Muonic Rhapsody and Cosmic Extravaganza

By Lali Gupta Chatterjee

Muonic Rhapsody and Cosmic Extravaganza is a collection of stories inspired by sub atomic particles. The characters live their lives in exotic settings far out in space or just hidden from us. Muonic Rhapsody is the story of a vibrant youth, eager for adventure. A reluctance to be curbed, romantic interludes and other adventures, entwined with reflections about our own existence and future make this science fantasy and fiction unique. Quoting from the original foreword – ‘…The mind boggles.’ The other stories take us far out into the cosmos through the voice of a galactic traveler experiencing the end of a star world and a cosmic romance.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Gatekeeper Press
• Release date: May 22, 2019
• ISBN: 9781642376012

Book preview

Muonic Rhapsody – I Lived and I Loved

Sections:

• I was born free

• In the first blush of youth

• Interlude – Who or what am I?

• Headlong into chaos

• In a pensive mood

• Disturbing the atom

• Muons in the hands of fate

• It is time to settle down

• People and particles

• And suddenly probability intervened

• Awaiting the Future

I was born free

I was born on the night of a thunder squall high up in the sky. There was no birth cry. No one noticed; no one welcomed me onto the scene. The encircling darkness, punctuated by angular streaks of light, the crackling thunder and the torrential rain were apathetic, as were the millions of particles rushing around.

My parents I knew not, for in my kind of world, birth pangs are often fatal. At the time of my birth, my mother must have been hurtling through the sky with enormous velocity, for I was spewed out at tremendous speed. I was born in motion and met life headlong. I vaguely remember a ghost-like twin, but soon lost track of her. I did not understand her then, nor did I query. I could just be alive and agog with wondrous curiosity.

I am too happy, too drunk with life …. I rush along, spinning, frolicking, laughing, dancing. I have inherited some of my mother’s attributes. Am I the female of the species in human parlance? But I am too busy to care about my nature or my past. I am too busy with living and moving, learning what joy is, what life is, and what this remarkable world is.

As I streak through the clouds in the stormy night, I feel flashes of awareness of attractive forces from various sides. I begin to realize the power my youthful beauty and energy have bestowed on me. But I shrug their beckoning aside as I proceed on my way.

Ah! Who are these that try to impede me? I do not care for the admiring glances cast at me. They cannot halt or capture me. Structureless though I am, I recognize that I am different from these beings that beseech my favors. I am like the mermaid, mesmerizing the sailors who are attracted and run after her. I see all kinds of you, heavy, light, very light creatures, trying to catch me. But I do not recognize or understand you. I pay no heed to the overtures. I pirouette around, flitting between them all. I reject your advances, oblivious of any dejection I cause. Why should I stop? Who can tame the wild spirit in me? Youthful exuberance, unleashed energy, I fly unrestrained.

At that tender picosecond age, I did not know much about myself and I was not in too much of a hurry to find out. People count lifetimes in years while mine is constrained to microseconds. The visible world nevertheless is intimately linked to mine. Like humans, we too have our feelings and our codes. Maybe, we too feel the agonies and ecstasies of interactions. But our society imposes only natural laws. Society may think us a scandalous lot and readers may be shocked out of composure. Probability has given us many kinds of feelings and we succumb to them when and where we please―whether society approves of it or not.

In the first blush of youth

Always look where you are going. Old-fashioned maybe, but a wise saying. What is happening? This is not like the mild overtures of the past; this encounter is something else. I am suddenly pulled inexorably towards a majestic being. What is this feeling? This strange magnetism that surpasses my impressionable mind and will? This awesome force that deviates me from my path and drags me into a whirlpool of desire? But I do not want this! I angrily refuse: I tell you I do not want to be diverted. I will not be rushed into surrender. I want to move on to see life, to feel life. I want to fly high over hill and dale with never a care for tomorrow. I tell you I will not be caged or even halted.

Why don’t you listen to me? How dare you continue to pursue me? Stranger still, why do I let you? Why do I allow you to brush my protests aside? Who and what are you? And why do I feel this way? Why do I seem to blush as you look at me? You do not even move. You just smile triumphantly as if you know you will win. You seem so permanent, so stable, as if you can wait forever. A peacefulness emanates from you that quells the tremulous tumult within