Author: Aishwarya Srivastava

They called it The Orb because “What the actual….!!!!!” did not sound proper in physics journals.
It appeared on a random Tuesday, a bright globe hanging next to the Moon. Telescopes were pulled out (a great tussle ensued to display who has the biggest one), and astrophysicists learned it’s a small burning body, moon-sized, a few million miles from the moon.
It did not move. It flickered a lot. People living on the Moon claimed it also grumbled.
At first, it was merely scandalising. It revived the careers of many conspiracy theorists.
But within five years, its temperature had increased enough to toast the Amazon twice. Within ten, cornfields went from green to imaginary. A third of the oceans had evaporated, leaving salt behind (this was an issue because stocks crashed for companies selling salt).
Arvind Rao, the tech billionaire who was a major investor in the salt space, hated only two things in the world: unsolved mysteries and falling salt stock prices.
The Orb was both.
When he landed on the moon, it was too bright. The Moon Hotel attendants raised their hands and blamed the Orb. When he went to sleep, the loud cosmic grumbling did not let him.
Enough! He would expose the idiot aliens behind this!
Back on Earth, Arvind stood before cameras and explained, “Consider a mosquito. It lives for a day. One human second might be its entire month. To understand even one human sentence, he would have to wait entire centuries in mosquito time… Perhaps we are the mosquito. Perhaps this grumbling is only a syllable of a long conversation. I must record it for decades and then interpret it. Who knows? This might just answer how the universe began!”
He then started building a universal language interpreter. He funded physicists, linguists, and a think tank devoted entirely to finding out what the goddamn grumbling meant. He grew thinner. He died.
The Orb grew warmer. Doctors grew richer. Both from people seeking treatment for artifact-burns and other doctors dying of heatstroke.
Religious institutions revised several sermons.
By the time Meera, Arvind’s great-granddaughter, started her research, only 30% of humanity had survived.
Meera had inherited all of Arvind’s hatred for mysteries and none of his fondness for press conferences. She was, hence, more efficient.
She finished the universal-language interpreter.
She reached the moon and pressed ‘off’ and ‘download’ on Arvind’s recorder.
She put the recording through the interpreter.
The cosmic grumble cleared.
Static. Screeching. Then a robotic voice said, “…damn them for revising regulations. Can’t even burn trash in peace”.
“Regulations!” another voice scoffed, followed by violent coughing noises. “Had to come all the way here to burn it.”
Crackling. Roaring.
“That insect colony on the blue rock is gonna burn completely in a few hours because of this. I feel bad.”
“I don’t think insects feel pain.”
“Are you sure?”
Another cough. “I don’t know. It’s too much work to check.”
“You lazy idiot!”
They laughed.