The work begins anew, the hope rises again and the dream lives on…

Sheldon had been hoping that one day he will join the league of the gurus as a theoretical physicist. Only then will his scientific contribution to humanity be appreciated. That’s a dream he knew would one day come true however long it took. He had proved himself in all the experiments he had done and was just waiting for the nod from the National Association of Theoretical Physicists. This dream came true on 15^th November 2012 AC when Sheldon joined the Academy of Theoretical Physicists. He had just grabbed a life time award but was still not comfortable. Something was missing in his life. Someone was missing in his life. He knew what ‘it’ was but couldn’t exactly tell where ‘it’ was or when ‘it’ would come. He was like a bird with a broken wing that needed to land immediately but was still mid-air. That could be a disaster in the waiting. There was no ‘landing spot’ for Sheldon and he insisted on flying even with a broken wing. Whatever Sheldon was missing was surely on its way. He could not however tell when ‘it’ was gonna reach him. 

Sheldon and Stella became so close. They talked on phone everyday whenever opportunity arose. Early in the morning. In the wee hours of the night. They sent each other useless texts. Am getting into the shower. Am cooking. TTYL.  Ooops!! A mosquito just bit me. ILYSM. IMY. The visitors. It was fun and bliss. Play theatres. Coffee. Lunch. Pizza with her friend Aimy. They had all sorts of adventures planned for weekends. Sheldon had gotten what he was missing. Stella.

Grapevine had not yet caught wind of what was going on. Few people are in the know. Of course Aimy knows. Former CIA detective Atwengson spotted them once at one of Pasadena’s famous city restaurants. Sheldon and Stella started dreaming together. They talked of the future. It was somehow fitting. Too ambitious for life. Call it optimism based on present happenings. Serious things were happening so fast.

All was well until the red bird tragedy. Stella didn’t want to talk about it. Sheldon wanted to know the details. He cried over the whole thing all nights long. Let it lie there. And then Stella joined the Service!! People in Uniform. Separation anxiety was real. Aimy felt it too. Sheldon cried all nights long. Sheldon wanted to see Stella before she left Pasadena but time was not there. He was left dreaming that one day all shall be well.  When John F. Kennedy thought of going to the moon, he didn’t say ‘it is too far! We shouldn’t even try.’

Instead he rose to the challenge and today an American flag marks the surface of the moon.  Stella will be back. Sheldon will be happy. All shall be well.  The bliss will continue. Sheldon misses Stella to bits. Bugger is in love. Dude cries whenever he thinks of Stella. Poor man loses appetite when Stella comes to mind.

Sheldon in East Texas; Stella in Omaha

Sheldon is from East Texas. Born and raised and schooled. This is a town with high internet connection that made his childhood bearable. The only thing he didn’t like was the direction in which the winds were flowing during summer. He was the envy of the neighborhood kids who considered him ‘too grown’ for his age. He never played with anyone because his favorite game, Bingo, could not be played by anyone around. The neighborhood kids could not limit the level of decibels that suited him. So he avoided them altogether. For someone who knew that when stairs were  few inches taller (sic) than the height set by an architect then someone would triple, there was no clear match for him in the neighborhood. He knew this too well because his brother had fallen and suffered a broken ankle due to ununiformed staircase which tend to keep someone’s centre of gravity off balance. That explained the extra 4 inches in his dad’s coffin because the ankle didn’t heal upright. The family considered suing the architect but the suit was dismissed.

Sheldon got the best childhood his parents could afford. He never lacked but he didn’t have everything he might have wished to have. His favorite possession was a telescope his uncle had given him on his 10^th birthday. His lost it to neighborhood nerds who stole it from the backyard of their house. Few months later he managed to find but not in a working condition. He managed to lift fingerprints off the surface of the telescope and sent them to FBI for investigation. He knew very well that the FBI didn’t  not have the fingerprints so he sent a note saying the fingerprints should be kept safely till the suspected thieves attained age of majority upon which the FBI would get their fingerprints. The FBI never responded. Till now Sheldon has no confidence in the FBI and wonders whether their motto ‘fidelity, bravery and integrity’ is still relevant.
 

As soon as Sheldon stepped in college, he wrote a paper which according to him would ‘revolutionize the thinking of humanity on the presence or absence of sub-atomic particles in a vaccum’. This paper was supposed to be published in the school magazine. As fate would have it, the computer used to type the paper was stolen.  He had lost a precious piece of work. Sheldon had to turn to the FBI again.  He requested the FBI to monitor scientific publications for the next decade to see if anyone had adopted his line of thought as regards the presence or absence of sub-atomic particles in a vaccum. Till now, nobody has ever published anything along Sheldon’s line of thought. The search for the thieves of his computer is still on and for someone who stood in a queue for six hours to get a ticket to attend Steven Hawkin’s talk on theoretical physics, he is not losing hope anytime soon. Patience is the word.

Stella is from Omaha Nebraska. Born and raised too though schooled elsewhere.  This is a city founded along Missouri River and is often referred to as Gateway to the West. It is a relatively cool breezed place that offers good temperatures for an average mammal. The area has a mountainous terrain and offers a good scenery. Stella grew up here in a small tight family with two sisters and a brother. As a first born daughter she has had to be a role model and so far she hasn’t disappointed her siblings. Stella’s childhood passion was to be a photographer. She loved shooting beautiful scenery. The saddest part of her career was when someone stole her camera on the day she joined graduated from Pasadena School of Photography. She lost all the moments she had captured on that day. Very few photos of that day remain with her. When she told Sheldon this story of losing her camera, Sheldon almost laughed and realized it wasn’t funny. He would have risked a slap. Stella’s parents are definitely proud of her. She loves her parents to bits. Any move she makes out of town has to be ‘approved’ by her parents. There is a time she was out of reach for two days and her Mum had to send someone to 111^th Street Pasedena to confirm whether she was ok. It turned out that there was no power and her phone wasn’t charged. Even Sheldon was worried as they had planned to have ice-cream at the cheese cake factory that weekend in the city centre. There is also a time Stella made an ‘illegal’ trip to Iowa without informing her Mum. Only Sheldon and Aimy (her bestie) knew of the trip. Sheldon persuaded her to call her Mum but she was reluctant that doing so would cause them a lot of worries as darkness was setting in quickly. It was a business trip anyway and the illegality comes in because she didn’t inform her parents. That evening before Stella travelled, she met Sheldon in town and for the first time she saw him eat fried chicken and French fries. To Sheldon, a man eating fried chicken, French fries and a soda is likely to be gay. He didn’t order a soda though Stella teased him about the whole ‘don’t-ask-dont-tell’ thing and she threatened to order a soda for Sheldon. Not much can be said of that evening. What followed thereafter when Stella was in Iowa was a story written in hell and told at the hottest part of hell.  Not so many people know about it and will never know. Tight-lipped. Forever and ever.

Conversation between a dying Father (September) and his Son (October)

September : My son I'm tired.

October :Why?

September : My time is up, I will be going to join your fore fathers.

October : I know, your time is over. I will miss you Dad.

September : Let me tell you some things before I go.

October : What is it Dad?

September: Please when I go, make sure you take care of this person.

October : Who?

September : The person READING this conversation of ours.

October : Okay.

September: I made some promises to this person during my reign, I fulfilled some, and some I couldn’t.

October : But why couldn’t you fulfill all dad?

September : Well, my son time and human factors affected some of the
promises....

October : But...

September : But surely, I spoke with God on this person's behalf, and God granted my wish that you may fulfill the rest promises that I couldn't. So these are the rest of the fulfillment you will carry out on this person.

October : Go on dad.

September : Stabilize this person's health all through your reign there shall be no sickness! Open a direct link between God and this person.

October : Done, carry on Dad.

September : Ensure that this person's dreams come to reality within the shortest period of time.

October : Alright.

September : Give this person wealth that will touch lives of multitudes.

October : Surely.

September : Make sure that you remove all remaining hindrances to success from this person's way and make the year a huge success.

October : I will dad, no problem!

September : Pay more emphasis on the advice of this person's friends, don't worry about that of this person's enemies, God will take care of that! Get it?

October : Yes

September : Finally, promise me that when your own time is up, you will instruct this to your offspring after offspring (November & the others) to keep positive fulfillment of this person going!

October : Yes dad, may God help me!

September : Now I can pass to the beyond happily! May you be prosperous!!!

October : Amen. But sorry Dad, who is this person again?

September : The one who will type "AMEN”

the William Butler Yeats piece

Then one day, something (un)ethical happened. Both Stella and Sheldon were attending a conference on the effect of radioactive waves on people staying or passing close to power lines. Stella being a photographer wanted to know how her clients would be exposed by the gamma rays from her lenses. Sheldon being a theoretical physicist was just being at the right place at the right time. A study done in Denver Colorado had indicated that exposure to waves for a period of more than five minutes at a distance of 21 yards from the source had the effect of killing brain cells responsible for ‘thinking upright.’ A similar study in East Texas where Sheldon hails from had come up with totally different findings. The person who was to present the Denver Colorado findings didn’t show up. Sheldon had waited to confront him with his shoddy findings. As Sheldon waited for the good professor of radioactivity to come, he threw his morals and ethics out of the window and pulled a William Butler Yeats on Stella from nowhere. The William Butler Yeats piece became viral. A fire had been set ablaze. Stella saw the fire but didn’t know who had set it. It took her time. She thought of confronting Sheldon after he had been pointed out from a crowd. She held her horses. Sheldon set the fire when he was sitting next to one of his Jewish friends, the Slow One.  The Slow One didn’t know he had helped Sheldon with firearms.  He was that clueless or may be he just didn’t care that he had released the much needed info. You know how the Jewish don’t grasp things fast enough. All this time when firearms and intelligence was being handed over to Sheldon, Stella was just two or three arm lengths away. Chatting with her bestie who he later learned was called Aimy.