the Pilgrimage

Jattaar remembered the day his mother had taken him to the local museum to see the Circle. It was not the real Circle, the actual thing stood continents away, but even this facsimile was enough to roil his insides into a sense of importance, even pride. Pride stemming from the fact that he was now old enough to be initiated into one of the core, if not the only belief, which humanity held close to their heart, the Circle. It was the basis of their peace, the basis of their survival.
This was the first step in the initiation done on the day a citizen completed thirteen long-time units of existence. Usually taken to the museum by a parent or in case the citizen’s parents were pre-occupied by death or such trivialities then a government official. Next came a series of lessons to be undertaken at city town hall, here in a period of one long-time unit each individual was taught how the Circle fit into the governance of the entire planet. At the end of the period came the state sponsored pilgrimage to the Circle, which was repeated every long-time unit then on.

Jattaar’s friend Thimand had been to the Circle last LTU for the first time, he held his head with a sense of somber responsibility and of a person who ‘knows’, whenever the topic of the Circle came between the friends. This made Jattaar even more curious, even more eager to complete his initiation which still had some time left.
The date of the pilgrimage was fixed for every family, since the same set of families undertook the pilgrimage every LTU, they tended to form a bond based on just this fact, it is surprising how humans form solidarity in the most mundane of details. When Jattaar’s time came, they were picked up in a vehicle along with the other two families who did their pilgrimage with Jattaar’s. It was like any other get together his family hosted because these people were like extended family. Someone would quiz Jattaar from the facts they remembered from their lessons at the townhall and Jattaar never failed to answer correctly. When they reached the air-ship hub they boarded their allocated ship along with all the families that came pouring in from other cities. There was a sense of familiarity here too.
When after a journey of a few days they reached the Site, it was a sight to behold. Air-ships from all corners of the world had brought in a huge mass, the new-comers were clearly separable from the crowd just by the look of awe on their face. Jattaar had never seen something so big as this air-ship hub and had never even imagined a sea of humanity like this. And to imagine this cohort represented only one sector, there were 11 other air-ship hubs each catering to one Sector of the Circle, as Jattaar remembered from his lessons. There were arrow marks all over the place guiding people to their particular Arcs, at this point Jattaar said good-bye to the other two families as they had different Arcs.

His parents didn’t even need to look at the signs to know where to go, they had done the same thing since they had come of age. They finally reached the departure point for their Arc, there might have been hundreds of people at this departure point. When he had learnt that there are fifteen Arc departure points at a Hub it was just a fact, but seeing these many people assemble at one place was a different experience all together. From here they took a train to their arrival point. There came multiple trains but his was the 6th one from a total of 10 trains. With departure of each train the crowd seemed to be thinning down.
As the train neared its arrival point, Jattaar got his first glimpse of the Circle, a towering wall of solid grey. It was hard to believe that this was the Circle as it looked like a straight wall, but if one managed to tear their eyes away from the main wall and look towards one of the two horizons there was a faint give to the straightness, a testament to the curve of the Circle. Disembarking at their arrival point, Jattaar wanted to go straight to the wall, but it had to wait, they had been travelling straight for as long as he could remember. All the people who rode on the same train as Jattaar made for a building nearby, this was their stay for the night. Jattaar and his family found themselves in a big room which had bunk beds to the side and had an adjoining kitchen pre-stocked just enough for a big meal for the night.

When Jattaar finally saw the wall he knew it was around 10 meters tall, but he did not know what a 10 meter tall wall looked like until he saw it, it felt pretty tall for something whose measurement is bound by a measly figure of 10. As he neared closer he could see the wall was moving right to left which was not noticeable before. There were shiny rods poking out-wards from the wall at chest length and there ran a path along the wall below the rods which looked well trodden. There must have been a rod at every double arms length or so.
This was their pilgrimage, they had to hold on to the bars and walk alongside the wall from morning to evening, walk till they have reached a building same as the one they left from in the morning. People had their guesses about the purpose of the pilgrimage, it was the one topic least touched upon in Jattaar’s lessons, some said it was to unite humanity through a shared act some said it had to with the disappearance of a star in the sky which used to keep the skies bright and the land shining. But right now Jattaar was way too excited to think of deeper meanings of this action, right now all he wanted to do was to walk with the wall and complete this rite of passage, there was all the time in the world to think about reasons for this rite.

The illustrations used here are by my talented friend Divyanshu Pundir, hopefully you will see more of his stuff along with mine in future.