Short Story:  The Man from Inner Space

In this short story, Purbali Sengupta narrates a captivating tale of fear and ambition intertwined with the desire to prove your worth.

It was all over the news. The major national and regional papers covered it diligently. An accomplished, brilliant man from India was to be part of a historical NASA mission to the International Space Station. When Girish Samsa scanned the images of Shubhanshu Shukla meticulously in the newspapers, the twinkle in Shukla’s eyes was something Girish was drawn to. It was the same unapologetic spark that his own eyes unmistakably held ten years back. Girish was a more hopeful and energetic version of himself back then. He was barely twenty-five and had cleared the administrative services already, preparing to climb up the bureaucratic ladder for a promising career. Unfortunately, his first desk job butchered his soul. 

Girish Samsa woke up one morning to find his appointment letter in the morning post. It was a clerical position at a public works department close to the railway station, where he occupied a solitary house in a desolate residential area. He was encouraged by his peers to consider his first appointment as a stepping stone to future excellence. Nonetheless, that very day, Girish felt a strange pang travelling down his spine into his ribs, yearning for explosion. At first, Girish dismissed it as acid reflux, but eventually, he choked on that same acerbic taste every single morning for the next ten years. Until that morning. The NASA man with his inquisitive eyes peering out straight from the English daily nudged the emptiness brewing inside Girish, and that morning, for the first time in ten years, he felt he could skip his daily dose of antacid.