Three events on an American Highway

My car is racing at speed of 60 miles per hour, through interstate highway no.I-20, piercing the twin cities of Dallas and Fortworth, connecting the Atlantic and Pacific oceans: one of the arteries of American economic system. This is rush hour and the four lanes including mine are full of myriad of cars, vans and trucks. There is hardly any gap between two vehicles and the flow of vehicles is  incessant.  Similar is the case with four lanes of traffic in the opposite direction.

I feel that I am one of the millions of red particles  flowing through many such arteries that invigorate  nation’s commerce and industry. The oxygen of money and energy of my being keep the red particle that I am alive and robust. Many red particles like me rushing in road vehicles, trains, and monstrous jet planes/ ocean liners keep the economic system of the nation healthy. All the countries of the world are engaged in a maddening rush to achieve economic status  similar to this wealthiest and most powerful country.

The entire human race is engaged in an unstoppable race and the speed of that race is increasing every moment like a supersonic jet engine. No end to this rat race is visible in near future too. All are rushing with a lunatic gusto, towards an unfathomable abyss of total destruction at tremendous speed. None has time, intention or leisure to apply brakes.

As I am engrossed in these depressing thoughts, suddenly a spark of truth and reality dawns  in my poignant  mind that I have missed my right exit and am heading towards west instead of east!

…….

I am profusely sweating, lying like a corpse in my bed. An appalling dream has just awakened me out of my slumber. It pertained to the same highway I-20, after just forty years. The road was desolate even at the good old rush hour of 8-00 AM. Not a single vehicle was passing through it. Wild vegetation growth was rampant in each nook and corner of its stretch. It was lying like the rotting carcass of a panther of  the bygone economic and social system. Trillions of ants of misfortune had eaten away the once powerful being of at monster.

All highways, railroads, ocean routes, and airways were devoid of any means of transportation. The last drop of petroleum and last piece of coal had vanished from the world since last five years. All the water reservoirs were also empty, subsequent to all round bombardment in third world war, fought on a gruesome scale, for command over water and energy sources. Ninety percent of the world population had been annihilated. The unprecedented heat generated out of the nuclear weapons had melted the polar ice caps, resulting in rise of ocean level, that had engulfed all coastal ports. All the invincible powers of the globe had nosedived into irreversible devastation. Aye! the economic and social systems had  virtually disappeared into oblivion.

Only a few unfortunate human insects like me were roaming and moaning, here and there in the forests for water and food. The sky scrapers of the bygone metropolitan cities were lamenting of their past glory in the rampant vegetation kingdom. The human life was crawling at snail’s pace, sniveling, aching towards rejuvenated, cave age antiquity. I was standing there alone – depressed, lifeless, impotent, hungry and thirsty – on the same I-20 – now a part of the expanse of a thick forest. I was perspiring even in the prime winter and trembling with fear on the possibility that a wild animal may gobble me up any moment.

I woke up from that wicked dream; wailing over the fact that the exit in wrong direction had brought human race, as well as myself to this downhill destiny.

………

I return from the bathroom, reinstating myself from the poignant mental jolt. I realize that all the above was just a bad dream. I sleep immediately and start snoring to wake up in a fresh and fragrant dawn.

I am now driving a car again in the morning rush hour. But my car is a small, environment friendly, battery operated one. But the previous rush is conspicuously absent.

Now there are very few and small offices in the town. Most of the people are working over the internet from their  homes. All the merchandise is purchased from virtual reality e-Shops and delivered on the doorsteps, house to house, through giant trucks. People visit stores only for luxury items. They travel on road only to meet friends/ relatives or for pleasure like me, as I am going to a resort. All go to nearby rail station only and take up automatic, high speed electric trains; parking their cars in huge, multistoried parking lots.

Majority of transport is by myriad of trains much faster than the Japanese Bullet train. All factories are operated by smart robots. Most of commercial vehicles on road too are driven by such robots. All stores are operated by such smart robots only. The commuting  people are only those who maintain ultra smart plant, machinery and giant power houses or pleasure seekers like me. All routine production and maintenance is done by smart robots.

All the energy needs of the world are met by millions of large scale Tokomaks ( Controlled Thermonuclear fusion Reactors) . These small replicas of Sun are capable of generating virtually free electricity of the whole world for thousands of years. These have changed the governance of whole world. All industrial/ commercial/ civic/ residential/ transportation operations are driven by their power. They also produce abundant water for human consumption at gigantic desalination plants on seashores. Ocean liners and jet planes are also plying with Tokomak power.

Pollution is a thing of the bygone past. Conflicts between nations for possession of water and energy sources and gruesome wars are also matters of antiquity. The whole world is governed under a single flag of human race : it is a single nation world.

I murmur my choicest poem

“ The race for existence hinges on a single hope;

O Sun! create your controlled spark in tiny particles.”

(Tokomak is an energy source, that generates thermal power in a controlled way, resembling the operating process on Sun.)

And my car is also plying on the road , thanks to that mammoth source of power. All the evils, pride, jealousy, power struggle, rat race and pushes and pulls of human race are gone forever. I listen to my choicest Gujarati song on radio receiver of my car – a transmission from radio station on Mars.

This new exit has made me a corpuscle of a super human race.

And I wake up again; off this dream, fresh, encouraged and cheerful and take an exit to my notebook to narrate the first reality as also the two fantasies into this article.

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Click here for original story in Gujarati

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