He Came From The Future

Chapter 3

Ayisha

23 July 2018, 7:40 pm

"It's too cute..." I said as I tickled Troy – the robot, and it was giggling and rolling round and round on the bed. Ray who was working on something on his projected light film laptop slash smartphone thing smiled looking up at me. As I have seen him use it a lot now, I was getting used to it and started to regard it just the same as a laptop or something. It had the touch screen feature and all.... I mean, you can slide into different pages and zoom in and zoom out by moving your finger through the virtual surface of it in the air.

"Hm..." I said moving closer to Ray... "Does this thing just exist in air, or... I mean, where does it originate from? There should be a processor chip or projector somewhere, right?"

"Of course there is," Ray said.

"Where?" I asked.

He showed me his wristwatch. "In here." He said.

"In a wristwatch?" I asked.

"Hm." He nodded. "And don't you think it's a bit strange for a future boy to wear a wristwatch? To just know the time! People in 2018 has already mostly stopped using wristwatches, right? Because you can know time just from your mobile phones... So what I mean to say was that this is just not just a wristwatch and has many purposes like hiding many small gadgets inside it."

"Like a smartwatch. But better?" I asked.

"Yeah. Something like that." He nodded. "A smartwatch that is a computer and mobile phone, and a lot more. It's hard to explain all of its functions to someone from the past."

"But it doesn't look like a future gadget..." I said, grabbing his hand and examining his ordinary but a bit sporty looking plastic strapped digital watch.

"Am I crazy to go around wearing something in future style in public that will get me a lot of attention?" he asked, "of course, I changed the outlook of my wrister to match to this decade."

"Wrister?" I asked, "Ah.... Is that what it is called?"

Ray nodded. I noticed that Ray was not bothered or even noticing that I was still holding his hand. But I felt a bit conscious and left his hand at once.

"In future girls and boys must be in much more friendly terms..." I mumbled and turned to Troy again. Ray might not have caught what I said... But Troy was not on the bed. I looked up and saw that he was frying on air in front of us, and I saw a message pop up on Ray's laptop slash smart phone's virtual screen. The message said 'from Troy'. "Troy?" I asked. Ray opened the message, and a photo of me holding Ray's hand opened up. Suddenly I felt a bit shy....

"Troy..." Ray called up in light anger. "Why did you take a photo?"

Troy took the photo? I looked at the robot buzzing up and down in mid-air.... "Troy – like – together..." Troy said in a recorded voice.

"Troy can talk?" I asked yelling out. The slight embarrassment of the photo of me holding Ray's hand had vanished from my mind on the revelation that Troy can actually talk....

"Eh...yeah," Ray told me. "Obviously. If he is capable of self-thought, it's just another simple addition of the programming, right? But, troy is much more silent than other robots. Because his type of robots are designed to act cute, and hence he can't talk in full sentences. Like babies or something...."

"Ah..." I said. I sat back, and leaned against the wall looking at Troy...

"I got Troy as a gift from my parents on my tenth birthday," Ray said. When he said that he sounded a lot emotional. Maybe he was remembering his parents. When he talks about his parents there is something that feels like he is hurting from deep inside... I feel like there is more to his story than he is actually telling me. There is something that he doesn't want to talk about.

I wonder what that is...

27 July 2018, 12:32 pm

"Are you sure?" I asked Ray, looking nervously at Nathasha sitting alone at a canteen table.

"Damn sure. Go." Ray said giving me a push.

"I'm kind of scared of her," I said.

"What?" Ray snapped, "She won't bite you. And trust me – my mom is a really nice and sweet person. She behaves well with everyone. So, no need to be even nervous. And go." He pushed me again. I walked to Natasha.

"Hi, Natasha..." I said nervously to her. "Is anybody sitting here? I mean, if nobody else is sitting, can I sit here?"

"Sure," Natasha said, with a warm and friendly smile. "Your name is Ayisha, right?"

I sat down beside her "Yes. You know me?"

"Of course. You were in our school. If I am right, you were in section C, right? With Diya Saxena and all..."

"Yes," I said. I was surprised to know that she actually knew me from my school time.

"It's so good to see a familiar face in the crowd of this college, you know... I actually even thought to come and talk to you, but... Anyway, I'm glad we got to talk at last." She smiled. She talks with an American accent. Even in her Hindi. I have heard that Natasha was in the US until she was 14 and moved to or school in class 9. Maybe that's why I never seemed she was on the same level as any of the other girls. Because her talk, her style, her beauty, her clothes and accessories and even the way she smiles and behaves were actually always on a different level from any of us. She was way too smart and pretty.

If Ray had not told me 'my mom is really a nice and sweet person', I would not have dared to talk to Natasha. But now that I have talked to her, she really feels like a nice and sweet person.

Nathasha began to talk about our college and old school and all. She seemed like a really talkative person. And I was getting more comfortable with her, and I was starting to talk too...

"Sorry, I was late..." Came a voice and Dhruv slid into the seat next to Natasha. And he gave Natasha a squeeze with his hand around her.

"Dhruv." Natasha said in her jumpy voice again, "this is Ayisha. She was in school with us. And she was in section C."

"Hi." Dhruv nodded at me politely.

Nathasha was picking up a paper that Dhruv had just left on the table. She opened it and said in an annoyed voice to Dhruv, "You are joining the Tech Club? How boring Dhruv?"

He smiled and took the paper from her hand and trusted it into his pocket. And we continued to talk...

It felt weird to think that these two are Ray's parents. Also, I could not believe they will ever have a bad marriage, because they are so sweet and cute as a couple.

I tried to find Ray. He was standing a few feet away. He gave me a secret thumbs-up.