I was dazed, confused and most of all, frustrated. I. Want. MY. LIFE. BACK. All I could do right that moment was to stare at him when he revealed the bad news of my life. What’s most unbelievable was that he spoke in a manner as if this was not his matter, not his fault, none of his business, in a flat voice. And right now, we’re finally out of that round space, on the street with not much people.
“Everyone’s just starting the day. Guess this is something same in every world.” I was relieved to see something that’s more like in reality.
“It’s not the start. It’s the end of the day. People are now going back home from work.”
Eh?
“No kidding?” I could feel my heightened heart spiral down, deeper into the black pit.
“Yes. No kidding.” He gave me a serious look. Talking with this guy was tiring. He’s expressionless and toneless. Too much seriousness, at least much more than mine.
“By the way, what’s your name?” I was trying to lighten up the atmosphere. (In fact was trying to escape from reality.)
“I am known as Kish in your world.”
“Kish? Hmmm… Where did I come across that name? It sounds familiar.”
“…”
“Do you want me to tell you my name?”
“It’s your freedom to do so.”
“…Right. My name is Caroline. Call me Carl.”
“Carl.”
“Yes?”
“You told me to call you.”
“…” No more talking from me!
We walked through the streets without talking. However, the situation was getting out of control for me----I need the toilet! Although I swear I wouldn’t start the conversation anymore but this was out of the question.
“Kish! Where’s the wash room?” As far as I was concerned, I haven’t seen a toilet sign around here. The buildings were all rounded or twisted in a crazy angle. Not considering the weird taste of design they had, it’s a miracle they could even build this thing without the buildings collapsing. The buildings here made Pisa Tower a work of kindergarten. Let’s talk about the one we’re about to pass. The window, which I assumed a window… What? You’re saying I couldn’t even recognise a window was a big joke? Oh, come on! How would you expect me to know just by looking at this splendid structure? It’s not even up in the wall beside the door. It’s down there jutting out of the wall while the door which I assumed again based on the height of that hole was above it. So…the people here must have long legs? Or they trained high jump since little? There must be high jump champions all over this place…
Not only the buildings were in jeopardy, the street lights were shorter than me and pointing upwards. Is this some kind of sports event or a stage play going on recently? Although it’s all bright and shine out here, there wasn’t anyone on the streets. Guess this is a vampire world?
“It’s underground. “
“Underground? Right. Why am I not surprised?”
“You’re not?”
“… Just take me there.”
We walked a distance down the streets. No. It’s actually “up” the street, literally. Then down again.
“Wow!” The scene suddenly changed into a completely different view. It brought my imagination to a whole new level. This was not a terrestrial world. It’s air borne! Looking down from where I was standing, I couldn’t see what’s down there. There were only clouds which were blue!
“Please tell me that we’re not standing on a floating island.”
“We’re not.”
“Pheww… I guess there’s a limit to how things can be out of hand.”
“We’re actually on a floating building.”
“… You. Are. Hopeless!”
“I never said I was hopeful.”
“Are you playing dumb all this while? Why can you talk back so fluently at times like this and don’t seem to get it most of the time?”
“I’m just saying what’s in my mind.” Kish gave a puzzled look.
“You could be awarded the Oscar award back in my world, if we ever managed to go back.” Ignoring his questioned look, I scanned around this miraculous space. As I exploited my eyes to see in the far distance, I spotted an enormous “something” floating in front of us.
“What’s that?” I pointed at that floating “something”.
“It’s another building.”
“I think I messed up the meaning of the word ‘building’ a tad bit. Care explaining it to me?”
“Building means any human-made structure used or intended for supporting or sheltering any use or continuous occupancy, or an act of construction. Buildings come in a variety of shapes and sizes and functions…”
“Wait! Stop! That’s enough. I get it already! You can be quite talkative when we’re on the right topic. Anyway, just take me there, will you? All of this shock is going to drive me into anxiety.”
“This way.”
He led me to another alley and then what’s in front of me just choked me. It’s nothing like before. Okay, maybe this was nothing compared to the travel to other dimension and the floating buildings. But this was still… least bit of intriguing… What’s in front was what would appear in the world famous…game Super Mario. The huge pipe that Mario used to go down some place in the game… Okay, why am I not impressed? Well, considering all the things I’ve been through, there should be something a lot cooler than this? Please don’t let down my imagination. I was just imagining something more…more…exciting! Maybe a gigantic dragon that can fly us down there or some high-tec flying machine or just a small teleportation technology would be waaayy cooler! What’s a pipe doing here?
I could imagine myself with more than three lines at the side of my head. He must have seen my darkening façade as he started to move slowly away from me. Maybe I was a tad bit overreacted. You can’t blame me. I was thrown to this place without prior notice through some bizarre method. Of course I would expect something more than just this pipe!
“Ehem! Here we are. We just need to jump down this pipe to go to the lower le…vel…” Well, I don’t blame him for reacting like that. It must be my scary-twitching-facial-muscle that scared him. I doubted he’s scared, more like just detected a dangerous-smelling package that’s about to explode.
Cool down… Take a deep breath Carl. There must be something more complicated that meets the eye. They must have some sophisticated machinery doing all this. Besides, there is some very simple design that’s more useful than it looks. Don’t judge a book by its cover!
“Right, let’s go. What are you waiting for?” Forcing a smile, we continued our journey to the---wash room. Okay, how lame could I be?
*****************************************************
No comments:
Post a Comment