THE CHAINS

by Waheed Mohiuddin

  He saw there dying children, creeping women and bending over elderly. This was very pathetic scene for him but at that moment he could do nothing for them because he himself was like an alien in this world. He then took courage and started to move downwards. He had tears in his eyes with a smile.

  After a while, he reached in a valley where he smelt a dreadful smell coming out from the dead bodies that needed to be disposed off. When he looked at the inhabitants of the valley, he said to himself that Lucifer had selected the punishment for him to send him to hell. While seeing the plight of these people, he remembered the scene of the vulture that was waiting the child to die, the hunger and thrust was ruling all over the valley. He saw that the people did not have houses to live in not even the huts and their cloths were as nothing.

  While he was visiting this valley, he found it the worst miserable place of the worlds he ever visited in his entire life. He saw that the mothers could not feed their babies, the fathers could not do any work due to their illness and diseases, there was no concept of social life, and people were not communicating with each other and everyone was seated in a certain place and were looking towards sky with demanding eyes.

  He met some people in the land and asked them who were they and why they were in such conditions then he has been told that the people here in this valley belong to different races and religions and they were remain in this condition because they did not accept the Lucifer as their God, so Lucifer put them here in this valley and titled it ‘the hell’. He asked them again for how long they had been living in this hell and came to know that from the day the war ended and the Lucifer made a victorious visit to the world and sorted out the people who survived in the war. Those who accepted him God, were send in a different world where they were getting luxury and those who did not accept his supremacy had been send to this valley. He asked again that the war had been over for two centuries and how they were still alive? A man told him that Lucifer used their blood for his rituals so he needed us to be alive so every year a specific wind blows in the valley and then everybody become good in health and get the erotic feelings in them, then the couples enjoy sex and produce the children so in this way their race is still remaining but to provide blood games to Lucifer. This wind blows for a whole week and then again the miseries jump back.

  Rahas then visited the whole world which covered about thousands miles where millions of people were fighting with death or waiting for the death. He had to decide whether he would live in the same condition or he had to prove his existence. The corpses, hunger and diseases were making him depressed. He was thinking seriously today for tomorrow.

  So he got a revolutionary idea in his mind which was to establish the ‘True World Order’ in this valley, he thought that he could do it because these were at least humans although they were in bad condition but they had senses and the power to decide and that was the reason they were here in miserable condition but did not accepted Lucifer as God. He felt a great respect for these people for they were facing miseries and brutality of the Lucifer but were not accepting him as their lord. Then he got a great smile and thought that the people of God will defeat the evil and God will help them to establish a new world, a true world actually. Humanity will get rise again from the stones. He said to himself that only death can stop him to develop and he will keep continue his struggle till his last breath. He motivated himself and reached in the skies of his imagination. He was visualizing his future, the future of these people. He remained in his imagination for long time that his subconscious started chatting with super conscious.

  He then started work on his plan and went out of the valley and walked through the jungles and mountains all around and collected a bunch of fruits and vegetable. Then he came back to the valley with a cart full of fruits and a conch which could be used as loud speaker. He then raised his voice to the people and collected them at riverside, people gathered at riverside in a very short time to get the fruits, then he delivered a speech to the people and gave the fruits.

  He said to the people, ‘Man is NOT born free. He is chained with flesh, air, water and relations. Soon after the birth, he needs air to breath in, milk as the food and milk by the mother - the relations. I thought there are two kinds of chains, one is physical like a prisoner and the second the social chains like relations i.e. the family, friends and community but then I found another kind of chain - the feelings but other than the family and relations; the feelings associated with the supernaturals, the power of good and evil, the powers of the God and the devil. No doubt the most powerful the most strong; did you saw Abraham, how he convinced to put knife on the neck of his son, and how he jumped in the fire – the chains, the invisible chains. I love you all the people of God, I have no words to express my feeling and respect that I get in my heart for you because you are the real humans and the true believers of God and I pray to God to accept your sacrifice that you are offering for the last two hundred years. You are the one who stand against the evil and suffered the miseries, May God give you reward. O people, did you ever think why your race had not been eliminated even by the Lucifer and why you are still alive, may be God wanted to give you the opportunity to become the symbol of humanity, love, sacrifice and believe. I tell you about me that I am also one among you, you people have never seen the Lucifer’s Oneland where every luxury is available but I spend five long years in that world and at the end, I refused him and then he thrown me among you to die, but why not we become one nation and reconstruct our world, why we do not work for God and work to show Lucifer that the people of God could survive and establish themselves in every odd and can prove their existence. Let me assure you that God will help us if we will stand up against the misery but if we accepted our reality and did not perceive good, then our blood will be sucked by the blues. Believe that the reality in which you are living – is not the reality but your perception is your reality. Just imagine that you all have your own house to live in, you all have enough food and water for yourself, and you all raise your families and stop to visualize misery because at one time your mind can absorb one thing and it is up to you what you give your mind, smiles or tears. Tell me dear people of God, are you with me?’ the people hailed him in one voice and give him trust support him to establish a nation. He saw a shining smile, hope and believe on their faces.

  Then he asked the people to decide the title of their world and said, ‘o people, I want to give our new world the title ‘The Chains land’ because we people are in the chains, negative and positive, and visible and invisible. Do you all agree?’ Everyone hailed once again in favor and it was decided that title for their new world ‘The Chains land’.

  Then he welcome everyone in the Chains land.

  On the same day, a group of young boys and girls gathered around him and offered him their services, he already had a plan what he is going to do so he appreciated them all and hugged them and asked them to sit with him at the riverside. He gave them courage and told them the target. He said them that first of all, they need the people to be able to do work so their health was the most important issue for them and for a good health, better food was the necessity, so he ordered them to go to the jungle and bring the fruits and vegetable as much as they could, so the group made the carts with the available pieces of wood and leaves and then they went to the jungle, in the jungle they saw that how the nature love them which they had never discovered that they saw millions of apples, oranges, bananas, apricots, watermelons, and many more fruits. They were collecting the fruits, eating the fruits and also sharing jokes with each other. Rahas became surprised when he saw that just in a few hours they brought a lot of fruits, he also felt that the guys who collected fruits were happy as they were not hungry any more. Then the group spread all around and gave fruits to everybody.

  “Good bye miseries” he said to himself.

  On the next morning when he woke up, he surprised to see a large crowd at the riverside where he had made his hut. He saw that thous
ands of people were waiting for him and when he woke up, the crowed hailed to him in a big voice and a group of boys lifted him on their shoulders and started dance with joy. He could not believe it and then he looked up to the sky and said, ‘thank you very much’.

  Everybody of the youth, of the children, of the women, and of the elderly in the Chains Land accepted him their leader and assured him to support in all of his projects. Then he thanked all and assured them that they all will work together and to rebuilt the world and told them that they will have to work hard for days and nights to complete the task in time. Then he advised the youth to go on one side and requested the others to go back to their homes till after noon so that he would guide the youth for their next task and also to make up a plan for those who were matured ones.

  He then divided the youth in Groups, the first group who were comparatively healthy and strong, they were given the task to collect fruits from the jungle every day for one year, the special carts had been provided to them; the second group where the majority was the girls have been given target to process the fruits as the collected fruit must be washed and sorted out and then to made the packets so that the distribution would be equal and easy. This group was also responsible to keep the fruits store at safe places so that it would be used in the rainy days.

  Another group was selected after taken a minor test of mathematics and given the responsibility to count the number of huts, total number of people with the information of their religion, family members and about the skills of everybody. He ordered this group to complete their task as soon as possible because all of his next planning based on this census. He sent this group to their works and sat at the riverside and kept on thinking.

  Another group was given a task of hunting the wild animals for food, the group was also responsible to keep the meet in store in safe place because the meet was not for everyone but only for patients and pregnant women so the minimum animals could be killed.

  The group which collects fruit was working very hard and collected the heaps of fruits for the people, then it was decided that fruits will be displayed in different centers in the world where the people would get the fruits at any time to use. He noticed a particular human behavior one day when he saw a woman while was selecting the fruits, first she picked an apple then after a moment she put the apple back and took the mangoes instead. He smile and thought that on the very first day, people were dying to get any fruit, they had no sense to choice but now he was so glad to see that the human values are turning back.

  He invited first of all the people who showed their interest in agriculture and agricultural science. He found about three hundred thousands of people for the agriculture and five hundred for the agricultural science. He gave them task to cultivate the land and grow wheat, rice, vegetables and other grains so that the actual human needs for a healthy life could be met and advised the scientists to observe the land to find out which piece of land is suitable for which particular product so that the maximum output would be gained and also have experiments to develop better ways how to have maximum production.

  Then the group of scientists discovered a formula to squeeze the fruits and then to preserve the fruit juices for longer time. On the other hand, the hunters were also at their best performance and were hunted the animals with great care, and also seek guidance from scientists to preserve the meat for longer.

  The group of scientists worked a lot and provided their assistance to all other groups, the farmers grew wheat, rice and other grains, so in a few months, the heaps of wheat were stored. It was a great moment for him to see the wheat after a very long time. He wanted to celebrate the success and passed the order to invite everybody at meal on the coming Saturday night so that on Sunday (the seventh day) – they would have rest.

  By the Saturday night, all of the arrangements had been completed, special mutton curry had been cooked by a group women who also cooked the bread of wheat flour at first time ever. It was a great dinner; everybody was enjoying mutton curry with bread and also with the fruit juices. The whole nation was celebrating the success. People were getting healthy rapidly; they were developing the sense of taste and choice. He then again looked at the sky and said, ‘thank you very much’.

  By the passage of time, the food department became an industry; the scientists were doing a great job, inventing a lot of things to provide a variety of food items with taste.

  After the success of the food supply department, he (Rahas) noticed that the people did not have proper dresses and enough fabric to cover themselves from the hardships of weather and also ethically, he felt it to see women children in less fabric. So he invited the people who could support him to make the fabrics from the wool of the hunted animals and also from the leaves of the tree.

  As he had seen the spinning machines and power looms in the world before war but now there was nothing left but the blurred memories. They will have to take start of everything from scratch. The people who were working with him did not have even the idea of such machines. Thus he forgot the pleasure to get the pleasure; he started work with a particular group and gave them a task to clean the skins of the animals and separate wool from the skin.

  He appointed a senior scientist, Mr. Eddy Cort to manage the whole project. Mr. Eddy was a marvelous scientist with a brilliant mind, he divided the project in two stages, at first hand, he made a small wooden machine and titled it ‘charkha’ this machine could be made anywhere by anybody with the small pieces of wood and also gave training to a group how to use it. People learnt it easily and now they would make the fabric by themselves, but this process was very slow and demanded a deal of hard work. So by charkha, people would just establish the friendship with the machines and remain busy to make fabric for themselves.

  Along with it, Mr. Eddy was working on his long term project he worked hard with passion and just in a very short time; he invited Rahas to see his inventions. When he came, he wondered to see that Mr. Eddy had completed all pf his major tasks, all of the required machinery was ready; he appreciated him a lot and told him that he had done a great job for humanity and his name will be remembered with golden words in the book of humanity.

  Then Mr. Eddy promoted as the chief of the Industrial revolution and he invented many types of machinery which could support the people in every field of life. The machineries have been invented not only for clothing but for transportation, medical, printing press for education, drilling machines, stoves for cooking, and even telescope and also watches to measure the time.

  Rahas himself had a great interest in science and had the concepts of the scientific inventions which were invented by scientists before the war so he gave his scientists the ideas and then the particular group of scientist had invented a lot of machines which were similar the machines of pre-war age.

  He told them the story of Wright brothers and gave them idea to make the air jets to fly and also the satellites. These were totally new ideas for them but with their great hard work, devotion and intellect they were inventing latest machines every day.

  To improve the medical facilities, he explained them the X-Rays, MRI and other machines along with the advancement in medicine department. He told them to make Printing press so that the books and magazines may be printed for educational uplift of the people. Then he told them the detailed stories of Albert Einstein; Isaac Newton; Graham Bell’s telephone; Marconi’s Radio; John Logie’s Television; insulin of Frederick Banting & Charles Best; Clarence Birdseye’s Frozen food; ball point pen of Ladislao & Georg Biro; Anthony Blatner’s FireEngine; artificial skin of Dr John F. Burke & Ioannis V. Yanna; William Burt’s Type writer; DNA of Francis Crick, James Watson, and Rosalind Franklin; Nicholas Cugnot’s Motor car; Rene Theophile Hyacinthe Laennec’s Stethoscope; J C R Licklider’s Internet; Sewing machine of Isaac Merritt Singer; and also about many more inventions of wheel, fire and cooking, bulb and tube lights, computers and laptops, weapons like guns, tanks, submarines and fighter jets, and so many others. Al
l of the scientist listened the stories keenly and then promised him to remake all of these things in remembrance of those great scientists. He then passed a smile to all.

  He made a special order for everyone in the world to provide all the facilities and resources whatever the scientists need from them even labor for mining to find the natural resources.

  The industrial revolution brought a seismic change in the Chains land and in a few years, the scientist invented hundreds of machines and trained a lot of young people to continue the process. He was happy to see his Chains land which resembles with the world before the war, and he was also glad to see the man restoring his dignity. He then looked to sky and said, ‘thank you very much’.

  He believed that religion always been the most important for human beings and he knew that in the past, religion had been used as a weapon against humanity by the evil forces. He was aware of the past that there was no fault of religions but those who were hold the higher authorities in the religious organizations, so it was very important task for him to establish a center which might bring about harmony among all the religions. He felt himself at the cross roads, whether he should establish a religious council or declare the world as religion free. He thought that it is human psychological need to have a faith in and the ones who do not believe on any type of religion, they had so many emotional and spiritual problems as he already noticed in his past life besides it is also one of the basic human rights to perform the religious practices with freedom. Thus he decided to establish a central religious authority.

  He knew that in the Chains land, people would belong to every religion like Christians, Muslims, Jews, Hindus, Buddhists, Sikhs, Bahaist, Confunists, Taoists, Jainists and almost from every religion but due to their health issues and lack of resources and worship places, they could not perform the religious practices. One day he gathered a group of senior citizen and expressed his ideas about the religious reforms, and found a great appreciation from all.