Wednesday, September 5, 2012

The Account.


The year is 2012.

Brack Jeremy was a teenager. He belonged to the United States of America. He breathed its air, ate its food and drank its water. Brack saw All American Girls and drank a big glass of Cola every day. He had 20 tattoos spread all over the body and always wore a cap which was too big for his head. Brack Jeremy was an American teenager.

One bright Tuesday in New York, 11 years ago.

Brack stood in a bus station sipping Cola. He looked around and found himself to be alone. It was 8:10 in the morning. He dug into his pant pockets and started searching something. There were more than 8 pockets in his pants. The search continued. In the 9th pocket he had a packet of Marlboros which he carefully removed.

“Don’t do it!” said a voice behind him.
“Shit!” he turned back.
“Who the fuck are you dude?” said Brack spilling his Cola on the ground.
“Click!” came a noise from the bag of the stranger sitting behind Brack.
“I’m just a somebody” said the stranger. “Who I am is not important. What I say and as a result what you do is very important for us.”
“Who us?”
“Everybody” said the stranger.
“Ah! You must be one of those guys. Those environmental jerks!” said Brack.
“No I’m not. I’m not them, but they are mine. All of them.”
“You mean you’re some sort of a mafia.”
“Oh I’m way above Mafia.”
“Your name?”
“Brack Jeremy” said the stranger.
“That’s my name freakshow! My fuckin name!!” yelled Brack. Our Brack.
“Might be. But I’m Brack.”
“So who is your boss?”

“It’s a question I ask myself. Who’s my boss? But I rarely get answers. I sometimes tend to think my limitations are my boss or the power that I have are my boss, but very rarely do I get instructions from them. I feel I have no limitations and hence I have no boss. But the fact that I had to think a lot about your question makes me believe that I have a boss. One day I’ll know.”

“Click! Click! Click!....” the noise from the bag cracked their conversation.
“What the fuck is that!” asked our Brack.
“That’s nothing.”

Brack looked at the stranger and observed him, top to bottom. He was as fair and reddish as a typical American would be. He had almost the perfect teeth. The letters on his bag read the word Nirvana.

“Do you study Brack?”
“Yes”
“What do you study?”
“A lot of things. But recently I’ve been studying about having a computer with infinite memory to it. Use space to save data and since space is infinite, memory will be infinite, for the unending set of data I play around with everyday.”
“You’re computer man!!”
“Yes. Aren’t we all?”
“I don’t have one. And I don’t want to have one either.”
“I’m sure you’d need for you All American Girl” said the stranger.
“What is that?”

The stranger chuckled. Brack tried to smile.

“Are you on Facebook?” asked our Brack.
“Yes. I’m the one who created it.”
“Huh! Mark Zuckerberg created it!”
“Exactly!” said the stranger and opened his bag. There was a big black laptop on which the words AMRAK were imprinted.
“You seem strange, what’s your deal bro?”asked our Brack.

“Oh! There are deals. Big deals that happen with me. Day in, day out. Deals with unimaginable numbers within them. Deals which give lives, take lives. Deals which make people on earth go nuts. There is an account, of big numbers, of superficial things, of unsatisfied bodies, of lusty souls, of materialistic relatives, of unattainable peace, of meandering thoughts, of crippled minds, of unintentional comments, but it all comes down to just an account of the good and the bad.”

“Are you a judge?”
“Sort-of”
“Do you have a gun?” asked our Brack trying to keep the Marlboros inside.
“No.”
He then took his pack out again.
“Don’t smoke. Your smoke is the culmination.”
“Of what?”
“An account.”
“Of?”
“As I said good and bad.”
There was an awkward silence. Both the Bracks stared at each other.
“Where do you stay?”
“That depends.”
“On?”
“On the time of the day. I get up at a place which is in the east and sleep in the west. “
“Bro! you’re a weirdo bro!”
“Yes, I am. You have to be a weirdo to understand all this. “
“Do you have a family?” asked our Brack.
“Yes.”
It was 8:45 AM.
“Ok bro! Here is my deal. I’m going to smoke this cigarette. I’ve paid for it. It’s my right.”
“It’s wrong. Don’t smoke. Here is why.”

He opened his laptop. There were two big columns on the monitor. In one column was a big number in green colour and in the other was a much bigger number which was in red. Both the numbers were increasing in value.

“What is this?” asked our Brack.
“An account” answered their Brack.
“Of what?”
“As I said good and bad. Your smoking is the end point, the culmination.”
“I don’t believe in the shit you say dude!”
Brack Jeremy opens his Marlboro box and lights one of them.
“What can you do?”
“Can you see that airplane?” said the stranger.
“Yes. That is flying freakishly low!” Brack.
“Watch that and also wait for the next one to repeat the act.”
“Repeat what act?”

30 Minutes Later.
Two airplanes crash into the World Trade Center in New York.