After Hundred Years
'A dying star!' Lisa shouted at the call that she received from the research centre. She had longed to see a dying star ever since she had become an astronaut. And today they have called her to inform that it had been reported that a dying star is identified and they need someone to go and note down the observations. Lisa jumped at the offer and at once agreed to go.
Every preparation was made by the research centre and a date was fixed. Untill the arrival of the day, Lisa felt that the time had stopped and as if it were refusing to move forward. However, the day finally arrived and she was unable to control her excitement. The research centre proposed to her to take someone else with her but she refused and said, "I'm enough to handle it." So, she got up in the spaceship and then into the mysterious world of space to discover yet another mystery of the dying star.
It took a week's time to reach the space in the fastest moving spaceship of the time. She then traced the position of the dying star from the map given to her by the research centre and then went slowly towards it. She found that the heat created by the dying star was much less than the other star and that its brightness was also too less than the other stars. Lisa went around observing the star and noted down each and every observation in her notebook. Who can say even a minute's observation could lead to a huge discovery in the future?
On one occasion she found small black spots developing in some parts of the stars. Then they grew into a bit bigger spots and then formed black holes. She noted this down. On another occasion she found white spots which first turned yellow, then red and then black but but didn't grew bigger and neither did they form holes. Also the star kept on shrinking and grew smaller day by day and then oneday it disappered altoghether. Lisa noted down all these and calculated that she had spent almost a month in space and now its time to return.
She returned again after a journey of one week and went straight to her research centre. But there was no sign of any research centre there. Not even a single sign! She was surprised at first but then she thought may be her tiredness has made her do so. So, she decided to go back home, take some rest and then return to the research centre the next day. But there too she found everything had changed— not only her complex belt but also the people and the settings had changed.
She became confused. Not knowing what to do next she began looking here and there. Some children left their game and ran towards her and then started whispering among themselves. Lisa could not understand what the chaos was for and asked them what were they talking about. One of them asked her, "You are Lisa Gomez?" Lisa nodded her head, wondering how they knew her. Then another of them asked, "You went to discover the mystery of the dying star, right?" Lisa nodded again. Then a child exclaimed, " We read about you in our science books, but they said that was hundred years back. You went and never returned!"
At first Lisa was awe-struck and could not make out anything. Then she tried to speak out something when suddenly a thought striked her and she realized— that the span which had seemed to be one month to her in space represents hundred years on earth as time moves very slowly near a dying star.