Edge of the World
There had been cosmopolitan speculations roaming this realm for millennia: what would happen if you supposedly sailed to the edge of the world and fell off? Well, I, for one, bear witness to this statement. And I will recount to you my adventure tale as far as my memory allows me to.
It was as good a day at sea as it could get. “All blue.” Above, the lucent blue sky predominated over the endlessly pristine cyan ocean. The sky clear with patches of cumulus helter-skelter, the sea serene and glistening with the luster of the sun overhead, and the breeze blowing soothingly from starboard. It was two of us, me and my mate Sama, cruising on the Aqua Laguna, a yawl I had acquired a week ago from the famed port of Anguilla: The Port of Valley. At the break of dawn, Sama and I embarked from the port northwards after an early brunch at one of the local taverns. Sama adjusted the sail to the starboard wind as I steered the Laguna northwest, our destination port Phillipsburg, Sint Marteen. As we sailed on, the sound of the waves and the rustling wind fluttering sails further added to the immense delight of the trip.
Far off course, Sama, the ever-adventurous, saw an isolated island up north at open sea and proposed, “Let’s go there!”
“Why not?” I thought as we veered off to the island. Sama pulled the sail larboard, and we steered right cruising towards the island, but it moved further away; however, we had ample time and so proceeded on. One hour, two hours,… then three, a detour which looked no longer than an hour had gone awry. As experienced as we were, we apprehended something was amiss — we were lost. I took out my reliable compass, the gauge ran amok, swiveling like a rotating propeller. Then on to the GPS, Sama activated the switch — It fazed out like a TV with its plug pulled out. A momentary silence permeated the air as Sama remarked, “Is it the Triangle?” Those words sent shivers down my spine; I spun the rudder a full 360 to turn back, but Laguna didn’t respond. Sama tried moving the sail but to no avail.
The wind grew more powerful, we couldn’t stop her, she was heading dead straight to the island. Suddenly it started getting chillier; the bright sunny day got duller, darker and gloomier, the wind raged, the waves turned more violent, and the bright sky turned murkier. A huge cumulonimbus loomed overhead as far as the eye could see, flashes of lightning from the sky amplified by the reflecting waters, and adding insult to injury, a thick mist enveloped around us — a storm was brewing. Maybe we strayed too far north; perhaps all the Bermuda Triangle tales were not nonsense. Nothing worked, neither the signal flares nor the comsat telephone, nor the GPS, not even the compass and, slowly, not even our own senses. It kept getting hazier, we were flat on our stomach. The rain was pouring down, and salty waves upon waves came crashing down; Laguna could barely stay afloat, yet she didn’t stop, still heading towards that unreachable island now not even visible.
“I don’t feel so good, Mr. Sampanna…” Sama mumbled as his voice grew weaker then silent; no sooner, I too went unconscious as my life flashed before my eyes.
Sometime later, It got warmer. It was no more cold or wet; the rain ceased, so did the wind and the waves.
“Maybe I’m dead, and this fuzzy feeling was death. Death isn’t so bad after all… Heaven? Nah, must be Hell. Well, Hell ain’t a bad place to be. Anything better than that helpless nightmare. NIGHTMARE?”
I suddenly woke up. Couldn’t feel a thing. Slowly, I opened my eyes and heaved a sigh of relief, I had been dreaming all this time, but it was dark, and I couldn’t see a thing. Why was it dark? Slowly, I could feel my toes, my fingers, hands… My senses were recovering. Turning my head left and right, I saw a familiar figure: SAMA! He was laying flat on his belly. The relief I felt as I saw him moving, breathing slowly! But with it came a dismayed realization, “I wasn’t dreaming!” I crawled towards Sama and shook him — no reaction. Shook him harder.
“Nghnghkngh,” he awoke with a nasal grunt.
“Huh, What an interesting dream,” he muttered until he looked around with bewilderment.
“What the… Sampanna? Do you see this?” He shrieked.
“Yep. Nothing,” I replied.
“No, no, don’t you see THIS!?” he insisted.
I looked around — nothing. “All Black.” All I could see was Sama and a bright circle beyond him. However, I discerned something: Sama was still wearing his Polarized Aviators. Maybe it was the glasses, I took mine out of my breast pocket and put it on.
“What the… Sama! Do you see this?” I said.
“Oh! Now you see, eh?” he replied with a smug look on his face.
It is hard to describe the majestic spectacle, for no words could do it justice: a sight naked eyes could never behold; only through a pair of special polarized glasses, it could be perceived. It was akin to a 3D movie: without special glasses, you couldn’t see what lies beyond normality. To describe it in a word: ‘Sparkles’ and a lot of them too. Further, I examined the surroundings as Sama and looked around with me; we were on Laguna, it had completely slipped off my mind and even more astounding was the fact I didn’t even know if we were ‘on’ it: there was no Gravity — I had no weight, it felt so strange. This must be how Astronauts feel, are we in Space?
Moreover, there was nothing, no air, yet we could still breathe. No up no down, no sense of direction nor time. It felt like I just ‘paused’ in time. And, as I scrutinized further, I see a sphere: the Earth? Only this Earth was red and violet and a bit wiggly like a distortion. From the red planet came this waterfall of sparkles, a sparkle-fall, and leading to this river of orangish sparkles, like a river of stars we see at the night sky. I imagine this could be the milky way, only oranger… The Orangy Way. The Orangy Way was a river of sparkles heading a certain way, opposite to the red Earth, and this river took Laguna along with it. This river directed to what appeared like a spherical distortion, a whirlpool, and the sparkles were being sucked in. A warp in space-time, perhaps.
We were in awe, everything felt like a sci-fi movie. “All Red.” A river of red, amid countless red dots leading to a red spiral. Sama and I had accepted our faiths, we were alone, we were helpless, our existence insignificant as we went closer and closer to this red whirlpool, floating on the Aqua Laguna. As we inched closer, this whirlpool resembled a lot that island we saw at sea, only this time it wasn’t getting further, but rather closer. We went faster and quicker. The red dots now red lines, the sparkles turned into streaks of red light. Sama grabbed two cans of Beer and threw me one. As the Beer landed on my hand, we drank with ‘Aviators’ on, and we were sucked into the wormhole — I felt like a ‘Pokémon’ going inside a ‘Pokéball’.
Moments later, it could have been years, decades, centuries but I don’t know; it felt like a moment. I was holding hands with Sama, he was there right beside me. This time it was bright. “All white.” It was snow, and it was cold. Around us, tall mountains all snow-capped. Were we back on Earth, it seemed like Earth. We could breathe fresh air. Beyond the mountains, we could see what looked like buildings, very tall ones — one that could put Burj Khalifa to shame; we walked shivering across the snow in our skimpy clothing, until a flying car like thingy: A flying saucer, pulled over and human-like holograms appeared and started shouting, “ Koh! Koh! Koh-hau tee-mee-hah-roo!” and then something more familiar-sounding words were spoken, “Who are you? Why are you here?” We felt relief as we stated our names and they let us in. It was warm, and two humanoid creatures came: Androids. We asked the same things, who they were, where we were. They said, “Sky Patrol. The Himalayas, Nepal.” We were halfway across the globe, and now flying. Even more shocking than the news that “One Direction” broke up. We asked, “What year?”
“3016 AD”, the RoboCop replied.
Sama looked at me and said, “TIME TUNNEL.” I comprehended the meaning behind his words, and those words made more sense to me than my own name at the moment. We pointed to the Aqua Laguna, and a tractor beam lifted her as we zapped as if we teleported. The RoboCop said we were in the capital Catmandu, and were greeted by a Humanoid Cat Robot, who said “My name is Doraemon. And it’s not Catmandu it’s Kathmandu, with a K.” Then, they kept us inside a room, hovering over the sky. I looked at Sama, and he looked at me.
“Time travel,” Sama uttered.
“It seems so,” I replied.
An awkward pause followed by a burst of enormous laughter. We had traveled through. We were thousands of years ahead into the future, and the future couldn’t be more clichéd. Flying cars, flying cities, tall skyscrapers, robots.
Finally, an actual human appeared and said, “ I am Stha Son Goku. I am a scientist at Kathmandu Labs. We discovered an anomaly in Space-time where you were found and with tangible evidence have concluded that you two have time traveled. Such situations have never occurred before, you are the first time travelers. We need to interrogate you some more,” as they interviewed us and carried out a bunch of tests. They gave us food, lodgings, and everything; treated us as one of their own.
Fast forward 5 years. Son Goku came to us and said. “We’ve finally found a way to get you back to your time. Do you want to go home?” We had spent the last five years traveling the new world and enjoying the magnificent sights while getting enraptured by the advanced technology and lifestyle. But it was time to say goodbye. The researchers gave us presents and bade us farewell as we were guided to this capsule-like device, a time machine perhaps, by Doraemon and briefed us regarding the nuances by Goku. We looked through the small circular windows when the researchers at Kathmandu Labs pressed some holographic buttons and Zap! We were back, back on the Aqua Laguna about Midway on our journey from Anguilla to Phillipsburg, but this time there was no stray island. Thinking of it as an end to a surreal experience transcending across worlds, we sailed towards our initial destination.
What everyone always previously thought to be endless was anything but endless. The world had an edge, and we sailed through it into the future and back again to the present world.
