Apoorva Tyagi

Abstract Classics Fantasy

4.8  

Apoorva Tyagi

Abstract Classics Fantasy

My Imaginary Holiday On Another Planet

My Imaginary Holiday On Another Planet

10 mins
1.1K


That day, sitting on the hanging sofa (You know, one of those couches which swing back and forth) on the porch, a thought, or should I say, a GONZO idea came into my mind. It was definitely really crazy, as it involved a holiday, and a planet, both at the same time. Confusing, right? It was confusing to me too, at the time, until I had an excellent plan to backup my really wacky idea. I took my car (a Maruti Suzuki Vitara Brezza) and drove to Mr. Pinkerton's. Abraham Pinkerton is a moronic, imbecile, shrewd, percipient, brusque and impatient thirty-year old man, late thirties, I should say, and he is a budding scientist. Or maybe a bugging scientist, because he can make a person go crazy (specifically in a very long coma) in merely thirty minutes. Sounds dangerous, doesn't it? You might be thinking why I was going to such a crazy man's place, and that what could he help me with, and most importantly...….what was the "gonzo" idea which had slipped in my mind. Well, I would explain everything, but not altogether, so grab your seat tightly, and pour your brain into this....slightly wacky and slightly intriguing tale, and read on!


The minute I reached at Mr. Pinkerton's, I saw him reading a science magazine, and my mouth hung wide open, and I gave myself a facepalm in frustration. Why, you may ask? Because that good-for-nothing moron was reading it UPSIDE DOWN and behaving like he was understanding each and every word! That man was either a big fake, or a big phony! I never understood that, but.....oh well. So, I stepped into his vineyard (which was totally withered) and waved to him, to which he sort-of whisper-shouted, "Oh, Miss Turner? Please....come, have a seat." I walked towards the chair, and sank into it. "Wow, it's been approximately more than three months since you've been here. May I know the reason of your trespassin----uh....visit?", he said to which I rolled my eyes so hard that I think they would've fired a bullet right to his face from my retinas. "Uh...actually, I came here just yesterday to collect my wine. We had an hour long debate about the 'Sine Qua Non', and as usual, it was totally pointless." He gave me a sharp, piercing stare for three minutes straight and stood up, saying, "Oh, yes, yes, yes. I remember, now. I'm sorry I'm just a bit forgetful at times. Anyways, what brings you here?". 


"I'm glad you asked. Actually, I wanted to see that extra room of yours once. May I?"

His eyes widened and he looked at me like I had asked for his kidney or something. He almost caterwauled, "That's not an extra room, you nescient little creature! It's my laboratory! I repeat, my LABORATORY! It's been three years of me correcting you, but it still didn't get into your ludicrous little brain!"

I was disgusted at how loudly he was shouting at me, and insulted, but I calmed myself down (in my head) and sweetly bamboozled him by saying, "I apologize, Mr. Pinkerton's. I must've been thinking about Daisy Maxwell's 'little suite', as she calls it. I had no intention to call your pulchritudinous laboratory a little extra room, and for that I want to apologize again."


My bamboozling worked perfectly fine as he started laughing really hard. Actually, Daisy Maxwell was a lady who used to stay here in Venice, as Mr. Pinkerton's neighbor. She was a really disdainful and snotty woman, with long brunettes, and a dazzling, Sangria-colored barrette. Mr. Pinkerton absolutely hated her, because of her being so snobby, and I don't blame him, to be honest. She WAS really smug. So when the news of her moving to Louisville reached the ears of Abraham Pinkerton, he was so overjoyed that he practically danced the four blocks. Now whenever anyone makes a joke about her, Mr. Pinkerton gets putty in their hands. And he did, once again. So he forgave me and took me to his little extra room--uh....'laboratory' of his. 


Once I stepped into that roo-uh...…laboratory, Mr. Pinkerton started to brag non-stop about how his father had created a successful formula for finding out whether nitrogen gas and buckminsterfullerene are compounds or not and bla bla bla. I was seriously going to pass out but I controlled myself, walked to the corner of the room (still listening to Pinkerton's crap), bent down (still nodding to his theories), and grabbed the box which I wanted. It was really diminutive, so I was just able to roll it up my sleeve without Pinkerton noticing. Hey! It was not stealing, it was just...…um....how to put it, borrowing without permission? Anyways, then I kept encouraging him to tell me more about some so-called 'machines' in the room--uh.....lab, so he would think I just came there to kind-of...…explore. He went on and on for more than 45 minutes, and when I finally told him to stop (really politely), it was already noon. I was exhausted listening to all his overelaborated crap, and was deciding to rest for sometime before using the stolen--uh...….'borrowed' box. After a quick power nap (of 33 minutes, 16 seconds), I opened the box, and what I wanted was just there.


Ok, I admit the suspense is now over-the-top, but don't worry, it's already unveiling itself. Inside the box, was a thin line, colored snowy-white, a bit of yellow, cerulean and some deep-blue, just the same as Lapis Lazuli. Wondering what the thin line was? Hm...well, that was the Milky Way. Yaa....you heard it right, the milky way. Our galaxy. Okay, now before you bang your heads in confusion, I'll explain. The 'gonzo' idea that had slipped in my mind was of that to vacay on a planet. I know it's not physically possible, but C'mon, we humans invented cars and rockets man. Why not a way to travel to a planet and live there for a few days? That box was created by Pinkerton's great-grandmother, who was a real science whizz, unlike Pinkerton's father and him. No one believed her inventions at that time and even after, mainly because she was a woman, and you know how it was with women. They were supposed to be housewives and not....scientists. But when Pinkerton was once blabbing about his family, he told me about her, the box, and how he thought she was crazy to think she could become a successful scientist (that part had hurt me). I decided to check that box out once, mainly because there was no harm. The worst that could happen, was that it wouldn't work. I decided to take my chances, pull a few strings (or in this case, wires; some of the wires were slightly damaged) and check it out. After I had worked on it just enough, I held my breath, counted backwards from five, and exhaled deeply. Then I tapped that thin line, closed my eyes, and was ready to check out the upshot. I might've dozed off or something, because after a few minutes I felt really, really light....and almost as if I was floating or something. I opened my eyes and my jaw dropped. I was in the middle of a luminous light, with some diffraction spikes striking in diagonal directions.


Uh....yes, I was somewhere in the Milky Way, but not exactly the kind of planet you'd assume. I was assuming more of Jupiter, Mars or Venus from the Solar System, but neither did I land on the Solar System nor on a planet. I landed on a star, the Proxima Centauri in the star system, Alpha Centauri! I was totally stupefied, and seriously demented...because I was totally NOT expecting that. It was basically as big as Earth, or just as smaller. It was reddish, or....Crimson. I thought I'd have nothing to do on a....planet or in this case, a star, but I was really, really wrong. I was just....strolling and kind-of exploring the place (that's something that you would've done too if you were in my shoes) when I heard three big clicks. Really loud bullet noises, and I was scared to death. I quickly hid behind a really brobdingnagian crater, as that was what my reflexes suggested at the time. Then I heard some gibberish, furious gibberish and I clutched my hand to my mouth so that my breathing would get calmer and no one would be able to hear it. After a few seconds, the jibber-jabbering got softer, and I peeped through the crater to observe the situation. I didn't believe what my eyes saw. There were six greenish creatures, with gigantic ears and a really pointy nose. Ok, yes, the first thought that popped into my head was that they were aliens, and I was correct. After all, an alien is just a hypothetical and fictional being from another world. I so wanted to come out of my temporary hiding and introduce myself to them and get to know about them and their world (the Proxima Centauri), but after seven careful moments of consideration, the idea seemed stupid. What if they were some sort-of invaders of the Proxima Centauri? What if they were bad peopl--uh.....aliens? What if they were out to hunt humans and kill them?


So I just held my breath once again, and kept spying on them from behind the crater. They kept talking for what seemed like.....forever. Suddenly one alien pointed towards the exact crater that I was hiding behind. My heartbeat stopped. It felt as if my heart had plunged out of my chest to run for it's life, and that I could no longer breath. It felt like my lungs had squished, and that my limbs had frozen to the glossy, nitid surface of the star. I quickly came to my senses when I saw those dwarfs walking (floating, to be specific) towards the crater, and I tried to run to some other hiding place, when I remembered, that I could NOT run as there was no gravity to allow that. So I looked really stupid, trying to sprint across in the middle of nowhere on a star in the Milky Way in the universe. Before I could get away, the aliens had reached the crater, and I had caught attention of their weird and beady eyes. I stopped running, and turned around completely to observe what they'd do next, and I was completely horrified with what they did next. Without even blinking for a second (aliens don't blink, I had forgotten that), they all took out their eerie pistol-looking gun thingies, and pointed them at me, with a fierce frown wrinkling their brows (or whatever that brown line was above their eldritch eyes). I quickly put my hands up, which was really stupid as I was NOT a criminal caught by the local police back in Venice. For some reason, they got so offended by me putting my hands up, that they all shouted and stomped their foot (on the air, as they were floating) at the same time and then one alien shot me right above my belly button. Yikes! But....the strange thing was that it didn't hurt.


Not one tiny bit. Hell, I didn't even know that I had been shot until I heard the bullet noise (which, strangely enough, came ten minutes after I had been shot). Nah, I didn't die. Why, you ask? Particularly because I wasn't really shot, and there were no aliens in front of me. I was never on the Proxima Centauri to begin with. Bewildered? No, it wasn't a dream or a hallucination. And yes, Pinkerton's great-grandmother's invention had worked a treat. Well that's because that wasn't what you call a time machine, it was a 'VR'. Virtual Reality Machine. Yes! Pinkerton's great-grandmother had invented a VR Machine! I know we have those now-a-days too, but I wouldn't call them as advanced as Pinkerton's great-grandmother's masterpiece. Her (Margaret Pinkerton) VR machine was something which made the users literally feel the world which they were in. Like they could smell, touch and even taste stuff that they saw in the VR world. It's been two months since I've used Mrs. Margaret's VR machine, and now it's probably being auctioned or something. Yes, I gave it up the Government, as keeping it all to myself seemed selfish. Honestly, I don't even feel the need to use it anymore, as I'm already busy with colleges and stuff, and thanks to Mrs. Margaret's VR machine, I know what I'm gonna study about in college. Astronomy! Hey, that VR was so real and intriguing, I really want to dig deeper into this amazing tunnel of shiny and mysterious stuff (a.k.a universe), and actually be able to find ways to travel there normally. Hey, who knows....maybe one day, apps like BookMyTrip would be selling tickets for hotels on Mercury? Holding to that thought, this is me, Jessica Turner, signing off!


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