I was sitting alone in my room, in front of my laptop, fingers twitching, eager to type. But my brain sent out no signal, no idea, no command, and no nerve impulse in the form of electrical signal that could run through my arms and make my impatient finger muscles to hit on some very specific keys that would in turn send electrical signals through the thousands of logical gates of the multiple core CPU, the result of which would finally turn off some very specific pixels on the otherwise white lit background of the LED screen forming ‘Words’.
I had logged into Cognizant blog and after reading hundreds of blog posts I decided to write something on my own. Enthusiastically I had turned on my laptop which I use these days only to watch movies and play games, pressed the Winkey+R and quickly typed ‘Winword’ and hit enter (Too cool to use mouse/touchpad). I don’t remember when was the last time I had used this command, probably during the long holidays after 10th class exams when I was enrolled to the computer course where I was taught this shortcut. But once the empty document had opened welcoming me to colour the emptiness (or defile the purity) of the page with my thoughts, my fingers that had typed the commands so swiftly now failed; the blank virtual page on the screen being the visual representation of my mind.
I don’t know how long I sat in that position and it’s very much possible that I had zoned out. I winced at the sudden blinding flash of light through the windowpane.
What? Is the exam over? I thought coming back to the reality and immediately getting the perception of time too as I realized I’m not a college student anymore. Not for the last three years.
The world outside the window was dark now, as it should be at 1am. There was only a huge backyard beyond the window so it couldn’t have been a car passing by since the road was in the front of the house.
Was it a dream? I wondered, ‘Or was it a flash of idea?’ my mind-voice asked me, ‘You know, for the blog post’
I hoped it was true but it ‘sounded’ too stupid. Do people really conjure up a flashing bulb over their head when they’re struck by an idea?
I chuckled at the thought.
“I wouldn’t even need flashlight when going out in the dark” I mused, speaking to myself or perhaps to that mind-voice of mine, “I can just come up with a few stupid ideas while walking in the dark.”
I got up from my bed, not noticing that my laptop had gone to ‘sleep’, and walked towards the window all the while thinking of some ‘ideas’ I could come up with if I ever got lost in the dark. I had gone from ‘looking-for-ideas-to-write-a-blog-post’ to ‘looking-for-ideas-to-light-up-imaginary-hovering-bulbs-over-my-head’.
“Ok so to get a flashing bright idea I have to come up with a simple problem first. Let’s see… Come on mind-voice, quiz me”
‘Okay’, said my mind-voice ‘So you’re at a mall and there a cute looking girl in front of you. How do you get her number?’
“Hah, that’s easy. I’ll take out my mobile and set my message tone as that whistle sound I downloaded and play it ‘accidentally’. She’ll get offended and turn towards me and say ‘Hey! You whistled at me?’ and I’ll say ‘Oh no no that was my message tone’ and then she’ll say ‘I don’t believe you’ and I’ll say ‘Well if you don’t believe me send me a message from your phone and see for yourself if my phone whistles or not’. I’ll give her my number to try it out. She’ll apologize when my phone does ring, and that will lead to small talks. So now I have her number as a message and she has mine.
‘But you’d never have the guts to pull that stunt with a girl. I know you too well’ said the mind-voice.
I frowned “Well the point of this exercise is to get an idea, not to implement it. Huhuhahaha!!”
I tried to sound maniacal with that supposedly evil laugh but by that time I had reached the windowsill and the darkness outside made my laughter come out timid like a puppy’s bark. I mustered up some courage and distracted myself “So ‘ting’ that bright idea will light up a 120 watts bulb over my head lighting the grounds all around me”
I imagined myself in that impenetrable darkness that had claimed the backyard and I still found it hard to imagine a bulb bright enough to light up the expanse.
‘But the light fades out within a few seconds’ my mind-voice said and I couldn’t help but visualize myself getting consumed by the darkness slowly as the light dimmed.
“You Brutus” I scowled at my mind-voice, “ok quick, give me another problem”
‘Here you go. You’re up against Cyclops from X-men, you know- the one with ‘laser’ sharp eyes *wink* How do you protect yourself from his killer eyes *wink wink*?’
“Oh come on”
‘The light is fading’
“Ok ok… So Cyclops eh? I once made plans to survive any superhero. But I don’t remember Cyclops. Hmmm… Let’s see… Cyclops emits high intensity laser beam from his eyes and that can pierce through almost anything… how do you protect yourself from a beam of light that can dig through anything?... dig through anything… Yes! Anything but that!!” I exclaimed.
‘What?’ asked my mind-voice although it already knew what I was thinking.
“What did Cyclops did to protect others from his killer glare? He wore sunglasses. The only thing that seems to keep the laser beam dammed. So I will cover myself with the material of those sunglasses.”
‘Whoa!’ my mind-voice faked a surprise.
“So ‘ting’, the light is back on again.” I again imagined myself in the backyard being showered with the bulb’s light.
‘Walk carefully now, the light is going to go out soon’ as the mind-voice said it my thoughts suddenly went back to the horror movie ‘Saw’ that I ‘saw’ few years back. The protagonist of the movie goes through something similar. He gets stuck in his apartment alone, in pitch black night without electricity in the house, sensing some strange presence looming in the darkness. In order to see what’s in front of him, he uses his camera’s flash to see but unfortunately the flash lasts only less than a second. As he walks around the house making the camera flash go off timed well enough to get a sense of his surrounding and to make sure no one is in front of him, his final flash reveals something very scary. Something like a monster. He’s frozen at the sudden sight leaving him vulnerable to the predator’s attack.
That was it. Now my sporadic imagination pictured me standing in the pitch black not knowing for a second that I’m standing face to face with a monster and the bulb over my head going ‘ting’.
Something moved in the dark, startling me to a mild quiver.
I’m imagining stuff again, was my first thought, always living in a dreamland.
‘No, there was definitely something there’ whispered my mind-voice too scared to say it aloud.
I squinted at the darkness. ”Nothing’s there, and why are you whispering?” I replied, “You’re a voice inside my head”
“But I did see something” I found myself whispering, “Something gray-brownish… Probably a dog… Yeah that must be it”
I leaned in further looking straight outside the window, my nose touching the glass and my breath fogging it. I could see the partial reflection of my eyes in the glass looking back at me. I dared imagine myself standing outside the glass looking inside in the same fashion, me being the reflection that was now looking at me.
Something moved behind the fog on the glass and the colour of my eyes’ reflection shifted to a fluorescent blue.
My heart jumped to my throat effectively blocking and muffling any scream I could’ve mustered. It wasn’t just my heart that had jumped but I was myself lying on the ground now scrabbling to get as far as possible from the window, for peering through the clear glass pane, un-fogged now, were two huge bulbous blue eyes fixed on a shiny head shaped like an inflated balloon. The eyes moved to meet mine and I saw a thin cut near the bottom of the balloon curved like a smile. There was no apparent nose.
But that was not it. As my limbs failed me and I lay on the ground as if lying motionless would render me invisible to ‘it’ I noticed that ‘it’ was more than just a huge head. It had a thin long neck and it seemed like it had a human like skinny torso and hands too. The long scrawny fingers felt around the glass as if surprised by the transparent shield separating me from it. For a second I felt safe inside the four walls. But only for a second. Because I realized that it was not feeling around the window with awe but looking for a way to open it. The fingers soon found the grip at the bottom and heaved the window up, letting in a gush of cold wind bringing down the temperature of the room, just like my chance of survival.
There was something about the face. It didn’t look maniacal or threatening in any way. The smile was obvious but that made it even more discomforting. It slid in the head first slowly and I prayed that the huge head should get stuck in the window. While most primitive animals would be deciding by now whether to fight or take flight, my mind was imagining this visitor’s head getting stuck in the window. But the visitor slid in completely and gracefully as if its body had not even scratched the frames of the window. It turned to look at me the inscrutable smile still etched like a cut on a smooth stone. It stood like a very slim humanoid robot less than five feet tall. Now I saw that ‘it’ was wearing a big blue shorts, like that of Hulk but this creature was exact opposite of Hulk. While the Hulk looks like a small head on a bulldozer, this little thing looked like a bulldozer head parked over a Tata Nano.
It opened its mouth, the smile unwavering, and said-
