To Explore is to Defy

The sun shone on me, and its rays dripped on everything around me. It is so warm, like a blanket of feathers wrapped around me. The sun looks so radiant sitting in that blue sky of his. I wonder what’s up there in that blue sky that treads for miles and miles. I do feel dejected to think that no one will ever come to know the secrets it hides within itself. 

The world we live in is as bare as can be. We live to fulfill our basic duties of work, eat the food we earn, and sleep to start the morning again. We meet up to indulge in parties celebrating special occasions, farmers markets, and various fun trips with friends/family. But there is never anything of value, never anything that we can learn and indulge our curiosities in.

We are only told the basics, or rather, taught them from birth. There’s the sun, stars, and moon that reside in the sky. There’s an ocean that has fish that we eat for nutrition and taste. Neither do we know any details about them, nor are we allowed to ask.

We are made aware of only what is seen with the naked eye and will impact our everyday lives. Educating us about anything beyond that is deemed unnecessary, even harmful. 

I live by the beach (or so they call it). To me, it is just a body of water, and sometimes, if I squint just enough, I see a fish that I have never seen before. We aren’t allowed to go into the water. We have to stay, at all times, 25 feet from it. It always makes me wonder what lies inside it. There are times at night when I hear noises coming from that way, but I just shut my eyes and sleep it off. One time, a ward had just about seen me from my bedroom window, looking towards the ocean. I had escaped his eyes just in time. 

The wards are a mean bunch, and I intend to never be in their line of sight. They walk through the streets day and night making sure no one is doing anything they aren’t supposed to. They change positions every 7 hours to rest. Wards are inspectors the government hand-picked through a rigorous trial and evaluation. 

Every time a ward passes, a new trial begins to replace them. I was called upon to be a part of the trial once, but for whatever reason, I wasn’t selected. However I did my best to make sure that they believed I wanted to be a part of the institution. It wouldn’t have been good for me if they thought otherwise. You are thought to be outstanding if you are a ward. You are given the power to regulate and make sure society functions normally. You are essentially thought of as the savers of the world. 

I never wanted to be a ward. I am way too curious to have to be the one stopping any attempts at exploration. Plus, no one knows what happens to the attempted explorer after they are seized. They are never seen again. I do not want to be on the punishing end. I can not live with the guilt of having to punish an innocent individual. To me, they are innocent because, just like me, they have the desire to learn.  

The tribe doesn’t think like me, though. That is why they have these rules set out for society. If anyone tries to defy orders and sets about to inspect the unknown, they are to be presented before the tribe. 

The tribe is our self-appointed government. They are the ones that select the wards. They have power over everything and lay the rules, as far as we know. They are law and order for each country and only mingle among themselves to know what is going on in the world. Travel to other countries is banned, so we have no possible way of exploring the world. No news outlet shows the affairs of other countries. You only come to know what happened near you and what is deemed necessary. The tribe doesn’t like curious minds. For as long as I can remember, their motto has always been “Curiosity kills cats.” 

In my head, I changed it to “Curiosity killed the cat.” That sounds much better!

For the tribe, words like innovation, exploration, and curiosity are the leeches of the world. And we are untouched and undisturbed by them. We aren’t maligned by the creations that await us. The tribe believes that too much knowledge is harmful and that we know just enough. They think that more knowledge can lead to chaos, and who knows what might unfold. If the leeches get to us, corruption wouldn’t be far. Therefore, exploration isn’t allowed and might never be. 

There was a group once that defied the rules of the tribe. There’s an abandoned facility close to my house where a group of men tried to research the sky and the space beyond the clouds. They started calling it Space, as no other name suited it well. Their leader, Jo Ben, was the most curious person to ever exist. He didn’t care what the rules were. He had the hunger to learn and to look at this boring world with a new pair of eyes. Eyes that had seen a new layer of the world that maybe no one else had. He was especially interested in the sky and the world beyond it.

So, he started this group and included those who he knew were dying to know more. They called themselves “The Searchers.” And that's exactly what they did. They searched for anything that could give them information on what the sky held. The group would journal their findings after gazing at the sky each day. They would roam the library for any source of information they could find on the sun and the world beyond it.

The books in the library were already so scarce that finding anything about space was beyond imaginable. The libraries were raided by the wards every day to make sure that nothing was smuggled in. People lived in fear of the wards and were quite content with the life they lived. It just seemed better this way. 

Coming back to the group, they secretly met whenever they could during the changing of the wards. It was a matter of thirty minutes before the wards would exchange positions and all the important information of the day. During that short period, there was time to go about anything secretively. The group would show up at this deserted building to discuss and seek answers. 

They would track the movements of the sun and moon. How both rose and then dove deep back down to the ground. They noted which days were anomalies, and the sun and moon behaved differently. They kept note of things like the timing and how the sky changed during each hour. 

The group would often see stars diving for the ground in full force. However, they could never see where these stars would hit or what that would cause. If they were lucky, they saw these spheres that resembled neither the sun nor the moon. The group knew they weren’t stars either because they didn’t twinkle. One day, after months of observing these spheres, the group figured that these were indeed objects that were permanent parts of space. They had to be sure of them and keep track of them for weeks to make sure that they could consistently see them appear and disappear. Sometimes, these spheres would be visible to them. And then perhaps the spheres would hide back in the space they came from. The theory needed to be worked upon, but the discovery had been made.  

It was official; they had discovered something new that they had never seen before. They didn’t know what these spheres were called or what their function in society was. They certainly had to have a job like the sun and moon did. Now, the group just had to focus a little more and find out the details. 

The group was beyond excited because they had done it. Everything was going great until it was not. 

That’s when the group made their first and only mistake. They yelled in their excitement and celebrated. In their happiness, they forgot the time and the fact that the wards had changed positions by now. And that’s the day their most exciting discovery became the most dreadful. 

The group was broken up, and the individuals who made it up weren’t seen again. It could be that they were transported to a different country, or maybe they were kept prisoner. You never know what happens until it happens to you. The worst part is that their journals were destroyed, and the facility they used to brainstorm in was left abandoned. 

So, no one will try this again in the future; society was informed of this group and their disgraceful plot. The wards told everyone how such temptations of discovery aren’t education but a try at defiance. Such things never lead to any good. 

(RING RING RING RING RING RING RING. The alarm clock rings.)

I suppose this story is enough for today. This is Jo Ben signing off. How I survived and did not get caught is a tale for another day. All that is important now is that our findings will not go to waste. More groups will form and perhaps even collapse. But my exploration will never stop. 

All I hope now is that someone finds this tape one day and puts all my stories and findings to good use. I will be back with more updates. Until then, goodbye. 

(The tape recorder beeps, indicating that the message was recorded.)

I get up to stash the recorder away in my hiding spot. It is 2:30 p.m., and the wards have changed positions by now. It is my sign to step outside and close the door behind me, ready to walk out into the world again.