A Pale Blue Dot — Episode 2 — Love Is The Key

It was my first day at college. I was very apprehensive of how people perceived me. Social acceptance has always been my Everest. The college campus was huge and I felt like turning around and running away — back to the safety of my home. Hordes of adult-ish teenagers were roaming around aimlessly. A group of pretty girls smiled at me as they walked by giggling among themselves. I’m cute, I told myself. I felt pride thrusting my chest out. The restlessness caused by being among people was sinking down as I turned and smiled back at them. They giggled harder. Two of them hi-fived each other. Women, I thought. I finally started to feel easier and a rush of freedom and confidence to win this world spread across my body. I stretched my arms out in gratification and took a deep breath looking towards the sky.

“Ha ha… Look at that”. A tall hefty kid with glasses and clear lack of subtlety was laughing at something in my direction. I looked around. I heard another cackle and turned. For a moment, it appeared as if everyone was staring at me. While I still am a sucker for social acceptance, a lot of eyes on me at the same time has always made me jumpy. Nah, don’t be ridiculous, I tried to reassure myself.

“That guy is not wearing pants”, someone yelled. I looked down and to my ginormous horror, I indeed wasn’t wearing any pants. Just a pink underwear with Donald duck’s face printed at the back. And front. That explained the stares, the cackles and the pretty girls’ giggles. The insecurity returned in full force and a throbbing desire to kill myself overtook me. How could I forget my pants? First day of college and no pants. And to top it all — pink underwear. I knew I would never recover from that. The laughter only got louder and the crowd was getting hysterical. There were shouts of “quack-quack” from the crowd. I stretched my arms out again but in anger and despair this time and then came a deep cry from within.

“NOOOOOOOOOOO….”, I woke up with a start. I was panting; sweat was dripping off my chin like tap water. Holy chocolate fudge, what a nightmare!!, I said to myself. I was sitting in my cozy, comfortable bed and it was way past midnight.

“What happened baby?”, came a female voice from behind me. I jumped with a shriek with my eyes wide open. There is a girl in my bed, I derived, but who is she? I couldn’t dare to turn around.

“Hey, hey. Calm down. It’s me. It’s me”. She wrapped her arms around my chest from behind and kissed the top of my head. Yes, but who are you?, I wanted to say that out loud but my voice wouldn’t cooperate.

“You had a bad dream, baby?”, she asked warmly tightening her grip around me. I still had no idea who she was and yet I felt a rush of blood — in the wrong direction. Her hold felt nice. I felt like I had finally found peace. I took a deep sigh for the lack of a better idea. So I was just sitting there, not moving, not questioning the weird happenings and getting inappropriately turned on by the too-close-for-comfort contacts by this mysterious girl.

“You know, now that we are awake”, she said moving her fingers down my back, “do you… wanna.. go for another round?”. That started a chain of venereal thoughts inside my head. She slowly crawled around to face me, her hands going for the control stick which was when I finally saw her face.

“You?”, I yelled. I pushed her away and fell off my side of the bed. My head hit the floor. That face, by the way, was my roommate’s girlfriend’s.

“Get away from me!!”, I cried and woke up again. I was panting like a dog. The girl was gone. The bedroom was gone but the boner was still quite there. Was I still dreaming?, I searched my head for answers. There was only one explanation. Lucid Dreaming. Hollywood was not bullshitting us all this time. I was thrilled and shitting bricks simultaneously. There was a guy sitting on the floor at some distance. He waved at me placidly with a smile that disappeared before I could register it when he saw an unusual uprising in my pants.

“What the..!”, I whispered trying to hide my boner.

“Take it easy. Take it easy. You were unconscious for quite a while”, said that guy pointing to my crotch, “and THAT happens to the best of us.” He might have been 27ish and with a head full of curlies he looked like the epitome of tranquility and composure as if he was used to watching boys getting boners in their sleep.

I looked around. It was a small, dark room with a central illumination system. There were no switches and I couldn’t spot any cameras. Like some sort of hi-tech detention chamber. There was a second guy sitting at a distance staring intensely into a small hand-held mirror.

“He thinks he is on reality television all the time”, said the first guy pointing to the second one, “I am Dreyfus. Call me Dre. That’s Mosho.”

“Hi Dre”, I said warmly shaking his hand, “and now….WHERE THE CHOCOLATE FUDGE ARE WE?”. Mosho jumped at my sudden outburst. Dre didn’t even flinch. He took a deep sigh and said, “I don’t know. I woke up here just like you. So did Kim Kardashian over there. And it looks like we are being observed, like lab rats.”

After my sudden outburst, Mosho’s whole focus had shifted on me and he was giving me the tough, brooding look which was more than what Henry Cavill could do as Superman in Man of Steel. He was breathing heavily and I could tell that from the unusually rapid rise and fall of his shoulders. He turned his head away towards the wall in front of him with a jerk and said firmly, “Mosho hates two kinds of people in this world”, he showed two fingers to the wall like it was a person and continued, “Those who pick their nose in public and those who think EDM is music.” He kept staring at the wall for a while and then returned back to appreciating himself in the mirror.

“Who was he talking to?”, I asked Dre.

“Don’t even bother. He thinks there is a camera in that wall so he is always in character”.

“Of what? A retard?”, I asked.

“Of a guy who thinks all his lines are quotable”, said Dre, “So yeah. A retard.”

“How long have you guys been here?”, I had to ask.

“Not more than half a day I guess. Remember how you were dealing with your life and then that huge black opening in the sky happened?”

It all came rushing back to me. The huge black opening in the sky, the bus that almost ran over me. Then there was pink everywhere.

“Yeah. yeah. So that really happened huh? I was hoping it all to be a dream and I would wake up eventually”, I said.

“I thought so too. But then they told us that it’s not a dream.”

“They?”

“Yeah. It was just a sound. Not sure where it came from. It said ‘Don’t worry. It’s real’. That’s why I said that we were being observed”, said Dre biting his nails nonchalantly.

“Like lab rats. Yeah. Uh huh. Makes sense… Hey, Dre?”

“Yeah?”

“Don’t you find something eerie about all this?”

“It’s uncanny. A bit”, he said.

“THEN WHY THE CHOCOLATE FUDGE AREN’T YOU FREAKING OUT?”, I yelled at him, again. Dre kept looking at me blankly like I was crazy and eventually returned to biting fingernails. My yelling triggered Mosho back into character.

“When life gives you lemons… ask for Tequila and a shot glass”, announced Mosho looking at the wall and went quiet again. His diction was very good, I must admit. He gave the impression of a stage actor who went around the bend due to unemployment and unfulfilled dreams of making it big.

“I have this mental condition. I never get stressed about things. I tried a lot of stuff. Didn’t work out. Doctors gave up too. Thought you should know”, said Dre sadly. Are these guys for real?!, I thought. I glanced around the place to look for a urinal or something to pee into.

“Hey, what do you do if you have to pee?” I asked Dre. Before Dre could answer, a small pot appeared out of nowhere from the wall behind me.

“We use that”, said Dre.

“So they ARE watching us”, I said unzipping my pants.

“Yep”.

For a while, the only sound in that room was that of me pissing into the pot. I tried to break the awkward silence.

“So you have no idea where we are and who are our captors?”, I asked, shaking off those few last drops. A mechanical holder appeared out of the wall with toilet paper. I tore off a handful.

“Yeah. But I do know that there are more like us. I saw that huge black window in the sky pulling in a lot of people before I got pulled in myself”, said Dre. I threw the crumpled up toilet paper in a corner and a mechanical hand sucked it in and vanished into the wall. I was awe-inspiringly admiring the technology of my captors when an announcement in the sweetest of sounds buzzed across the room.

“HI. PLEASE PAY ATTENTION. YOU CAN STEP OUT OF YOUR CHAMBERS NOW. PLEASE DO NOT TRY TO HURT ANYONE OR BE RUDE TO ANYONE. REMEMBER, LOVE IS THE KEY. THANK YOU.”

“Love is the key. Love is the lock. Humans are all pussies where love is the cock. Time is an illusion with love close behind, no one sees the fleeting time, but love, my dear… is blind”. That was Mosho again. I peered at him in disbelief.

“Get used to it”, said Dre still planted in his place.

“How do we get out? There is no door”, I said grazing my hand across the unbelievably smooth wall. “Possibly, a trap door. I have seen it in movies. Try pushing against the wall. There must be a hidden door. A switch, maybe. Why would they make this all so complicated?”. I tried to push the wall at several points but nothing worked. I turned around to see Dre sitting idly on the floor, biting his nails, obviously, and deep in thoughts.

“Hey… Dre?”

“Yeah.”

“A little help here.”

“Can’t be this random.”

“What can’t be this random, Dre?” I was losing my cool again.

“The way to open the door.”

“Let’s find one first”, I said irritatingly. Dre kept quiet. I waited for his response. All I got back was the sound of him biting his nails.

“Well, what makes you think that there is a specific way to open the door?” I asked impatiently, sitting next to him.

“Think about it, man. The way the voice said — ‘STEP OUT OF YOUR CHAMBERS NOW’, like it assumed that we already knew how to open the door.”

“Dude, that’s absurd. They are testing us. Haven’t you read the Maze Runner? They are probably trying to map our brains to find the cure to some terminal disease that has killed most of their kind. We are the chosen ones. So, would you just… play along?”, I said.

“And my idea is absurd”, said Dre with a smirk.

“Alright, Mr. I-Don’t-Get-Stressed-About-Things!! You sit here and bite your chocolate fudging nails. I am going to go and do some trying”, I said and went back to sniffing the walls for trap doors. Can’t get stressed, my ass! I cursed Dre in my head.

“Love is the key. This pains my knee. Why is that — you may be keen; let me tell you — once upon a time, I was a drag queen”, rhymed Mosho again. Another reason for me to find a way out was to get away from the lunatic. Even Dre shared this emotion because he stopped biting his nails immediately, he got up, still contemplating deeply, then looked at me and smiled.

“Love is the key”, he said.

“Dre… Don’t”.

“No. The voice also said — ‘Love is the key’.”

“I thought it was just a figure of speech — something you say to sound preachy. Like ‘Hey, Hitler. Stop killing Jews. Remember, Love is the key’ or ‘Hey, Alexander, stop invading nations to become a world conqueror. Remember, Love is the key.’ or ‘Hey James Brown, never hit women. Remember, love is the key’ or…”

“Yeah, I got your point”, said Dre, “but I don’t think it’s just a figure of speech here. Check this out.” Dre turned to the wall at which Mosho was trying out his lines and shouted, “I love this place”. Nothing happened.

“This room is lovely”, he tried again. I was losing patience.

“Hey, genius. Why don’t you go over there and try kissing that wall? Show some LOWWF!”, I said mockingly.

“Good idea”. And he really went ahead with that. Who are these people?, I wondered.

“You are a lovely room”, said Dre with all the passion he could muster and kissed the wall. His lips touched the surface of the wall and there was a ‘mmmuaaaahh’ sound.

“THANK YOU. HAVE A GREAT DAY”, came a voice that reminded me of Red Queen from Resident Evil and all the four walls dissolved into thin air like aerosol.

“Huh. Look at that. It really worked”, said Dre, still unimpressed.

“Woaah”, was all I could utter. The most expensive Hollywood sci-fi production looked like a bunch of kids trying their hands on the new video camera that Dad just bought in front of what we were witnessing right then.

“Lo and behold, the reality retreats and imagination irrupts in”, shouted Mosho spreading his arms wide, smiling wide like a maniac. Like he owned that place.

“Choco-latttee-fudge!!!”, I exclaimed, looking around.

(To be Contd…)

WORD FROM THE AUTHOR: If you have reached this point — congratulations, first of all. And a bear hug. Our journey was not easy, I agree, and there are many more miles to go. By now, you must have started to critically categorize The Pale Blue Dot into one of the genres of literature and tell it off as ‘just another yada-yada story’. If no — A crisp high five. If yes — awesome. I would love to hear your feedback and how you expect the story to proceed. Let’s do an experiment. You suggest the arc that the next chapter must follow. If I find it better than what I have in mind (which is highly likely) — you get credits and an amazing chance to be in my best regards — FOREVER. Also, free beer if you live nearby. Again, if you have nothing to give — just click on the green heart below and fill it up with joy. Would mean a lot to Mosho.