He had no idea how he had got there.
His head felt like an army of drillers were at work, trying
to dig out the secrets that were buried deep inside it.
He blinked oddly, against the invasion of bright light
through his eyes. When his eyes adjusted to it, he saw that he was on a railway
platform, lying down, face upward staring at the sun that was peering back
through a gaping hole in the roof. “Did I fall through that?” was the first
thing that occurred to him. The thought passed as he saw more such gaps in the
roof. A high pitched, monotonous voice was announcing the departure of the next
train to Mumbai. The name struck a chord, he had heard about the place, but
couldn’t exactly place the name with the context. On an impulse, and also
having not much of an alternative, he decided to board the train.
As the train had started to move, he lifted himself onto the
door of the nearest compartment. The air-conditioning unit hit him with a draft
of cool air. He suddenly realized he had been sweating after what seemed like a
few minutes out on the platform. Where he had been before that, he couldn’t
really remember. The more he tried to remember, the harder the drilling inside
his head seemed to get. “That’s for later”, he told himself and walked into the
compartment which with its bunk beds reminded him of the dormitories he had
slept in. But as to the when, where and why had he slept in dormitories, he had
no answer. Once again he ignored it for later. A cursory walk through the
compartment told him that it was empty save one passenger.
A woman, around his age, dressed elegantly in a blue sari
with matching blue lenses in her eyes, and as he felt more than saw, sat having
an odd glow about her. “It’s just been too long since the last time”, he heard
himself mutter. Although when the last time had been, or if it had been too
long, he couldn’t remember. Eager for some conversation to dim the drilling
inside his head, he moved into the seat opposite hers and flashed what he considered
a friendly smile. She smiled back at him, rather cautiously, he thought.
In what he hoped was an attempt to break ice, he said, “We
are the only passengers in this compartment”.
She had a quizzical look on her
face but kept quiet. After a few minutes of awkward silence, he tried again,
“Are you going to Mumbai?”
“Yes, and I made sure I would be the only one in this
compartment when I booked all the tickets.”
This was the cue for another awkward silence after which she
continued, sounding more confident and authoritative now that her economic
credentials were well established.
“What are you doing in this train?”
“I don’t know.”
“What do you mean, you don’t know?”
“Well, I was on the platform and the train was leaving and I
boarded it.”
“Just like that? Are you drunk? You don’t seem to be.”
As far as he could remember, there hadn’t been a drink in
his recent past. But that wouldn’t exactly explain the pounding inside his
head. So he just shook his head awkwardly.
“Well, this isn’t going anywhere”, he thought as the
pounding resumed with renewed fury.
“So why is it that you booked the entire compartment if you
were travelling alone?”
“I just wanted some peace and quiet”, she said.
“What for?” he persisted.
“Well, this sounds clichéd, but I’m working on my new book
and haven’t been able to focus for a while, so I thought a long train journey,
all alone, could help calm the brain.”
“So you’re a writer, eh?” he asked.
“Sort of”
“Well, what sort?”
“Well, I don’t know. My critics often describe my books as
extended versions of Disney movie scripts.”
“Hmmm. So you write for children huh?”
“Oh no, I fancy calling myself a Fantasy writer.”
“And what is that?”
“Well, we use magic and other supernatural phenomena as
major elements in our plot.”
“That sounds right out of a dictionary.”
“It is. I memorized it so I could explain to someone what I
did” she said, with what seemed like a sheepish grin.
He could feel the glow that emanated from her getting
brighter, but rejected it with the thought that he was merely getting delirious
with the pain in his head. He realized that the pain had receded or so it
seemed, while he was talking with her. The newly formed smile on her face also
encouraged him to go on.
“So, you write about princes, wizards, dragons and the like,
right?”
“Something like that. But then it’s usually symbolism that
we, as in Fantasy writers, use. Those are basic prototypes that we tailor to
meet the needs of our present society.”
“Prototype. Not exactly a word out of the Fantasy lexicon is
it?”
Another sheepish grin. He felt mildly cheerful by the effect
this conversation was having on her, not to mention on the pain in his head.
“Caught me. Picked up that word during my research for my
next book.”
“So what is your next
book on?”
“That is, if you don’t mind sharing it with me”, he added,
as an afterthought.
“Oh that’s ok. I haven’t really decided on it yet. Believe
it or not, I’m actually thinking of writing something where fantasy and science
fiction freely meet and mingle.”
“Oh!” He was out of words for a moment as her idea struck
him as odd.
Recovering he continued, “So an offspring born out of the
intercourse between fantasy and science fiction, huh?”
“Yep, something like that”, she said smiling, clearly
appreciating the analogy.
“So what would this offspring look like, this baby born out
of an unnatural union?” he made another attempt to bring a smile to her face.
Somehow it made the glow stronger in his eyes.
“Oh the union isn’t all that unnatural. Actually, science
fiction and fantasy are intertwined and have a common origin.”
“Huh?” was all he could say.
“Alright. Let me explain.”
He could see that she was eager to have a listener despite
her earlier retort about solitude and serenity.
“Have you read “Alice in Wonderland”, the book by Lewis
Carroll?”
He nodded affirmatively. Again, the name rang a vague bell.
A story about a young girl jumping into a rabbit hole and finding a whole new
world in there. He had read it sometime in the past. One of those boring hot
summer afternoons propped up on pillows. “Wait a second. I was in a train just
like this one when I read it” he thought. A momentary feeling of happiness at
having remembered something passed over him.
She took it to mean he was happy to not be grasping at
straws.
“Do you know about Wormholes that exist in space?” she
continued.
“Doesn’t sound familiar. Alice jumped into a rabbit hole,
not a wormhole right?”
A smirk.
“Correct. Alice did jump into a rabbit hole” she said, the
smirk now firmly pasted on her face.
He suddenly felt very dumb and wanted to end the
conversation. But the pain in his head made him continue.
“So?” he said, a tad miffed.
“Ok. I admit, the concept is quite new to me too. In fact,
if it wasn’t for this book, I wouldn’t have done any research into it at all.
I’ll try to give you a layman’s explanation of it. Wormholes are hypothetical formations
in the spacetime fabric. Physicists opine that they are a shortcut through
space and time.”
“A shortcut?” he interrupted. The surge of excitement and
confusion was too much to control.
“Yes, theoretically. It allows you to travel great distances
in very short spans of time. Let’s consider the space-time fabric.”
“Space and time is a fabric?”
“Well, for now, imagine it to be.”
An uncomfortable nod. But she continued nevertheless.
“Ok let’s say you want to go from one point in the fabric to
another much farther away. Instead of travelling the entire distance, you open
a tunnel on the fabric so you can enter at one end and emerge through the other
end which is very close to your destination point. Will that not make travel
quicker?”
“Yes. But…”
“Will that not make travelling between stars and galaxies
possible within human lifetimes?”
“Yes. But…”
“Doesn’t this idea strike you as fantastic?”
“Yes. But…” he persisted. He wasn’t going to let her
continue with this madness. A hole, a tunnel, space and time a fabric,
travelling between stars? Is this woman crazy?
“But what?”
“Is all this possible? I mean, does science allow this? Do
we have the kind of technology that can perform the kind of travel that you are
talking about?”
“Yes and no. Ironically science, at least in its current
level of understanding, permits it. Theories postulated by physicists, such as
Einstein, discuss the concept of wormholes at length. In fact, I’m so
fascinated by the subject that I’ve gotten much deeper into it than I
originally intended to. But there is no technology that does it, basically
because the concept of wormholes hasn’t been practically proven yet. There is
no observational evidence to this claim. Which is where I come in.”
The look of awe that had appeared on his face upon
comprehending the magnitude of what she was saying now turned into one of
puzzled confusion.
“Where do you come in?”
“Remember Alice? Ya, the girl that fell into the rabbit
hole. What if Lewis Carroll was a hitherto unknown theoretical physicist and
euphemized an actual wormhole as a rabbit hole in his so called children’s
story? This is where science fiction and fantasy interpenetrate each other.
While science fiction imagines tomorrow based on today’s science, fantasy
creates a yesterday based on today’s imagination. So, based on my reading and
understanding of Carroll’s masterpiece, I’ve come to the conclusion that the
rabbit hole in Alice was a wormhole that allowed Alice to travel to another
world, probably located lightyears away, all in a matter of minutes. Alice
herself says that the rabbit hole is dark, long and empty. She says, “How
curious. I never realized that rabbit holes were so dark . . . and so long . .
. and so empty. I wonder how many miles I've fallen by this time. I must be
getting somewhere near the center of the earth. I wonder if I shall fall right
through the earth!” That’s Carroll right there. Announcing to the world that he
had found a wormhole and knew how they work.”
“All that sounds good when you put it so emphatically,
especially with those deep blue eyes of yours reflecting the sky outside” he
tried, a desperate attempt to bring the conversation to a plane he knew and
understood.
“Oh”, she looked confused for a second, gave a startled jolt
and turned towards the window. The sky was indeed a deep shade of blue. The sun
disappearing in defeat, with the darkness looming in.
He saw her check her watch. A look of relief spread on her
face.
“I must have lost track of time talking to you.”
He instantly felt flattered.
“Is there something that you’re waiting for? The ticket
inspector may be?”
“No. Not him. I told him before I boarded the train that I
was the only passenger and did not want to be disturbed.”
“Well, I thought I saw you look at your watch and you were
quite tensed.”
“Hmm. Not quite. There is still time.”
“Time... Err... for what?”
“Well, don’t laugh or anything. But based on my reading and
research into Carroll’s works, I’ve come up with a complicated formula that can
predict when a wormhole would open and where. The formula, and I have verified
it many times, points out that one is about to open tonight.”
“What?! Where?!” There was a curious cocktail of terror and
surprise written on his face. Although her theory sounded farfetched, in his
present condition of not remembering where he had come from, he was in a
position to believe almost anything. Especially if it came from a lovely woman
on a lonely train.
“Right under the Zuari Bridge. The bridge is a little over
1300meters long and our wormhole is going to open up under the middle portion
of the bridge.”
“The Zuari Bridge? Sounds like it’s in Southern Africa. But
what are you doing here if the wormhole or whatever it is, is going to show up
there?”
She sighed exasperatedly. “The Zuari Bridge connects North
Goa and South Goa and carries trains over the Zuari River.
“Trains? You mean this train is going to be carried over the
Zuari Bridge?”
“Yes” she said, the joy in her face unmistakably visible.
“And it’s going to open up right about the time when our train will be
travelling over it.”
“WHAT?!” he yelled, more out of shock than out of any
attempt to share her happiness.
“Yep! Aren’t you excited?”
“Well, that isn’t exactly the adjective I’d use to describe
my present mood.”
“What is wrong with you? I’m going to be witness to a
phenomenon that has eluded the best minds in the field of physics for years and
by some sheer coincidence you’re going to be part of it too. This is our moment
of glory. We are going to make history.”
“Well how far are we from your bridge?” he asked, the
skepticism still lingering in his voice. Although he had found this woman
extremely attractive and had kept the pain in his head at bay with her talk, he
found the idea of a wormhole too incredible to be practical and if it was
possible, extremely dangerous at best. And that thought wasn’t comforting at
all.
“We are almost there. It’s mere minutes now.”
She had been looking at her watch and following the train’s
progress through the window. Apparently this woman, whoever she was, he now
realized he did not even know what her name was and had not bothered to ask,
was obsessed with her idea and had been making meticulous preparation for this
minute. As the thought crossed his mind, he felt her pulling his arm
forcefully.
The glow emanating from her was intense now. He found the
otherworldly gaze of her blue eyes hard to resist. He passively let himself be
dragged to the door of the compartment.
There they stood, side by side, now so close he could
actually smell her. And whatever memory of his past was left with him told him
that she smelled like no woman he had known before. He felt himself drawn to
her, a brief attraction, a fascination over this strangely alien woman. He
stood transfixed, his gaze being captivated by her beauty, taking in all that
was her. Unperturbed, she was staring into the nothingness beneath their feet.
The train had now started moving on the bridge. The jolts
and bumps increased with every single step the train made. He instinctively
gripped her arm tighter. No voice inside his head told him to move away from
the door. No guttural instinct to scream to him, to let go of her and hold onto
the handrail on the door. In the loud monotony permitted by the trembling tremors
of the train on the tracks, he imagined what it would be like to spend a
lifetime with her.
He never saw the gentle nudge when it came. One moment he
was holding her hand, the next he was being hurtled through the air down into
the deep darkness beneath the bridge. He knew she was not with him and said to
himself that she had gotten the peace and quiet she had wanted. As he was
plunged forward by rushing air, he felt the pull of gravity getting ever
stronger. And in the last moments of his fall, as he prepared himself mentally
to hit a brick wall of water, he thought he saw the darkness open up into an
even darker chasm, as if a primeval beast was opening its mouth wide to devour
its prey.
He closed his eyes to shut out the delusion. And as he felt
the rushing pressure of air blocking his ears, and his mouth go dry, he blacked
out.
He opened his eyes and looked around. He was in the middle
of a bustling railway station, so full of activity.
He had no idea how he had got there.
