Wednesday, August 16, 2006

Till another Renaissance

I.D.Iot was a proud man. His single contribution to the world of Science was purely unimaginable. He had a series of startling discoveries to his credit, and his genius mind had put every single grain of truth to use to change the world in the most remarkable way. I.D.Iot prided himself on his thoroughness and had painfully documented every startling discovery in his vaporizing sheets. The idea behind these vaporizing sheets was simple. He help the passkey phrase, and on whispering the passkey phrase to soap bubbles, the sheets would appear - a ton of information regarding atoms, elements, wormholes, time warps and what-have-you.

I.D.Iot was around for generations. He had mastered the art of travelling to the planet near a black hole where time barely passed, and consequently aged slower than most mortals. He was an amiable man with a humble demeanour, and his intentions were always noble. He had in him, as much knowledge to destroy as to create. He never once thought of destruction. He was considered God by virtue of all the above.

Now he lay dying. His time was up. He was tired and could not muster the energy to take up the time travel to rejuvenate himself. He had wanted to pass on to his most trusted follower access to all his learnings. His memory was failing him - but he knew the key to the vaporizing sheets had to do with the theme that "Everything was made up of atoms", and that's what he muttered when he died.

His disciples tried hard to get the sheets, but failed. Instead of using the knowledge they had from I.D.Iot, they spent time trying to retrieve his work. Time passed and only the mantra got passed down from generation to generation: none of the knowledge.

The idiot mantra was unquestionable.

The querulent few who did question what atoms were made of were quickly rebuked as mavericks and the world settled into a state of knowledge inertia. What we don't know can't hurt us. IDIOT was there to protect the world.

And so it goes, till another Renaissance was born.

5 comments:

The Kid said...

this is a really interesting piece of story. I am appreciating it maybe because I too write this way ;) !

but the thing is, beyond the obvious I don't understand the characters? it is supposed to be soo obscure? or are these characters supposed to be the obvious (I am really slow.. you see!)

was there a tinge of religion?

nourish-n-cherish said...

Yes... you got that right! A bit of Sci-Fi coupled with a religious tinge.

As for the characters, I did not put any extra thought into their characterization - so what you perceive is what it is.

The Kid said...

this could be little tangential but tempted to note that there is a cartoon called "The second Renaissance", it is part of the Animatrix (set of 9 cartoons that were created with the first Matrix movie). It portrays very well about the human race's inability to learn from its folly.

I think it is for free download from whatisthematrix.com

The Kid said...

and so happy there is one other sole in the whole wide world who writes like me...

everybody justs wants character portrayal or a catchy ending or a funny thing to say, the subtlety in the bang is what I love!

(just read again) awesome story!

nourish-n-cherish said...

Pratap,

Thanks for the compliment. Just so I get the record straight, I don't usually write like this. I just tried it this time. Glad you liked it :)