(00:02)
Amit leaned across from his desk and dialed the number he dialed every day at precisely this time in the evening-The Goldilocks zone, when everyone required for the discussion across all time zones was awake and fresh. His fingers flew over the numbers on the phone and he stared absently at his screen as he waited for the cheery ‘Hello’ to interrupt the ringing tone.
He sat up straight and stared into the darkness in front of him. He was sure he was seeing the colours of his wall painting dripping from their canvas onto the floor. He was also sure he wasn’t. And what of that smell? There was no reason for that smell to penetrate his nostrils, where he was. But it was! This inherent mistrust of his own senses made him question whether to believe the message that the next of his senses was conveying- that noise! He reached for the button which he vaguely remembered stopped that noise. Ah, Silence.
(06:11)
The connection was being really bad today. It always happened on trans-Atlantic phone conversations, irrespective of the amount of progress that the telecommunications industry had made over the past few years. The person at the other end wasn’t helping either, with his constant mumbling. Amit looked at the clock and sighed. It had been more than 5 minutes and they hadn’t really got closure on the first issue they had been discussing. He sighed, forced himself to concentrate on the call and strained his ears to hear better.
He opened his eyes and let his mind register the dim light illuminating the room. He smiled to himself as he thought how just a single light was enough to dispel any amount of darkness. Amount of darkness? Was darkness quantifiable? For that matter, was light quantifiable? He remembered a conversation he had had a few days ago...
“What’s that?”
“It’s a lava lamp man. That’s electric arcs streaking inside”
“Sweet. How does it work?”
“So if you touch it, your fingers create the potential difference, and the electric arcs converge to it”
“Nice. But you should be able to control it remotely too”
“How?”
“With your eyes. Light is a particle right? So if you stare at it long enough, or hard enough, you should get enough light particles on the lamp to create that potential?”
“Yeah... no. Your eyes don’t emit light. They absorb them.”
"Ah. Damn”
(08:23)
Amit was beginning to wish the emotional baseline of this conversation was a little flatter. The caller had gone from monotonous mumbling to quite an excited state, even agitated. The deadlines were close and they had closed only one of the five issues they had to discuss. He didn’t like it when he had unclear issues on his hand; it messed up his mental plan. And he didn’t work well with messed up plans. He was getting increasingly impatient for his turn to speak, he was barely getting a word in right now.
He forced himself to shift his body into a vertical position. He knew he had accomplished that task when he saw himself staring at the painting again, as opposed to the ceiling that he had been staring at for the last ten minutes. The room was beginning to feel stuffy too, all of a sudden. It was so hot in there... No wait, it was actually cold. Nope, hot again. It was being... groovy. Either way he had to get out of the room but he just couldn’t make himself. He was beginning to feel mildly perturbed. Surely he should be able to get out of this room? Of course he could. As soon as he could get up.
(11:33)
Amit was relieved the call was coming to an end. They had clarified all that he wanted cleared up, though he was not sure about the confidence level of the person at the other end of the line. He wasn’t going to be unduly worried about that, he wanted to get home as soon as he could today. It was his son’s 5th birthday, and he had already missed the 4th birthday party because he was off on official business. He paused long enough to make sure that the person at the other end had nothing more to say as well, and then ended the call with his usual farewell message, “Alright then, Goodbye, Brian”
He rolled over and as if like a trained response, hit the button that he always did when he heard that phrase. Apparently it ended something...
Brian’s rocky journey ended twelve hours after it had so innocently begun. He was shattered by it...
