The Adventures of Utharagama

 

In Pursuit of the Gigalithic Circles

 

 

 

 

 

 

Table of Contents

 

I.    The Hero Awakens. 1

II.    Attack of the Alley Goat 2

III.   The Fare-Free Bus Transfer 4

IV.   A Villain and a Surprise. 6

V.    The Triumph of the Examined Life. 8

VI.   The Tropospherical Interloper 10

VII.   A Ghost’s First Flight 13

VIII.  The Hero’s Homecoming. 14

IX.     A Last Farewell 17

 

 

 

In homage to days of friendship and co-operation I shared with Jie Jie and Uthara; dedicated to the little hero in each of us.

                                                                                    -  John Lehning, September 2005

 

 

 

 

 

Disclaimer: The resemblance of any of the fictional characters in this story to any real persons is purely coincidental.  (ha, ha, ha!)

I.   The Hero Awakens

 

She came to in a deserted alley, just off the main drag.  Her entire universe ached, yet a dogged mental impulse made her momentarily put aside her suffering in a frantic effort to recollect her status.  After several moments of intense concentration, as the fog covering her mind was still slowly receding, she had mostly pieced together what had happened.  “Crackers!” she swore under her breath.  How had he gotten the drop on her once again?!  Who could have betrayed her to him?  None but her family and loyalest co-op friends even knew of her plans for summer prospecting in this foreign land!

 

In her initial cogitations, her fragmented mind had neglected one minor detail: the gigalithic circles![1]  Reflexively, her hand excitedly patted for the little satchel hidden in the inner pocket of her khaki shirt.  Gone!  No, it was not fair!  Her head sank back into the dust of the alley, and she felt like curling up into a tight fetal ball.  The sweet fruit of her summer’s exertions, with its seed of fortune and fame: slipped through her grasp; nay, seized by the forces of darkness!  At this rate, she would never attain her Ph.D., nor, dare she think it, someday have a miniature shovel named after her!  Oh, and the cover of Dirtdigger’s Monthly Journal, for which she practiced posing every night – now for naught!  Instead of Utharagama, all of her archaeological colleagues would be singing the praises of the evil Schliemann! 

 

No, it must not be!  Beneath the glare of the noonday sun, Utharagama uncurled herself and struggled slowly to her feet.  The higher she rose, the more her poor head pounded.  Once she had straightened herself out to her full stature, she laughed through her pain, “Oh, and I had thought I had a headache when I was lying in the dust!  Fortunately, I am not too big!” 

 

Quickly taking stock of her surroundings, Utharagama determinedly trod toward the main street, where she hoped to rendezvous with a bus to the airport.  Where else could Schliemann be headed?  She had no idea of his ultimate destination, and knew she must intercept him before his plane departed, if she were to preserve any chance of regaining the gigalithic circles.  But he had such a head start!  She could only hope that his plane would be delayed, which gave birth to a deep thought.  “Hope,” Utharagama mused philosophically, “is for the passive!”  Speaking thus, she produced her cellular telephone and called in a spurious threat against the airport.  “That ought to hold him up for several unpleasant hours,” she chuckled to herself smugly.

 

So consumed was Utharagama with her cleverness, in fact, that she had not attention left to pay the mundane sphere.  “Plunk!” went her foot down into a deep puddle.  Starting, she nimbly withdrew the dripping extremity, realizing, as she looked down, that this was no mere puddle; rather, it was a giant sinkhole spanning virtually the entirety of the alley, completely filled with water!  Without lifting her head, she could glimpse a narrow path running alongside the sinkhole; yet that sight only added to the sinking feeling that had descended upon her stomach.  From somewhere out of the past, paralysis suddenly gripped her, and she would not – could not – even raise her head.  “Please, no,” whispered Utharagama, “it cannot be!”

 

But surely enough, her plea was answered, exactly in the way that she so greatly feared: “Naaaaaahhh!  Naaaaahhhh!”  Peeking through the spaces between her fingers, Utharagama realized that it was indeed her old adversary, the goat of the alley!  Only this time, she could not afford retreat.  Slowly, cautiously, she paced toward her opponent along the thin strip of dry land.  The alley goat, for its part, coolly did the same.  That the goat of the alley was tough, she knew, but it startled Utharagama more than a little bit – perhaps she hadn’t noticed before – to perceive a surprisingly intelligent gleam in its eye.  Her heart pounded – what would she do?!  One thing was certain: she had better think fast!

 

 

II.   Attack of the Alley Goat

 

By now, Utharagama and the goat of the alley had met on the narrow strip of land, midway along the sinkhole.  Somewhat anticlimactic, in fact, was their confrontation, for anatomy dictates that the human being is no match for the goat in a smash-mouth, shoulder-to-shoulder, straight-ahead pushing contest.  Thus, to the observer, who would surely have prognosticated its inevitable outcome, the actual enactment of this spectacle was perhaps comedic.  Truer, the perceived humor of the situation was appreciated by all save poor Utharagama, as, not without overconfidence, even the alley goat seemed to grin as it slowly and inexorably repulsed the futilely striving hero.

 

Feeling the jaws of defeat closing swiftly upon her, Utharagama had no choice left but supplication.  (Actually, Utharagma did still possess her whip; however, she was far too gentle and humane to use that instrument of torture upon an innocent goat, particularly since such a tactic might rouse it into charging at her full bore and butting her with its pointed horns).  So, tilting her face heavenward, she cried out passionately, “Hear now Thy despairing servant, Great Uthara, Goddess of Table Tennis and Paraclete of earth-bound mortals!  Prithee, send to Thy servant Utharagama Thy Providence, Thou, who so bravely ki — er — had Her husband die under suspicious circumstances and took control of his kingdom![2]  Lacking Thy boon, Thy servant shall ne’er overcome the pestilent alley goat and reclaim the purloined gigalithic circles for Thy greater glory!”

 

No sooner had Utharagama’s mellifluent tones finished ringing up to heaven, than did she perceive the rumbling of a diesel engine rapidly approaching from behind.  She turned to glimpse, of all things, a bus!  “Crumblin’ crackers!” she swore into her sleeve, “What strange aid the gods send these days!”  She could not decide which was more fantastic, the exorbitant velocity of the onrushing chariot of public transportation, or the fact that the bus was (gasp!) a Northwood!  “Crackers!” she repeated, “I must think quickly!”  But all Uthargama’s cognition was only in vain, for her wonderstruck mind was hopelessly fixated upon how the Northwood came to be so far south, goodness, on an entirely other continent no less!

 

Still, as the Northwood drew nigh upon her, as in all heroes, there surfaced within Utharagama an almost unrecognizable instinct of valor, such as remains steadfastly aloof until the summons of direst occasion, and then departs once more just as quickly as properly possible.  One ray of hope still shone, the newly-enlightened hero serenely realized, and without hesitation, Utharagama leapt upward as high as she could jump, somersaulting through the air toward the alley goat.  The alley goat, for its part, although initially much taken aback at its opponent’s new stratagem, recovered swiftly, in accordance with the lightning reflexes often becoming the unreflective minds of the lower beasts, raising its horns malevolently.  The more thoughtful mind of Utharagama, however, had foreseen the alley goat’s dirty tactic, and had allowed plenty of freeboard to clear those pointily curved sticks of keratin.

 

“If ever a landing needed to be stuck…,” thought Utharagama nervously, as her sandaled feet swung around toward their hopeful point of touchdown on the spine of the alley goat.  Although she did indeed strike a landing that a gymnast would envy, rather than a complacent bow from the back of the dumbfounded animal, Utharagama leapt once more, with all her strength, up and out over the path of the imminently approaching Northwood, swinging her whip as she took flight. 

 

The whip connected solidly with the passing side-mirror assembly, wrapping securely around it, as the Northwood’s wheels splashed down into the sinkhole, chopping up the muddy water into a whitish foam that sprayed forth in all directions.  For several danger-imbued moments, it seemed as though Utharagama’s venturesome leap might fall perilous inches short.  Yet, as if sensing the very breath of doom upon her neck, Utharagama gave a last, desperate heave upon her trusty whip, veritably hurling herself atop the bus.

 

“Oof!” sighed Utharagama, as she ingloriously flopped belly first onto the roof of the bus (alas, she leapt like an anthropologist after all!).  Amid her pantings to refill her shock-depleted lungs with sweet atmosphere, Utharagama couldn’t help but appreciate how she had been unconsciously training for the just-passed moments, even during her epic, late-night table tennis battles against her dear colleague, Jie Jie, Queen of Ping-Pong.  Wondered Utharagama, “If only Her Highness could see me now, would she still make light of my ‘hopping around’ to reach incoming balls?”

 

An even greater pity it was, though, that Utharagama, who was careening wildly along the top of the speeding, jostling bus, had to focus the entirety of her energy upon maintaining her tenuous grip on the handle of her whip, which had now become, in fact, the very handle of life itself.  For I quite fancy that she would have been uniquely poised to appreciate the poetic justice dripping from the image of the alley goat, with its head lowered in defeat, drenched from horn to hoof in muddy water.  Alas, alas!

 

Still, grander exploits and greater glories lay ahead, no doubt, for which Utharagama had already begun mentally preparing.  Thought she from her precarious station, “If only I can hang around long enough to transfer to a bus destined for the airport!”  Aye, Utharagama wasn’t ready for a free ride back to North Campus just yet.

 

 

III.   The Fare-Free Bus Transfer

 

By the time the Northwood had swung out onto the main street, Utharagama had been able to recover enough of the slack in her whip to prevent her inertia from throwing her completely over the side of the turning bus.  The bus had merged aggressively into the sea of cars, trucks, and bicycles that choked the bustling city’s streets, inspiring a chorus of honks, angry shouts, and violent, incomprehensible gestures from several lanes of traffic, and also causing Utharagama to hurtle along the bus-top until her legs dangled perilously into the adjacent lane of traffic. 

 

To Utharagama’s relief, her whip showed no sign of slipping from the Northwood’s right mirror assembly.  Yet, although not a physicist, she realized that her smartness with it was not only to be credited for her as yet clinging to life.  “Thank Uthara that the Northwood took a right turn instead of a left,” intoned Utharagama, pulling herself fully atop the bus once more by virtue of the tension induced in the whip.  Should the bus take a sharp left, she would find her whip to be impotent against tension’s twin, compression.  In that case, Utharagama would careen helplessly over the side of the bus and down to the pavement, where she already of seemly proportion would rapidly become a whole lot thinner.  “No matter,” Utharagama thought unflappably, “the need for transferring buses is only made more urgent.”

 

Although the Northwood had seemed to be speeding recklessly through the alley, since joining the main street, it had only accelerated.  The increasing wind thrashed madly at Utharagama’s long black hair and flailed at her cuffs and collar.  The overpowering din of the air rushing past her ears masked all other sound from the vibrant city in midday. 

 

From her prone vantage point atop the Northwood, four lanes across, she spotted a city bus.  How desperately Utharagama yearned to transfer, for perhaps that was the very bus to the airport!  Yet at this velocity, it was all Utharagama could do to hold on for dear life.  Ideally, she would, of course, wait for traffic to stop or even slow before attempting to change buses, but the many traffic signals and signs dotting the roadside seemed to suggest optional guidance rather than mandate legally binding requirements upon the inhabitants of this city.  That is, on this road there seemed to be no stopping!  “Zitherin’ zwieback!” cursed Utharagama beneath the wind as she observed one of those passing signs displaying an airplane and left arrow; she must move now at all cost!   

 

Peering over the side of the bus, Utharagama could see in the next lane an open-topped livestock truck.  Normally, this reeking, rail-sided flatbed would not be a vehicle into which she would readily dive, but under the circumstances, Utharagama unwound and reeled in her whip, pinched her nose, and unhesitatingly rolled over the side of the bus, plunging down into the flatbed among the livestock. 

 

“Naaaaahhhhh!   Naaaaaahhhhh!” heard a panic-stricken Utharagama.  Grovelin’ graham crackers!  Had her worst nightmare been realized, landing in the back of a truck with several dozen vengeful goats?!  But as she tentatively poked up her head like a periscope from the darkness at the feet of the closely spaced animals, Utharagama joyously realized she had misunderstood!  “Baaaahhhhh!   Baaaaahhhh!” they had said, not “Naaaahhh!”  Thank Uthara, they were not goats at all, but sheep!

 

After allowing herself a momentary sigh of relief, Utharagama hurriedly clambered up the flatbed’s side rail, for, thankful as she was, she could not afford to follow the herd.  Looking forward astride the rail, Utharagama could already discern the ramp to the airport, she who had still two more lanes to cross!  A passenger car was coming up alongside her livestock truck, and her one chance was to immediately belly flop onto its roof.  “Here goes nothing,” she thought grimly.

 

Utharagama hit the roof with a thud, which apparently startled the vehicle’s driver, for the car made a sudden swerve across its lane, during which Utharagama was somehow able to keep from sliding off its smooth top.  Despite this good fortune, as she looked up, much to her consternation, her newfound car was still one lane short of the swiftly approaching ramp to the airport!  Driven to assertiveness, Utharagama stuck her free arm down into the open driver’s side window, grabbed the steering wheel, and jerked it forcefully to the left to initiate a lane change.  “I do beg your pardon,” she shouted gently over the wind to the frightened driver, peeping her sheepishly clad face down over the windshield, “but I simply must get to the airport.  Think you can pull even with that bus?  Very sorry to have disturbed you – just as soon as I transfer to the bus, you are free to resume your way.”

 

The terrified driver nodded rapidly in response to this insane request, and the nimble automobile quickly drew alongside the ponderous bus.  “A little closer, a little closer,” coached Utharagama, with the airport ramp imminently ahead.  “Steady now, steady!”  Swaying in the onrushing wind, Utharagama crouched up onto the balls of her feet.  “Farewell!” she cried, decisively leaping from the roof of the car just as the paths of the two vehicles began to diverge, bursting through the flimsy swinging doors of the bus, and landing cat-like, upon her feet, on the stairwell leading into the bus’s coach.

 

“What’s the fare?” queried Utharagama, beaming widely up at the bus driver, still panting from her lane-changing exertions.

 

“Transfers are free in this city,” replied the bus driver gravely, “now would you please take your seat?”

 

 

IV.   A Villain and a Surprise

 

As the bus drew nigh upon the airport, Utharagama could see that air traffic was slowly resuming its normal pace.  Where in the airport might she find Schliemann?  As an internationally recognized criminal and class enemy, he wouldn’t dare board a commercial carrier, even in disguise.  The risk of immediate lynching would be too great, as indigenous peoples across the world tenderly wished to shred him to pieces on sight.  No, finding Schliemann would be much more difficult, for he must have bribed a corrupt airport official into stowing his personal aircraft in one of the private hangars.  Annoyingly, then, Utharagama would have to penetrate the airport’s security perimeter to continue her quest.

 

Upon alighting from the bus at the terminal entrance, for once in a normal manner, Utharagama slipped aside unnoticed and began to probe the perimeter for a weakness.  Sneaking inside would be child’s play, she found; perhaps the current depletion of the guard force was an unintended benefit of her earlier phony security threat.  In any case, within minutes, Utharagama had come across a hole in the outer fence likely created by small native mammals traversing between the grasslands within and without the airfield.  Enlarging it a mite, Utharagama was able to squeeze through the gap and proceed to wiggle through the spirals of razor wire that lay directly beyond.  With great caution, she arose and proceeded toward the hangars, for, although not an outright deterrent to Utharagama, she would surely face a lengthy term in an inhospitable foreign prison if caught.  Yet the lethargic airport security force proved no match for Utharagama’s suave stealth, as she surreptitiously crept underneath airplanes, swiftly darted behind corners of buildings, and adroitly ducked behind fuel drums, until there remained but a single hangar to be searched.

 

Was she too late, or would she meet her quarry here?  As Utharagama slunk up to the entrance to the hangar, her right eyelid began to quiver.  Such an evil omen could portend only one thing: the very presence of the foul Schliemann himself!  Utharagama gritted her teeth and entered the pitch-black hangar... 

 

Her eyes strained to make sense of the shadowy patterns in the darkness, but to no avail.  Fear gripped her, and her stomach wound into knots, as she suddenly realized that some of the shadows seemed to be moving; but before she could react, Utharagama was blinded by overpoweringly bright light poking into her eyes!  Yet her vision was not necessary to identify the owner of the sinister voice that abruptly addressed her:

 

“Zo, Uttaragama, ve meet again it zeems!  I feared ze vorst after your, nasty mishap, shall ve zay, in ze alley!

 

“So sorry to disappoint you, Schliemann, but your goons botched yet another attempt on my life.”  As Utharagama spoke, she could make out in the foggy haze maybe half-a-dozen of those very goons surrounding her with their pistols drawn and pointed at her heart.

 

“Vell zey vill pay for zeir incompetence, Uttaragama, don’t vorry about zat!  I only vish you coult liffe to vitness zeir punishment!”

 

“Your wistfulness is quite touching, Count.  But before you have me murdered, tell me one thing: who informed you that I had come here in pursuit of the gigalithic circles?”

 

“A little bird landed on my shoulder und vhispered it into my ear,” replied Schliemann, in unbefitting earnest.

 

“Don’t be coy with my last request, Schliemann; I had thought you at least abided the villain’s code of honor!  It was John Lehning who betrayed me to you, for refusing to become a house officer!  Wasn’t it?!

 

“Lehning?!  Der lügnerisch suddeutsch Landarbeiter!  Gar nichts!  Wach auf Vogelchengespenst!  Komm hier, bitte![3]”

 

Following this opaque but obviously livid pronouncement concerning the former president of her co-operative house, much to Utharagama’s astonishment, there fluttered down from the rafters of the hangar what appeared to be a juvenile bird.  Yet this hatchling seemed too young to be on its own just yet!  How could it even – wait no, it was not fluttering – Utharagama’s still-adjusting eyes had deceived her!  The little bird was floating!  It was a ghost!

 

“Now zatsify my little freund’s all-too-curious mind, Vogelchen,” said Schliemann, but before the bird ghost could utter a word, Utharagama had sorrowfully remembered all.

 

“You killed me!” shrieked the fuming baby bird ghost, pointing its tiny wing at Utharagama.

 

“But it was an accident,” pleaded Utharagama, “I worked so hard to save your life!  With or without my action you would surely have perished!  I was only a little girl and didn’t know any better!”

 

“You didn’t know!” exclaimed the baby bird ghost derisively.  “Mother birds since Archaeopteryx have nursed their young in the same way for only the last 150 million years, yet you didn’t know?!  But never mind that —,” the baby bird ghost continued: “To avenge my agonizing death by choking upon your too coarsely prepared solution of pureed rice, my soul traveled to the netherworld to become a ghost.  Ever since that day, I have bided my time, following, watching, waiting – waiting for the moment of revenge to ripen, like a berry upon the vine.  Oh, long I have I been patient, but now, I may rejoice in watching your end,” cried the exuberant baby bird ghost, “for the harvest season has come!”  And with that, the bird ghost fluttered back up to the rafters, chirping out a beautiful song of jubilation. 

           

“Danke sehr, Vogelchen.  Sie will für ihre Verbreche bald einstehen, mach dir keine Sorgen[4]!  Now, as you mentioned the fillain’s cote of honor, Uttaragama: evil as I may be, gott knows I’ffe nefer killt a helpless little baby bird!”

 

“At least it was an honest mistake, Schliemann,” replied Utharagama defiantly, “unlike your premeditated crimes against humanity and nature!  I only regret that this poor and innocent little bird has now been tainted with your evil stain!”

 

“Zilence!” cried Schliemann.  “A hero like you could neffer understand my role in ze universe, but zat point has become qvite moot.”  As he stalked off towards his aircraft, Schliemann called out, “Garts!  Vonce my plane is aloft, zee that Uttaragama has a most unfortunate accident.  And don’t fail me zis time!”

 

“Ja, Herr Schliemann[5]!” replied the leader of the guards, dumbly.

           

 

V.   The Triumph of the Examined Life

 

As a troop of seven guards held her at bay with menacing pistols, Utharagama helplessly watched Schliemann climb into his personal aircraft and guide it out of the hangar, taking with him her little satchel containing the invaluable gigalithic circles.  Despite the bitter injustice of her final defeat at Schliemann’s hands and her reawakened grief at the death and subsequent evil transformation of the poor baby bird, Utharagama felt strangely at peace.  Perhaps there may be no greater virtue than this, that when our time comes, with cruel fate crashing down unto our feet the beautiful monuments we’d been constructing, to find refuge in the knowledge that we had given our all.  If this be her end, thought Utharagama, then truly it were better to die once a hero with the welfare of humanity in her heart, than to die one thousand times a coward; or, to live eternally, a villain.

 

But Utharagama’s heartfelt self-examinations were interrupted by the impertinent yappings of her imbecilic guards, each of whom, no doubt, led the unexamined life.

 

“So how would you like to die, little lady?” asked their leader with mock hospitality.

 

“Maybe in a car accident?” one guard suggested flippantly.

 

“Perhaps by fire?” chimed another, eyes wide in maniacal glee.

 

“A wild animal attack seems apropos to me,” quoth a perspicacious third.  Inspired at that ironic suggestion, for their own perverse entertainment, the guards conspired to inflame the smoldering baby bird ghost to abandon its lofty perch in the rafters and assail their impassive prisoner.  Not surprisingly, much stoking was not required.

 

With great vigor did the seething baby bird ghost proceed to swoop down upon the captive Utharagama, pecking at her head and fluttering rapidly past her ears and face with a sound that made her shiver inside, until she was in great internal dismay.  Yet Utharagama maintained her dignity before the ignoble guards, refusing to retaliate against her assailant and thereby add to their depraved spectacle; further, she was restrained by her pity for the baby bird ghost.  As Utharagama lowered herself to the ground to avoid yet another of the bird ghost’s swoops, crouching defensively in the dust, the guards howled immoderately with laughter.  That the guards were utterly distracted through their complacent humor she could clearly discern.  In a flash, Utharagama realized that the window of opportunity to save her life had been thrown open!  Although loathe to risk harming the baby bird ghost, Utharagama hastily scooped into her left hand what seemed a non-lethal dosage of dust from the ground, and with her right, reached for the familiar handle of her ping-pong paddle. 

 

There was no time for Utharagama to make sense of the jumble of powerful emotions she felt in sensing the imminence of violence and possibly death, so she blocked out everything and struck like a bolt of lightning.  As the baby bird ghost dove in attack, Utharagama waited until she could perceive a slight opening in its beak, and with unmistakable aim, suddenly cast the handful of dust toward that tiny linear aperture.  As granules of the gritty dust found their mark, quite abruptly, the baby bird ghost was sent sputtering in an earth-bound spiral, coughing all the way down.  After hovering momentarily over the fallen ghost to assure herself that avian CPR was not necessary, Utharagama maintained her momentum by rushing at the humor-smitten guards, whose violent laughter had by now nearly split their sides.

 

“Halt!” cried the guards, quickly recovering from their incapacitation, “or we shoot!”

 

“Don’t, for your own safety!” admonished Utharagama sternly, without stopping.  She was armed solely with her deceptively potent ping-pong paddle, which she reflexively lifted into ready position.

 

Despite Utharagama’s fair warning, the guards unwisely opened fire; and, as promised, Utharagama was prepared to return.  As volleys of bullets rained upon her from all directions, Utharagama’s ping-pong paddle swept to and fro with preternatural fury, swatting the bullets back upon the guards who had fired them, until all of her opponents had been thus dispatched.  “By the Rule of the Skunk,” thought Utharagama as she surveyed the surreal peace that had settled over the conquered field, “thank Uthara, a 7-0 triumph![6]”  As wisps of smoke quaintly floated up from her trusty ping-pong paddle, Utharagama reminisced to herself, “That wasn’t so bad.  Not nearly as challenging as returning some of Queen Jie Jie’s smashes!”  Utharagama sighed: Would she ever know that experience again?

 

Ah, but ever lurking, the danger of losing the present moment in the fog of the past: with propellers churning, Schliemann’s plane was turning out onto the main runway! 

 

Mustering all her courage, Utharagama sprinted toward the point at which she hoped to intercept the speeding plane just prior to takeoff.  As she ran, Utharagama’s thoughts flashed back to the unfortunate guards, bleeding on the floor of the hangar, as well as the poor baby bird ghost, choking in the dust.  Although it would cost her precious seconds, a piteous Utharagama slipped out her cellular phone and requested an ambulance to evacuate the wounded, her fear that she might wrongfully be plucking the lot of them from well-deserved destiny notwithstanding.

 

Utharagama’s mission of charity was concluded in the nick of time.  As her feet pattered onto the concrete runway, Schliemann’s imposing aircraft was roaring by at nearly take-off velocity.  Utharagama once more pulled out her trusty whip, drawing it back in preparation for her favorite trick.  “It’ll be just like roping the bus,” she whispered to herself, but that hollow reassurance was so far from plausibility that it did nothing to assuage her pulsating nerves. 

 

 

VI.   The Tropospherical Interloper

 

With Schliemann’s aircraft zooming past, its twin propellers rotating at full bore and nose just rising off the runway, Utharagama cast her whip for the transverse wing support brace.  Miraculously, she once again succeeded in her whip slinging; however, due to her deficit of momentum in comparison with the aircraft, success was this time a decidedly mixed blessing.  In the rectification of that deficit, our poor hero’s arms were nearly torn from their sockets, as she was dashed against the aluminum shell of the aircraft with a force that momentarily pushed her to the brink of blacking out. 

 

Yet through her indomitable survival instinct, which channeled all of her faculties upon maintaining consciousness, Utharagama regained her alertness, only to find herself dangling solely by the tensile strength of her whip,[7] already hundreds of feet into the troposphere and steeply accelerating!  All in all, her situation was quite unnaturally terrifying, so it should not seem untoward that Utharagama responded by emitting a sequence of short, fearful gasps, as if a fire brigade were dousing her with a series of buckets of frigid water in brisk succession.  Although they were racing, Utharagama’s lungs seemed suddenly too shallow and inflexible to accept breath.  How she wished this feeling could just be over!  No joy Utharagama had ever known seemed worth the dreadful panic that now possessed her heart!  Oh, she would do anything, only to make this horrible feeling go away!  Yet nothing could be done except for continuing to suffer, for seemingly ages, as Schliemann’s aircraft patiently continued its torturous ascent!  Until …

 

… at last, Schliemann’s plane began leveling off, which meant Utharagama might now have a chance to drag herself up her ever-faithful whip.  Through acute suffering, Utharagama’s senses had been by now dulled somewhat, yet her tense muscles still quivered and quavered.  Perhaps more so than from her nerves, the quivering was now due to a combination of extreme muscle fatigue with the bitter wind chill one experiences when exceeding one hundred knots in the sub-freezing temperatures characteristic of an altitude of ten thousand feet.  With the knowledge that she had strength only for one try, Utharagama braced herself for the exertion of attempting to enter the aircraft’s cabin.  “Dear Uthara,” she implored, “let me not fail!” – for it was a long way down.

 

From some hidden reservoir deep within Utharagama came the strength to place hand over hand and pull herself up the whip that yet cleaved unto the wing support brace like a devoted spouse.  Looking up now, she could see the passenger’s side door handle, just within her reach!  Extending herself to her breaking point, Utharagama grasped the handle with benumbed fingers and – what luck! – found the door to be unlocked![8]  As a turbulent crosswind blew by, the ambient air resistance was dissipated sufficiently to allow the cabin door to be opened, and Utharagama opportunistically sprang through the crescent-shaped opening and fell into the passenger’s seat.  No sooner had she taken her chair, than did the turbulence pass and the cabin door slam soundly behind her.

 

Now Schliemann had gradually become aware of a strange presence outside his passenger’s side door, and, from that juncture, his amazement had risen steadily in a crescendo as, out of the clear blue sky, he observed the cabin door open and a hauntingly familiar human form drop into his aircraft!

 

“Achhhh!” cried Schliemann to the interloper, “who goes there?!”

 

“Look at me, Schliemann,” purred Utharagama in a calm, deep voice.  “You know who it is.”

 

“But it can’t be Uttaragama!  My garts are holding her in zie hangar!  Surely by now zey haffe killt her!”

 

“Aye, sadly that is so, Schliemann,” replied Utharagama, “and it is precisely why I have returned from those same nether realms as your Vogelchen to this planet of mortals.”

 

“Then… then you’re a ghost?” mumbled Schliemann in terror.

 

“Well how else could I have come to enter your aircraft out of the clear blue sky, ten thousand feet above sea level, Schliemann?” responded Utharagama in an amused tone of parental solicitousness. 

 

Utharagama’s answer seemed to confirm Schliemann’s darkest suspicions.  The arch-villain had now grown so pale as to more closely resemble the specter that Utharagama falsely claimed to be.  Further, in proportion to his fear, Schliemann’s flying had grown increasingly erratic, such that Utharagama had to bite down hard upon her lip to maintain the demeanor of a transcendent spirit. 

 

“The seats in your plane are so uncomfortable Schlie –  … wait, I seem to be sitting on something – oh, my satchel!  I wonder what could be inside!”  Utharagama’s dexterous fingers happily proceeded to work open the familiar straps, exposing the gigalithic circles that she had so honestly and diligently worked to excavate!  “Ah, these lifeless artifacts:” Utharagama deadpanned, “to you, Schliemann, more precious even than human blood.”

 

“T-t-t-t-take them!” cried Schliemann.  “Take them and depart from here, restless spirit!”

 

“What profit are such material relics to me now, Schliemann?” laughed Utharagama in bitter pretension.  “Do you think that I have come back to this world for the physical?  Verily, I have come for the same reason that all ghosts return: to claim the soul of my murderer!”

 

“Keep back, fiend,” shrieked Schliemann, “for you’ll never have my soul!  Yet soon enough you’ll return to your own world empty-handed!”  While speaking, Schliemann grasped from under his seat what appeared to be a parachute pack, raked his forearm roughly across the instrument panel to discombobulate the aircraft’s trajectory, forced open the pilot’s door, and leapt from the plane!

 

“Salacious saltines!” swore Utharagama sliding over to take the helm in an attempt to recover from the swoon that Schliemann had initiated prior to absconding from the plane.  “Dear me, I was a bit too efficacious with my ghost routine!  Now what do I do?!”  

 

For, you see, although she had once seen it done in a movie, Utharagama had never before flown an aircraft!  Further, in case flying for the first time without assistance weren’t sufficiently challenging, much to Utharagama’s consternation, she found the controls and instrumentation for the airplane to be uniformly in German!  Ach, she could not fathom that infernal language! 

 

The impulse to follow Schliemann in abandoning ship overwhelmed Utharagama, but after rapidly casing the cabin from top to bottom, she could not locate another parachute!  Utharagama realized that she and the aircraft had been bound fast together by the indestructible thread of common fate – a common fate that, frankly, was looking none too rosy at that moment.

 

In utter despondency, Utharagama laid her angst-ridden head upon the dashboard.  Her angry fist pounded against the control panel in a futile act of frustration.  “Dear Uthara,” she lamented, “bringest Thou Thy faithful handmaiden so far, only to abandon her thus?!” 

 

 

VII.   A Ghost’s First Flight

 

Slumping helplessly at the helm of the inscrutable aircraft, whether by divine intervention or simply the brutality of her fist, Utharagama perked up to hear the radio crackle on: “Control Tower to Sophie-73, Control Tower to Sophie-73: I don’t copy!  Who is Uthara?  And you aren’t the pilot – yet your voice sounds strangely familiar, though I can’t quite place it!” 

 

“Never mind that now!” shouted Utharagama frantically.  “The pilot bailed out, and I don’t know how to fly an airplane!  Help!!  I wanna come down!”

 

“Oh, Christ!” prayed the Control Tower to his own god.  “Let’s both take a deep breath, and I’ll try to talk you through the landing.  But first you’ve got to steer back toward the airport… ,”  and following the Control Tower’s direction, by the seat of her pants, Utharagama was able to bank the plane about to bear upon the airport’s main runway.   

 

“Great job, Sophie-73!” responded the Control Tower encouragingly.  “You’re right on target, but you’re coming in way too fast.  You’ve got to actuate the flaps to have any hope of stopping on the runway!”

 

“But we’ve already established that we don’t know the German word for ‘flaps’!” cried a flustered Utharagama.  “Wait, what of those security guards who were just evacuated by ambulance?  One of them may know German, presuming they’ve survived.”

 

“I’m not sure I know what you’re talking about, Sophie-73, but I’ll place a quick call to our emergency medical facility.  In the meantime, you’re going to have to pull up and swing around for another pass.  Coming in at this speed is too dangerous!”

 

“I’m coming down now, one way or another,” replied Utharagama with dire finality.  Her shell-shocked nerves could not afford her a second attempt!

 

“Christ!” exclaimed the Control Tower once more.  “Then ease the throttle down and try to keep your nose up until I get back to you directly.  Oh, and you’ve fastened your seatbelt, right?”

 

Utharagama was near enough now to descry that the tarmac had been cleared of aircraft and support vehicles, as fire trucks lurked in recessed nooks along the airport terminal wall.  “What a distinction to have sole dominion over these choice runways, and, ah, an honorary fire guard!” she mused to herself sardonically.

 

“Control Tower to Sophie-73!!  Klappe!  Full Klappe now!!”

 

Utharagama’s eyeballs raced across the busy control panel.  Aiieeeee!  Where was that switch?!  At last, with the plane gliding over the runway, Utharagama found and hastily activated the flaps, sharply decelerating the aircraft, as touchdown neared.

 

Better late than never; yet at the appointed time best of all: Utharagama had come in much too rapidly and descended far too steeply.  No sooner had her wheels hit the runway, than did the impact of landing send the plane bouncing roughly back into the air.  Such an ungainly landing, combined with stiff crosswinds, caused the plane to become misaligned during its hop, and when it touched down once more, it was implacably headed directly for the airport terminal!  “Crumblin’ crackers,” wailed a desperate Utharagama, “where are the brakes?!”

 

“Bremse!  Bremse!” yelled the Control Tower rabidly.

 

After frenetic moments of searching, Utharagama abruptly slammed on the brakes, but like every other action the unfortunate substitute pilot had taken, it was too little too late.  The terminal loomed large in her windshield.  “Dear Uthara! …” she prayed.

 

“I can’t watch,” quavered the Control Tower in trepidation, as Utharagama’s plane struck the concrete terminal wall, and hysterically screaming fire trucks and ambulances rushed in with flashing lights and shouting rescuers. 

 

After a moment, however, curiosity overcame fear, and the Control Tower peeped out to view a flaming, misshapen aircraft with rescue operations briskly underway.  “I sure hope she survives,” mused the Control Tower.  “I am dying to know who this ‘Uthara’ is.”

 

 

VIII.   The Hero’s Homecoming

 

As in the beginning, Utharagama awakened, yet slowly and luxuriantly this time.  Funny how the mind works, she thought.  Before knowing even where she was or what time or day, her unconscious faculties had somehow preserved the knowledge that she was safe and secure.  Ah – quite a welcome and relaxing change from her recent life of peril – to be home! 

 

Utharagama opened her eyes to glimpse a world still dark.  Blinking, she could read from her bedside clock that she had not slept even through midnight!  Try as she persistently did to retire early prior to crucial morning engagements, such as exams or journeys (for example, at daybreak she would be flying back, presumably as a passenger, to the illusory world of Ann Arbor, USA, back to her university and the ever-enduring co-op), her diligence seemed ever wasted.  Utharagama laughed self-effacingly at the rule she had repeatedly proven: Whatever may be sufficiently important to motivate one to attempt to fall asleep early will surely also induce sufficient excitement or anxiety to preclude the fulfillment of one’s aim!

 

Rather than futilely continuing her attempt at sleep, Utharagama consented to abandon her mind to its meanderings.  Inexorably it returned once more to its reflections upon the culmination of the tumultuous happenings of her final days prospecting abroad. 

 

After her plane had obliquely collided with the airport terminal wall, Utharagama had blanked out.  She remembered only waking up in the airport emergency room in a dreadful panic that she would find her body in a thousand pieces.  Security had begun interrogating her almost immediately after they had calmed her down, while the medics were still setting her leg up in a cast.  Once the compulsory interviews had been concluded, before she was allowed to hobble out of the emergency room, airport officials had drawn up and presented Utharagama with a secret contract of sorts.  By signing, Utharagama pledged to keep mum regarding two issues over which the officials naturally felt sensitive: one being the ease with which she had penetrated the airport security perimeter, and the other, the even more damaging fact that the officials had illicitly permitted the world-class criminal Schliemann the use of a private hangar.  In return for her discretion, airport security agreed to drop several weighty charges pending against Utharagama, including illegal trespass, instigation of a terrorist threat,[9] and, of course, operation of an aircraft without a license. 

 

Although airport security had certainly played hardball with her, the grateful reward that Utharagama well deserved was duly granted in a ceremony two days later, in which she had presented the gigalithic circles to the curator of the national natural history museum, in front of throngs of cheering citizens.  (Quite miraculously, the august gigalithic circles that had so gracefully weathered the many ages were equally capable of riding out Utharagama’s bumpy landing!)  Photographers from Dirtdigger’s Monthly Journal were present to capture that triumphal moment, of course!  Among the myriad poses and angles Utharagama had envisioned for her cover photograph, verily, none had included crutches!  Yet there was a certain nobility, heroism, and sacrificial connotation lent by that prop, she now realized, and Utharagama felt quite pleased with the image she portrayed.  Following the ceremony, the curator and other high-ranking staff anthropologists had led Utharagama on a personal tour of both the public and private collections of the national museum, inviting her to return the next summer to continue her excavations.  How unparalleled the magnificence of that day had been!  Utharagama could scarcely scrape together the patience to wait for the seasons’ cycle to complete the revolution that would lead her back to that country.

 

Although technically in violation of her secret agreement with the airport authorities, Utharagama had felt it unbearable to conceal the true story of her fantastic adventures in pursuit of the gigalithic circles, at least from her family and closest friends.  So, immediately upon returning home for a month’s vacation in India, Utharagama had sat down with her parents and narrated meticulously the facts concerning and leading up to her glorious victory over Schliemann, which the newspapers and official accounts had thoroughly disavowed and suppressed.  Yet when she concluded her tale, how deflated Utharagama had been to find that her parents had refused to believe her!

 

“As much as we would like to trust you, dear daughter, the idea that a Northwood bus could exist on another continent – that’s simply absurd!” replied her mother unequivocally. 

 

Rejoined her father: “Not that we have lost faith in you, little sparrow, but that statement alone casts a pall of suspicion over your entire story.”

 

“Well how, then, do you think my hair became singed?” continued Utharagama in disbelief.

 

“Likely you became distracted while cooking roti and carelessly let your hair dangle in the frying pan,” answered Utharagama’s mother.

 

Utharagama sighed silently and covertly rolled her eyes.  “Then what about this broken femur:” she riposted, pointing to her leg, “how do you postulate that happening?”

 

“You tripped over a fossil, like it says in the thank-you letter from their government,” replied Utharagama’s father flatly.

 

“But the femur is the strongest bone in the human body;” protested Utharagama indecorously, “it doesn’t break in a trip-and-fall accident except for the superannuated!  And ‘tripping over a fossil?!’  The notion is utterly ridiculous!”

 

“Utharagama!” commanded her mother, “don’t argue with your father!  Be satisfied; you are already a great hero by discovering the gigalithic circles!  Why must you fabricate fanciful tales about this “Schliemann” to falsely engorge your honestly achieved fame?”

 

“But Mother…” Utharagama began; yet by the icy look on her matriarch’s face, she knew the conversation had ended.

 

So Utharagama had hobbled reluctantly back to her room and sealed the door behind her.  As she permitted her body to collapse upon the bed, a single tear had beaded up in a corner of her eye and coursed down her cheek.  If even her parents would not believe the true story of her adventures, how then could her friends and colleagues, or anyone else, for that matter?  No, sadly, the truth must remain forever buried in the deepest vault of her heart, along with the sisters of that lonely teardrop her eyes had just shed.

 

Yet as she had accepted other of life’s sorrows, after a month’s passage, Utharagama had come to terms with the inexpressibility of the true story of her adventures in pursuit of the gigalithic circles.  Now, as she lay comfortably in bed, her thoughts returned to the present.  She looked about aimlessly into the darkness and her mind happened to register that the clock had just struck upon midnight.  All was still, yet a sudden impulse sent a shiver up Utharagama’s spine.  Her sensation was immediately corroborated by uncertainly aimed defensive growls from her dog, Skippitaro, who lay at the foot of her bed.  Utharagama looked about hurriedly in fright.  Something was amiss!  Though she could perceive nothing through her worldly senses, a strange presence seemed somehow palpable! 

 

“Who’s there?  Who’s there?” called Utharagama anxiously into the darkness.

 

IX.   A Last Farewell

 

After a dramatically prolonged moment, Utharagama heard a small voice gently chirp from her headboard: “Please do not be alarmed, Utharagama, for it is only a harmless little bird.”

 

Not without apprehension, Utharagama turned her face upward.  Amid the purple hues of midnight, she could clearly perceive the poor baby bird ghost.  Looking back into her eyes, the little bird spoke tremulously:  “I regret startling you as an apparition once more, dear one, yet lacking this imposition, my spirit could never rest.  You see, the merciful magnanimity you epitomized, even in the face of my strident vindictiveness, inspired me to pass a forlorn month, meditating upon my philosophies and engaging in brutal self-recrimination for my misguided actions.  Amid these bottomless introspections, I came to the staggering realization that, throughout these years since the death of my earthly form, I had been wrongfully blaming you for one of the numberless blows of seemingly arbitrary cruelty dealt by nature’s mysterious hands.  I had been my own spirit’s only torturer all the while; yet, deluded in my arrant perspective, I brought you serious injury, nearly precipitating even your death, as I had long sought.  Endlessly, I regret my actions, and for them, I humbly plead for your forgiveness,” concluded the baby bird ghost, bowing its head solemnly.

 

“I happily forgive you, little bird!” exclaimed Utharagama.  “So grateful I am to hear your precious words!  May your soul now find peace!”

 

As Utharagama spoke these words, she could feel rivers of teardrops, originating from some strange emotion that was as irresistible as it was unrecognizable, queuing behind her eyes.  To dam up that saline torrent, she was able, until the little bird ghost fluttered down unto her shoulder in goodbye, nuzzling its lightly feathered head against Utharagama’s warm cheek.  As quickly as the little bird ghost had landed, though, off again it gracefully flew – but not before whispering the words, “Thank you for saving me, after all.” 

 

“Goodbye, little bird!  Goodbye!” called teary-eyed Utharagama, but the departed baby bird ghost had already reached home, and her words seemed to echo tonelessly through an empty universe. 

 

Utharagama reclined her head once more upon her pillow, yet its softness was not soothing to the unease that lingered in her heart.  The morning drew one hour nearer.  A vague but powerful subtlety remained off-kilter somehow: too small to be identified, but just large enough to result in sublime irritation!  Perhaps a pea beneath her mattress?[10]

 

But before Utharagama could rise to investigate whether her insomnia was indeed the doing of a rogue legume, she heard Skippitaro growling once again!  “Tremblin’ triscuits!” swore Utharagama beneath her bedspread, “what now, the goat of the alley?!”

 

Suddenly, Utharagama felt something grabbing and pulling at her freshly healed leg!  Upon a moment’s notice, Utharagama had snatched her ping pong paddle from underneath her pillow and prepared to strike.  Yet before retaliating, she prudently flicked on her bedside lamp.  In the light, Utharagama found no goat or enemy of any kind, for her “attacker” was none other than Skippitaro himself!  Replacing her trusty ping pong paddle, Utharagama cooed, “Good boy!” and proceeded to pat her loyal canine lovingly upon his furry head.  Skippitaro, however, remained too busy gnawing at Utharagama’s leg to formulate a coherent reply.

 

A broad smile now spread across Utharagama’s face as she unconsciously lay back to sleep.  She had no further interest in searching for the pea; yea, her mind had completely emptied, setting aside the ghosts of the past, the uncertainties of the future, and even the very moment into a forgotten unity.  Then she also joined that boundless and inconceivable unity: goodnight!  For, at last, the hero peacefully slumbered.