Hundreads of seconds have passed since I last called her. You know, we live in a galaxy where it is next to impossible for a 1 to talk with a 0. For starters, our 1’s and 0’s are concepts similar to your males and females.

We are pretty much similar like you earthlings, we have a very complex nervous system, which we try modelling using a computer. Just like your approach to computing, ours are skrewed up too. But so far, that is the best we have got, so we ought to live with it.

Coming back to communication again, our society believes that the total population should be kept within the limits sustainable to our home planet, Merkhambe. Our host rulers have decided that we curb the 1-0 interaction as much as possible so that the population is very well below the limits permitted.

By the way, host rulers are our elected representatives who simplifies the process of decision making for us. They decides upon the crucial issues that affect our liberty, personal freedom and even our existence and creative expression. They control us so that we conform to the guidelines set by them.

We happily obey because they are the elected leaders - Leaders elected by us. Though we don’t have much say on the kind of people contesting the elections, they are the elected representatives. They could take decisions that could in turn endanger our lives.

So the 1-0 interactions are extremely limited. Our host rulers are religiously committed to maintaining the genetic diversity and keeping up with the random genetic pool mixing. They believe that this would positively correlate with an evolution in the proper direction and hence we will evolve into a much better species within a much smaller time frame.

So the grand computer, which is situated in the center of the galaxy, selects a 1 and a 0 randomly and gives them a chance to mate whenever there is a deficit in the number of total living memenoids in the planet. Also, a surplus resources could trigger the procedure. 1’s and 0’s live on the different sides of the planet parted by a great wall.

We suppress the urges and wait for the computer to choose us. There is no counterpart for your ‘love’ in our culture. For us, coming together with the other half is just for reproduction (in favor of the empire), there is no point in falling love. We don’t fall in love, it falls upon us.

I met Ayesha on one such pick. I was writing a piece of code for the graphic engine of an obsolete quantum computer. I know that it is obsolete, but they say it is still considered as a giant leap in some obscure galaxies far away. They warp the shippings regulary so that the unlucky beings of universe are getting a better chance of survival. We don’t deal in money, but in energy credits. Also the anything that boosts the ego of a host ruler is quite likely to win a deal for them. They deal the wealth of the galaxy for us. And we, write code that may or may not make a difference in the greater scheme of things.

That is a stint about my career. I write code for a living, so does most of us. Our codes make our masters richer. Some people get food from the code that we write. Some die a death for the relays that we set. Our race writes code that power the core of the galaxy; or so we believe.

Ayesha and I were selected for apparently no reason. We are meant to believe in Akhora. Akhora is true randomness. That the grant computer is truly random. We don’t really know about a way to generate Akhora. But the indoctrination goes that it is perfect. And 99.99% of us subscribe to that. Or it doesn’t matter actually. All that we are concerned about is writing proper code that will provide us the energy credits to stay alive for yet another day.

Even I was a stauch believer of the Akhora. I remember sitting near my mother’s body when I was seven. They were praying to the kindness of Akhora that gave her so much time on Merkhambe. But many children had mothers who lived much more that my mom. Somehow the Akhora forgot to choose them or it chose my mom instead.

But my faith on the Akhora dwindled when I was picked again with Ayesha! It was almost destroyed when we were picked again for the third name. It was as if the Akhora was making a mistake for the first time. But The mistake kept on repeating, as if there is a glitch in the system.

We were the fortunate chosen pair, who would fall in love for the first time. The only thing peculiar about our relationship was that we didn’t really go by the rules of the empire, we didn’t mate when were inside the cage. That may be the reason why we would always be picked again, to fulfill a prophecy, a claim that is to be made, A debt that remains unpaid.

[I shall return]