The sun, a colossal fusion reactor churning out approximately 3.846 x 10^26 joules of energy per second, rose predictably in the east. The sky, scattering shorter wavelengths of light, appeared a vibrant cerulean blue. The chlorophyll-rich leaves of the trees, those complex organic molecules busily converting CO2 and water into sugars and oxygen via photosynthesis, shimmered green. And yes, water, that ubiquitous molecule with its unique hydrogen bonding properties, still dripped wet. It was, in almost every quantifiable way, a perfectly ordinary day. Except for one thing.
I was making my way home from animation class – a pursuit that, frankly, felt less like wielding the artistry of Ub Iwerks and more like wrestling with a recalcitrant Wacom tablet. It was on that crowded Kathmandu bus, suspended precariously on its leaf-spring suspension, that I met her. Or, rather, was assaulted (not actually) by her.
A book, a Bible no less, landed squarely on my lap. Turning, I saw her – the girl I would forever refer to as "The Girl with Short Hair," a title far more evocative than anything my memory could conjure in terms of an actual name. Turns out I have face blindness. She hadn't meant to drop the Bible, of course. She offered no apology. I, ever the chivalrous fool, declared that she must have dropped it on purpose to get my attention and offered to hold onto the weighty tome myself. She smiled, a tiny crinkle appearing at the corners of her eyes.
Shortly after, a seat next to me unexpectedly opened up. She took it and offered an apology. "Sorry about the Bible. I hope it didn’t… you know… proselytize you too hard." A genuine smile crossed her face this time. I couldn't help but crack a smile myself. "So," I asked, "What's your favorite story in the Bible? I'm partial to Exodus. The whole parting of the Red Sea thing is pretty epic, even if the science is a bit… questionable. Probably needed a good tsunami and some wind shears, at the very least."
"Oh, so you're a Christian?" she asked, tilting her head.
"Not even slightly," I replied, launching into my well-rehearsed spiel. "Religion is just a human construct, a way to make sense of the universe before we had things like the Large Hadron Collider. You don't need to be Christian to appreciate the historical and cultural significance of the Bible. Besides, narratives are important. They shape our understanding of the world, even the fictional ones; especially the fictional ones."
I droned on, probably sounding like a pretentious university student. I meant to ask her name, but the bus lurched to a stop at my stop. I muttered a goodbye and hopped off, leaving her, the Bible, and my unused question behind.
A few days later, I was nursing a cup of disturbingly weak coffee at a cafe – the kind of establishment where the baristas seem perpetually unimpressed with your existence. Then, out of nowhere, a voice behind me said, "Hey! I recognize you!"
The Girl with Short Hair. She settled into the chair opposite me, radiating an almost chaotic energy. "So," she began, "I was in this… situation. My ex. He left me when I became a Christian. Now he
wants to 'patch things up' because he heard I got a US visa. He wants to meet." She paused, chewing on her lip. "Actually, he is meeting me right now."
Sure enough, a guy materialized, looking like he hadn't slept in weeks. She excused herself and led him outside. Through the glass, I could see them arguing, the volume increasing steadily. The guy was a veritable fountain of frustrated gestures.
She returned, her face flushed. "Listen," she said, leaning in close. "Tomorrow. Two o'clock. Here. Okay?" And then, before I could process what was happening, she kissed me. A quick, unexpected peck on the cheek. Then she was gone, leaving me staring after her, feeling like I'd just been hit by a rogue photon from the sun, all confused and energized.
The next day, I arrived at the cafe promptly at two. She didn't. Instead, a man approached me, a strained expression on his face, and handed me a letter. It was from her. She'd left for the US that morning. Her ex, driven by pure, unadulterated opportunism fueled by the green card lottery, wanted her back only because of the visa. In her letter, she confessed that she'd kissed me to make him believe she was already in a relationship, a convenient fiction to escape his clutches. But then, she wrote, something unexpected happened. She admitted that she started to fall in love with me the moment the Bible, that accidental projectile of faith, landed in my lap.
Book falling on my hand was a work of gravity . But Her falling in love with me, was not an action of gravity.
So, what is gravity? The same force that caused that Bible to land in my hands the moment I took the bus and initiated our conversation? Before 1687, nobody really bothered to know why things fall on earth. Then Isaac Newton came along and changed everything. According to him, a force called gravity attracts two masses toward each other. That's why things fall. He figured out the force that pulls something towards Earth is the same force that keeps the moon in orbit. But he also knows that it wouldn't be responsible for people who are falling in love with each other. His theories changed everything, that's why he is called the father of modern science.
But by proposing the general theory of relativity, Albert Einstein proved gravity is not a force but the curvature of spacetime caused by mass and energy. It's like placing a bowling ball on a trampoline; it creates a dip, and anything nearby rolls toward it, and then it starts spinning around it. The Earth orbits the sun because it's following the curves in space.
So there is nothing such as “the force of gravity”. From that day, the force of gravity is a fictitious (fake) force, just like my story above.
Or is it? Perhaps the universe has a sense of humor after all, a subtle hand guiding events with a force far more complex and unpredictable than any equation could ever capture. Maybe, just maybe, there's a little bit of gravity in every unexpected encounter, a subtle pull drawing us together, even when we least expect it. And who knows, maybe one day, I'll stumble upon The Girl with Short Hair again, drawn together by the invisible threads of fate, or perhaps a well-timed plane ticket.