is a fictional story set in the not too distant future. No intended parallels have been drawn or inferred between characters in this story and any one living or dead. The story deals with such situations as love between two young boys, sexual arousal and some sexually explicit content. Read at your discretion, follow the rules of your country and locality. Please do send me feedback if you like this story, or if you have any comments you would like to make. My email id is drakeangel1719@yahoo.com Chapter Two: The Miracle of Tashu "I am dead now. My mind reels as my brain releases the final deluge of chemicals that signal the end. Do you hear me now, my children? Have you survived the scourge? Are you unharmed, are you safe? I wish I could have spent a lot more time with you my darlings. I have done everything I can, and now, your Father must make the most grand exit. May you find a new life, and happiness and love in the stars." Had I known how my life were to end this way, might I not have made some changes? I remember the first time I met the love of my life, my wife. We were on tour in Sri Lanka, me in the navy and she, a field reporter. She took my breath away. One could never imagine falling in love during a calamitous riot. She stood brave, in the face of murderous brigands, stood her ground, and looked on. Not through her camera, but through piercing blue eyes. The sadness in them drew me to her. The engagement and subsequent marriage was fraught with difficulties. Marrying outside one's religion was unacceptable, and to say she was a girl unaware of my language, culture and nationality was something only such gentle and understanding souls as my parents would have accepted. Family always came first where I grew up. We moved to her home town Akureyri, in a land strange and alien to me. Tashu was born in the winter of 2005, on a cold, dark stormy night. My first born son. I remember holding him in my hands, and tears of joy clouding my vision. I remember his mother's smile. I knew we had a miracle that was him. He looked nothing like me, he had his mother's blue eyes and blonde hair. In the first few years of his life, he was in the care of my parents, who, after a short stint of staying with us to look after the baby, realized that their only purpose in life was to take care of him, and came back to settle with us permanently. They doted on him no end. In many of those long trips to the rocky countryside near our home, amongst geysers and volcanos, and endless, desolate yet breathtaking landscapes, I remember my father singing to Tashu, songs of an age long gone, of the bountiful crops, and the summer rains, and long lost lovers reuniting. My work as a pilot kept me occupied and away from home often. At base, we tested the new VASIMR rocket propelled launch vehicles, designed and engineered by the Starbringer Corporation. With little baby steps we flew higher, faster, and more dangerously each day, pushing and testing our crafts to the limits. My specialty was the Arkon, a heavy passenger carrier monstrosity that had a payload of 30,000 souls without luggage. A week before my wife's second labour, we ascended the heavens and flew our first flight into the deep darkness beyond the embrace of Mother Earth, transiting the moon within several hours from takeoff, returning ever swifter, accelerated by the slingshot around the desolate, white pockmarked orb that shined a brilliant white. We passed the Fra Mauro when I got the communique from Earth. Tashu had a baby brother, whom we had decided to name, Pratyaksh. I saw my second child's face eyes closed, calm, through the monitors of my spacecraft. On his side was an impatient and excited Tashu, waving into the camera, and asking, in his high pitched voice. "Father, what have you got us from the Moon?" As the boys grew older, I spent long weeks and months test piloting the VASIMR rockets to their limits. Amongst the pilot fraternity, I was considered a calm, level headed, no risks pilot with a starchy attitude towards by-the-book flying. Some of them flew out as far as Ceres, the dwarf planet on the outer reaches of Martian space. From the day I was inducted into the cadres of pilot at Starbringer, a question of no small significance often crossed my mind. One bright sunny morning, on a rare leave from base, driving Hringvegur, the thought reoccupied my mind with fresh vigor. Why make a craft capable of carrying such large payloads? Why make rockets capable of reaching the outer expanses of our solar system with comparative ease? After all, there was no habitable place on in our solar system except earth. A scientific group perhaps? To be transported to Mars, or maybe even Titan, to conduct long term experiments to study the feasibility of ISRU systems (In Situ Resource Utilization was the buzz word in those days). By why then make so many crafts? The company, headquartered at a plush expansive facility on the fringes of the Jura mountains of Switzerland, had already man rated more thirty such aircraft, along with more than a hundred supply drones, refueling ships and Path breakers capable of inter planetary flight. Where were we going, if we were going at all? My thought was broken as I felt a sticky lollipop hitting me lightly on the head. As I looked through the mirror and saw Tashu, smiling as he did that, I felt suddenly afraid for him, and for all of us. Now, he comes back to me in the last moment of my life, in my mind. That tender sweet child, who restored my faith in humanity, and all things good. It was the best decision I had made in my life, to surrender myself to the powers that be, so that he may be free, and live as the beautiful soul he is. All the pain, humiliation and suffering the world come upon me at once, so that he may smile just once again. The light around me is blinding, and shards of razor sharp ice are falling from the heavens. The sky, heaving, red, is alien to me. Is this my earth? For a moment, I can feel the rain and warmth of my youth, and my father's voice floating through the air, and the smell of wet earth. "I am smiling, my children. Know this, and smile, for there is no Moksha, greater than you."