“Go ahead”, she said.

“I don’t understand you. This is not the girl I loved…”, his words ended abruptly. He felt as if he were in the middle of a desert. He did not know how to proceed, and where to.

“Listen Kesav, I love you, please trust me…”, she was trying to convince him. “Kesav, I am the same, I have always been truthful to you”.

He nodded. She was truthful to him, but the truth looked strange. He was thinking, ‘Can there be two different truths? Is there something called a half truth? Is she self conflicting? Can I live with her contradictions?’. He was not ready to speak.

He grabbed a handful of sand from the beach.

His eyes wandered in the blue sky. The clouds taking different shapes. Its water vapor, flying in the wind. It changes shapes when the wind say. He was trying to justify her. He was finding reasons to understand her.

“Kesav, its complicated, human beings are not always logical, no science has ever described human mind”. He lowered his eyes and looked at her. She saw his eyes expressing a mixture of feelings. Now he is trying to solve a contradiction within himself.

‘You cannot step on two boats, it can be one or zero, nothing in between’, he was logical in thinking, that is how he is trained to be, as a doctor of Mathematics.

She stood up and started walking towards the waves. He watched her, as always, she looks very childish. He liked her childishness, and he would explain to her Fermat’s last theorem. She disliked mathematics, but for him she used to listen, with endless curiosity. ‘She was adapting to me, identifying with me’, he thought, ‘but now I have to adapt with her, and it seems very difficult, going against my principles, my ideas and my likings. I cannot deny my principles, and to be with her is to compromise. I cannot be two different persons’. He was slowly realizing, that he is on the verge of a split!

She came back. “What if we agree to disagree?”, kneeling down on the sand, face to face.

“Agree to disagree? Again contradictions? You are always a person of contradictions, how do we agree on things that we disagree?”

“Its simple, we are going to agree that we disagree in certain matters, we have to make sure that we don’t cross each others freedom”.

‘She is talking about freedom. I always wanted her to be mine, childlike, dependant. She is not a child anymore, she is taking her own decisions, she is free…’, he had never thought it before.

“But how far…”, he was skeptical.

“Look Kesav, its you who taught me those Venn Diagrams, the unions and intersections. We will be a union and we will share what we agree, the intersections”.

‘Venn diagrams, sets, circles, when they get closer, more will be the area of intersection’, he was trying to prove her statement, mathematically. ‘Why I am using geometry to prove algebra of sets’, he thought for a moment. ‘Forget it, at least she is trying to apply math in her life, that’s a good sign’.

He forgot the contradictions, lied down on the beach. Up above, in the blue sky, the wind brought two clouds together. Unions and Intersections, in the universal set.

And God gave Moses 2 CDs. He read the eighth line of code and it read: “Thou Shalt Not Pirate”.

“God!” Moses paused for a moment. “You have written… Thou Shall Not Pirate!”

He continued. “I thought, in the modern world, piracy is harmless. Moreover, you know how important is Microsoft Office for my ministry and me? I got the Windows for myself (yeah, I got a branded PC). And, Aaron is willing to share his Office installation CD. I think he got the original one. What’s wrong in sharing?”

Now they are on the escalator, on their way down, from Sinai.

The Lord replied, “Then it is Aaron’s property. Thou Shalt Not Covet.” The Lord’s reply was brief with the general statement of the tenth line of code.

Moses had more reasons. “God, there is a difference. In olden days, when people used to steal the owner lost the property and he could not use it anymore. Software is different. It is like the bread Jesus gave to five thousand!!! It does not get emptied. The owner enjoys the software and he lets his fellows enjoy it too.”

God was patient, “Who stands lost”?

“Of course, it’s Microsoft, or whoever makes the software”, Moses continued. “But they made all the money which they wanted. And if I did not pay for one piece of software, it is not going to make any difference to them. Moreover, I am not using it to run a business. I am using it for a not-for-profit organization and that too for Your ministry. How do you think I will summarize these CDs and publish, without Microsoft Office and Adobe PageMaker?

The Lord smiled at Moses and repeated His question. “Tell me now, who stands lost?”

Moses stood perplexed. They have now reached the first floor. As they stepped on to the last flight of escalators, God spoke to him.

“You talked about one small piracy. The one small piracy which does not make any difference to the software company or its CEO. The one small piracy which is not going to make any difference in this world. And when you do it, remember, you are the one I came looking for. You are the one I came to rescue. Now you know who is the lost.”

When they almost reached the ground floor, God spoke to Moses. “Do not be afraid. I have come to test you, so that the fear of God will be with you to keep you from sinning.”

Moses saw a thunder and lightning. The Lord disappeared.

He opened his eyes and saw his wife walking to the kitchen. She has left the lights on. He looked at the table clock, and then the computer behind that.

Then he rose up from the bed, and walked to the computer, for God commanded him, “Thou Shalt Not Pirate”.