Wednesday, February 13, 2008

The Traveller Lost - Part I

Once upon a time, far far away, in the land of the corridors, a man landed in a corridor without any real purpose. The man could have been a boy too, but he was suppose to be a man, so I call him a man for all purposes. How he landed there, is not really clear at this moment. I am sure, he caused it to happen somehow, though he would certainly deny it.

So he landed in a dark, damp and reeking corridor. I am reliably informed that not all corridors are like this. Most are well lit, and some are even lavishly decorated. But this was his corridor, and a very narrow one at that. He could not see very far into the corridor because of the darkness, but from what he could see, the plaster had come off the wall from places, water was dripping from the roof a few feet ahead of him. All of the sudden, a large spider dropped out of somewhere onto his shoulder, and he gave out a loud shriek and pushed it off his shoulder and leaped a few steps to the right. The spider gave him a good hard look, and then as mysteriously as it had appeared, it vanished into the darkness.

The man still brushing his shoulder and staring at the spot where the spider ought to have been, got up slowly. For our purposes we ought to give this man a name, for that it seems would be quite convenient rather than referring to him as THE MAN. Because quite clearly he is no relative of HE MAN. But naming has often been a concern for one and all and I am no different. Let's name him Max, as in mighty max, the boy with the cap who could open portals to different worlds. For those of you who cannot place Mighty Max correctly in their memory, they can assume the previous line does not exist at all and the man's name has been Max from the second he entered into this corridor.

Ping!
Ping!
Ping!
The sound of water falling was echoing through the corridor. But wait, isn't the sound of water falling more like DRIP. This was more like PING. Max heard it a little longer, and then he could hear some other strange sounds coming along with it too. He had heard these sounds before, maybe in his dreams, maybe somewhere far away. A soft guitar solo was now playing in the background, as Max with his puzzled eyes moved forward in what seemed like a maze to him. The light which was just enough for him to make out the boundaries, seemed to be moving with him. But he wasnt sure what the source of this light was.

Suddenly he could hear the first sounds of drums as well, and then the first submerged voice rolled out :

Overhead the albatross hangs motionless upon the air
And deep beneath the rolling waves in labyrinths of coral caves
The echo of a distant tide
Comes willowing across the sand
And everything is green and submarine

A Pink Floyd song!! What in the world was a Pink Floyd song doing in this corridor? And who was playing it? And why was he playing it? All too many questions for one head I am afraid. As max moved ahead, feeling the solid wall, he suddenly noticed a queer box from which this sound seemed to be emanating. A queer plastic box indeed, having a glowing blue globe in its top half and the bottom half with rusted metal grills.

Max knocked on the top of the box and the music stopped. Then he knocked again, and he thought he heard a faint OUCH! Now that would be very odd from where Max came from, and being as curious if not more than a cat, he put his ear on the top of the box. And by putting I dont mean he literally tore off his ear and put it there, ofcourse he moved his whole body to be aligned that way. He gently knocked on the plastic surface again, and this time the feeble ouch was clearly heard.

Was it possible that he just heard an OUCH from a plastic box? He looked around and not knowing what to do further, he dropped on his knees, so that his eyes were level with the glowing blue globe. There was another orb inside the globe which seemed to be revolving in the center. Suddenly it stopped, and contracted to be reduced to half its original size. As he stared into the globe observing the orb, he almost felt that the orb was staring it back.

"That hurts you know,", a voice suddenly peirced the silence of the corridor, and Max nervously crawled back a few paces. However there was something so innocent about the voice that he wasnt scared of its existence. Instead he stared at the box again. What curious land was this, where curiosity seemed to be getting better of him over and over again.

"Oh! I wasnt really supposed to speak," the innocent voice came out again from the box. "They're gonna scrap me this time."
"You can talk!"
"Ofcourse I can! Everyone can! Not really everyone though, but most anyhow. I'm Emem."
"Emem?"
"Yeah, I am Emem, a Music Machine!"

"I dont think I've met a music machine before. Infact I don't remember much at all. This is odd indeed I can feel, but I cannot really gather a reason to conclude why it should be so. What am I? What is this place? Have I always been here?"

The machine had a sense of complete confusion about it, as well as a machine can potray confusion. Maybe if this was a Japanese cartoon, there might have been several exclamation marks over the head of the poor machine. But this isnt a Japanese cartoon, atleast not for now.

"And do I take you by the hand, and lead you through the land..." the machine started playing the music again.

"Stop that! Answer my question."

"I am programmed to play background music. Thats my job, to play music that blends into the background of the situation. As for you questions, I dont know their answers, and even if I did I dont think it would be possible to retrieve them from me."

Max felt it was useless to argue with a machine. He sat down on the ground and put his hands on his head to recollect his memories. How was it possible that he remembered listening to this song somewhere before, but he had no clue as to who he was. And what was this place, and if he had no memory, then why was he convinced that this was not the place for him to be. Surely there was an explanation to it all. He closed his eyes and something flashed inside, like a memory, like a scene. When you blink your eye, its opened before you even knew it. But this was like a blink where everything turned pitch black when your eyelid opened back again. But the question was not this darkness, but rather the light that preceeded the darkness.

But in my humble opinion, perhaps the darkness was spawned all by itself right from the beginning, and there was never any "LIGHT". I mean, who claims to have seen light after all, and those very few who have, might as well claim that they had seen UFO's. But then thats my personal opinion and would lead to the misleading of the story, and this story is Max's story and not mine. So, I should keep my opinions to myself.

"I have just concluded that you must be Max!" The machine's voice suddenly broke Max's chain of thought.

"How have you concluded that?" Max retorted.

"It's a very logical conclusion actually."

"Logical Conclusion!!! What has logic to do with that?"

"Logic has everything to do with everything. Isnt 2+2 = 4, the same way you are Max, and Max is you."

"How can you be so sure that 2+2 is four. They might be 5 or 3 or maybe nothing at all really, for all I know."

"But not here I'm afraid. Thats a different world, here 2+2 are always 4."

This argument was getting sillier by the minute. Someone had to end this. I am glad finally Max decided to take a step back.

"Listen! Whatever you are! Can you show me the way out of here?"

"The way out?"

"Yes! Out!! Some door out of here."

"Hypothetically if a way out of here was to exist here, then surely a way IN would exist too, wouldnt it?? And you're the one who got IN, not me! So surely you would know the way out or the way in for that matter.

"But I dont remember anything before this. You just informed me that I am Max. I can't even remember that."