Jem couldn’t sleep. This was his third night without sleep. He tossed and turned without rest.

Gonul had never seen her husband like this before. His greatest worries would usually disappear once he was in bed; he could sleep off every distress as soon as his head hit the pillow. She couldn’t help but ask:

“Honey, what is wrong with you? You haven’t been sleeping for three nights now. What’s on your mind? What’s making you lose sleep? How do you even attend class like this?”

“You know what, Gonul… Never in my life have my thoughts neared a ‘zero point’ as they have now… Whichever branch I try to hold onto with my thoughts, I find my hands holding thin air instead! But I have to get over this… and sooner or later I know I will…

“As for Alph! Even though he knows exactly what I’m going through he doesn’t come to visit me! I just don’t get it…”

While Jem went on and on, Gonul, who had been exhausted from work and housework, had helplessly fallen asleep…

Eventually Jem got out of bed, quietly put on his robe and went to his study. He sat in the chair across from his bookshelf and put his feet up on the ottoman. Resting his head in his hand and his elbow against the sofa, he started gazing at his collection of books…

His mind was busy with thoughts:

A world of water and beings of wave! A world of electricity and beings of light bulbs! The explanations are always symbolic… How about the reality? How about the formation of these beings? How did Alph’s race or the Setrians and all the other intelligent beings form? How did humans come about? ‘Light bulbs’ and ‘waves’ are simple metaphors but how do they actually come to be? Forget the unseen, what exactly are ‘humans’?

“Yeah… What exactly are these ‘humans’?”

“Alph! Where have you been? Do you know how confused I have been for the past few days! Feels like my mind… no, not my mind, my brain is about to stop working from over-thinking!”

Jem ranted on as he shuffled around in his seat… He was so glad to see Alph. Wanting to make the best of the opportunity, he immediately asked:

“What is a ‘human’?”

“What is a remote controlled android?” Alph replied.

“What? What has an android to do with anything now?”

“I thought I should be the one asking the questions… Didn’t your kind send a space shuttle to Mars, Jupiter, Saturn and Uranus?”

“Um… yeah… It’s passed Saturn actually and it’s on its way to Uranus now…”

“How does it find its direction?

“Well it has been intricately programmed to. It has been configured specifically to execute the built-in programs designed for this mission.”

“And it also detects certain images and sends it to Earth without any ‘wires’ per se?”

“Yes, it sends space images from millions of kilometers away…”

“But are there any ‘intelligent’ beings like you aboard?”

“Of course not.”

“Does it ‘see’?”

“Yes.”

“And it explains what it sees?”

“To the exact detail!”

“And it understands your commands?”

“Yes.”

“Does it walk in space?”