2507

1. Tǔrǎng

*Purely Fictional Story*

AN: The language spoken by the characters may be very evolved from what we speak today. But for the purpose of this FF & for our ease of understanding, the language is set to earthly english & thooya tanglish.

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Year: 0725, Planet: Tǔrǎng

Sivonge stepped on the moving walkway and set it to take her to her pod (in earth terms: bedroom). She had just finished her supper alone in the common room of their floor (in earth terms: veedu) and was waiting to be enclosed in the comforts of her pod and doze off to sleep. She usually preferred to walk across the huge expanse of their floor after the second supper but today had been a long day at work and she was craving the silence of her pod. As the moving walkway took her past the closed door of her parents' pod, she let out a sigh with a slight helpless shrug of her shoulders. If she had seen a single green light outside the door, she may have entered that pod to comfort her mother, but the two green lights indicated that her father was inside as well, so she knew her mother would be getting the support she needed.

She let her thoughts drift to something about work when she realised she was crossing the other pod - her brother's - when she heard the loud music coming from inside. Sivonge knew her brother must be rehearsing his dance moves for his graduation ceremony. "Ivalo loud noise will surely be detected by the night patrollers. Loosu a ivan" She opened her multipurpose device 'MD' (in earth terms: phone) and navigated to the control panel of their floor. Finding the settings of volume for her brother's pod, she drastically reduced it, and instantly saw that the volume was increased again, but well within the permitted limits. Chucking to herself that her brother understood her intent, she then increased the speed of the walkway. Berating herself for not choosing the seating-mode on the walkway, she impatiently shifted her weight from one tired leg to the other, willing her pod to arrive quickly.

Her heart gave a grateful exhalation as the door of her pod came into sight. She got down from the walkway and tapped her MD on the panel outside her pod. The door pulled itself up letting Sivonge enter her vibrant space. Setting her work-shoulder-sac on the table near her bed and putting her MD to charge, she entered the bath-pod for a quick shower. She contemplated if she should choose the sixteen-minute hair shower setting or the seven-minute quick wash setting.

"Naalaiku work presentation iruku, so ippove hair wash panniduvom" she decided. She was tempted to choose the double hair shower setting, meaning she would get twice the time in the shower, but a quick glance at the water meter panel affixed in the bath-pod showed that her floor was already dangerously low, almost reaching the end of the permitted water limit for that month. Pouting, she chose the normal hair shower setting and entered the glass bubble which enclosed around her, readying herself for the shower.

Sixteen minutes later, she moved into the drying-pod where the moisture from her body and her hair was absorbed by the warm air circulated in the closed pod (the moisture would then be processed and converted into water for their toilet flushes). Wrapped in a soft robe, Sivonge stepped into her pod and went to her cupboard to pick out work outfit for the next day. Laying out the clothes she chose on her dressing-table chair, she removed her fully charged MD from its charging dock. Before turning off the charging dock, she checked if the Ministry advised 'mandatory to carry around' emergency oxygen mask was fully charged. They hardly had any use for it, but it was a norm to always carry it, and since the divice tended to lose charge even without use, they had to charge it often. Seeing that hers was sufficiently charged, she put it back in her sac, and was immediately distracted by the notification on her MD that she has a visitor.

Sivonge assumed it would be Govindan - their robot-domestic help - bringing her her nightly turmeric beverage. However, the MD recognised it to be her mother. Sivonge instructed the MD to open the door for her mother and smiled as soon as she saw her mother with the beverage.