A season that was

This story is not from a far away time. Number of cars still exceeded buses. And number of buses still exceeded the number of tube. Neither is this story from far away future because Sakura still bloomed around the city and old wooden bridges could still be walked upon.

During this time close to one park which was blessed with season’s best Cherry blossom views. A man named Mikmac was sitting and enjoying his cups of tea all while counting the number of sakura flowers over the tree next to the the garden gate. The wind was mild and sun’s heat soared by an umbrella of clouds. He had already counted till forty and was a bit distressed as his eyes were soaring.

 It was then that he noticed that there was a girl sitting next to him and looking at him curiously. To be true, he already knew the girl was there but since he could not manage not to look at him. He had started counting the flowers. But now he had no choice but to answer her gaze.

 ”A good morning to you, miss”, he bowed and questioned politely, “Do I interest you anyway”
“Why do you ask so?” asked the girl.

“Probably, because I have been sitting here since an hour and you have not paid a moment of attention to Me.” she pointed at the cherry blossom tree, “What interests you in them?”

“They are the cherry tree, miss” He said shyly “They hold stories”.
“And do I not?” she asked with a stick in her voice.
MikMac was taken aback by such a straight question.

“I know not what to say”, first he tried to look her directly in eyes but found them scarily pretty. He stole his gaze away.
“I know not what to say. Can I offer you a cup of tea?” he asked searching corners.

Was his discomfort not visible? Were his shaking hands, the sudden jerks of his head not visible to all? Did he not understand the anxiety filling his aura?  We know not of him but the girl’s flooding eyes did tell that it was a visible color.

She politely declined, “No thank you, I must leave. Please do enjoy your counting of the sakura. They rarely flower so pretty”. So said she stood from the chair and took her leave.

The cafe was seven steps below the road. The hurry in her steps was visible even to the wind which shed sakura flowers as if to fill the love her steps drained from the scene. Once she had distanced herself from the cafe, and the garden was out from sight she switched her phone on and dialed a number.

The voice on the other side was as frozen as pine in winter. It spoke with calm “I suppose you have already met him?” The answer was not in words but in sobs flowing like waves touching and returning over a shore.

“Had I not warned you of this meeting?” The woman at the other end inquired “Tell me your location I will send a car”
“Thank you”, she replied, pausing to fend her tears off, “I will wait for the bus”.

Alas, but the bus stop too was sheltered under a sakura tree, flooded with lovers still able to recognize each other. Alas, for her sobs were now as loud as the engines growling around. Alas, for the tree did not shed even a single flower down into her lap.

The talking guns

At a time clocked only in the memories of wind, at a place known only to the sand. The quiet of the night was about to be breached. The signs that new gear was coming were clearly visible with robots laying down and anchoring the helipad mats. The only thing left to do was to fix the LEDs.

The chopping noise finally broke the silence. And after it went away, the whole night was filled with the music of gun fire, normal celebration procedures. The quiet of night returned soon afterwards. Desert was desert again.

Come morning, the daily breakfast chatter held lesser accounts of yesterday's sex and more about the new gear that had arrived. Every body was boasting about the guns that had come, some said they fired light out from their nozzles, some talked of invisible bullets, while others of noise less bombs, some even said the new guns talked.

The whole chatter was so strange that even the quieter once held their ears open. The rumors grew stranger every day. It was only a week after that strange landing that a few men belonging to the most ruthless teams were called. They were given the new machines, for hours they stayed inside the caves. There they received instructions for their new assignment.

Soon everybody had started preparing and loading the gear. They were to attack the nearest village and take it over. The orders were clear to annihilate the whole population. It was also told that the newly arrived miracles were up at front.

Every one was excited about the raid. The village was still a few miles away when they were instructed to halt. A line of warriors sitting on horses was standing in front. A few were strong built, a few looked old and few looked like children.  A battle was about to start. The lead team got out their jeeps and started fixing their guns.

Once the enemy was in range they all started their customary prayers "O lord! Pardon us for we want to fight those men hand in hand but they too have weapons. Thus we have no choice", they added, "I wish not to press the trigger more then once, which is to save my own life but even If I do it for once the evil in my hands does not stop and fires infinite more; O lord! Pardon me"

Said so, the men in front removed the lock of the guns and waited for a signal. Soon the men started racing towards them. It was then that the received the signal and they pressed the trigger. Putt! One bullet fired.

Strange; the men thought, they pressed the trigger again, Putt.

Everybody checked his gun, fount it was still locked. He removed the lock and fired but again it fired only once. Every time they checked their guns they found it in lock position. So many times they tried but every-time the gun automatically returned to the lock position. Soon they were pushing the trigger like mad men. But it was not enough.

The time soon ran out, the team raced backwards to join the contingent. Some in hurry left their stupid guns behind.

Soon the rocks had changed position. Several men over the horses had taken position behind the rocks.
It was then that one boy found one of those strange guns still standing on the rock.
As he approached the gun, it talked. "Stay away or I will shoot"

The boy fell back in horror. His eyes were still popping out of his eyes, when it saw the barrel of the gun pointing towards his face.
"What are you doing here?" the gun talked again.
The boy probably had a lion's heart. He did not run scream or panic but said "those men are trying to destroy our village, they are evil men, they plan to kill us all"
"strange! the men holding me was saying, he did not want to press the trigger more then once but kept on pressing it again-n-again" "why?" the gun was addressed the boy.
"They are liars, they are evil. They want to kill us then they will go to our village and kill everybody there".

"Evil, the word I understand", the gun said, "Do me a favor can you pick me up and reverse my direction."

The boy was not a scared kid. He was most happy to change the direction away from his face.
Once done. The gun said "now do yourself a favor, go to other gun over at our left and give it the code I tell you"
Ok! The boy said and ran away towards his horse.

What happened! The commander of the fleet asked. Why are you retreating? Where are those expensive
guns?
The guns are defective. They wouldn't fire we have been cheated.

That was the last word which he could say as a bullet silenced him. Soon a flurry of bullets started piercing through their outfit.

Very soon, the jeeps started retreating but even that could not protect them from being wiped out.

The seventeenth Rebellion

English political institutions were on the verge of disappearing from the stage. The Grip of the secret service, an ever visible reality, was a dog lash tightening over each and every neck across the Great London Expansion. The new western council management services or simply put NWCMS had the mandate to monitor the eleven hundred million Europeans citizens.
To get the parliament out of the game, The New Western Council had just declared the European parliament as the greatest terrorist threat to the free world. English parliament, at first, tried to interfere but once half of her members disappeared and most of the rest were found in one jail or another.
There was nothing much that they could do anymore. It was somewhere a decade back that it’s powers to determine taxes had been taken away from it. Within a year, the parliament was nothing more then a group of former Elites who couldn’t even shout out their estate windows.
President Foxtrot of the Great Western Union had called their meetings as an attempt to rejuvenate the Great English Circus. Very soon the city councils were abolished. It was soon followed by the abolition of the judiciary services and other royal services. The qualifications for the Peace and Policing Services were made lenient, probably to include more muscle.
Within a year, the civil service exams were cancelled and recruitment was made directly from various universities. The reason given was to encourage the better of men towards joining Defense Companies. With the losses suffered at the Great Eastern War Line, the defense companies were always complaining of the shortage of man power.
It was during this time that the attack from the Anonymous international shook the Great London Expansion. Within a night The London council of governors had lost its control over the extended territories.
It was an unexpected attack- The Anonymous Internationals had struck and disabled five central servers. The extended territories took advantage of the outage. And by the early morning the Cities of Paris, Madrid, Brussels, Berlin & Warsaw had declared separation from the Union.
To the knowledgeable men it all seemed too much to not be called a well planned conspiracy. The five cities where the servers had gone down were the same which had declared separation. The Governing council soon declared it as a rebellion. President Foxtrot declared it a per-meditated conspiracy against the people of free world. He ordered correction measures of the highest level.
When watched from the National Space center, the concentration of armed satellites over the European skies felt like a beehive. And armed paratroopers were dropped all across the rebel strong holds. It was declared that within a day the servers will return to function.
The battle ships covered the shores and emergency was declared. Any Plane without a flight plan with western union was ordered to be shot without a prior notice. Emergency was declared all across the boundaries of the rebel territory.
The rebellion regions were under the complete siege of the Council Fleet. Their commander demanded immediate access to the servers otherwise threatened them with a nuclear response. They were given a time limit of 15 hours. The world kept watching but the rebel cities did not bulge.
At the fourteenth hour the commander of the fleet ordered to prepare for a nuclear strike. It was then while all the preparations were complete and the commander was waiting for the final call from the council office, the unthinkable happened.
The fleet lost all its communications. Its equipments stopped responding. Not only there but all the electronic equipment in the whole London expansion went blank. Machines stopped running.
The robots stopped working. The vehicles halted at their place. The planes lost their auto pilots, factories stopped. The cities painted with electronic bill boards became a shed of black. It could be seen from the National Space Center, complete Europe suddenly converted from a light house to the dark Korean patch.
The confusion lasted for about fifteen hour. Not a single response reached the space station. The havoc turned into a silent horror movie scene. If felt as if Europe had been removed from the map.
Suddenly a voice came from no where…
“Parliament commences in 10 minutes. If you want to attend- Step out. Parliament commences in 10 minutes. If you want to attend- step out. Step out”.
Soon the screens all across the Europe went ablaze with scenes of speeches from the days of freedom. Every few moments, the screen would pop out a new scene from one of the parliaments- people talking, standing up, and cheering the speaker.
For a moment it showed the old parliament building, empty like it was these days. It stayed there for a moment then suddenly it showed the last prime minister giving his famous freedom speech and the parliament giving him a standing ovation and the fetal shooting afterwards.
President Foxtrot was watching the whole broadcast on a screen right on him and was looking down at the blue globe placed on his table. “Sir, we have lost control of the Great London Server, the city is no longer under our control” said the men behind standing behind him.
“Order the Commander to launch the nuclear strike”.
“Sir, unfortunately the fleet too has joined the rebellion; the Joint Marshal of the fleet has declared his allegiance to the new London Parliament”.
“This is a disaster. Call the war council; tell them to prepare for emergency…”He was cut in between.
Parliament is in session, Parliament is in session.
What? Foxtrot looked at the giant screen in front of him. It was playing the same message again n again. “Parliament is in session, Parliament is in session”, showing the direct view of the London parliament with its entire brimming expanse.
How?? A horror flickered over Foxtrot’s face. But it was soon replaced with that of terror. The voice over the screen soon was dwarfed by the evacuation siren screeching above.
A robotic voice was narrating evacuation procedures ‘evacuate, evacuate, the gravity generators have failed, evacuate. Plethora will enter mars atmosphere in fifteen minutes”.