The Gem of Grey

As far as my memory serves me, the particular adventure that i'm about to narrate happened about 25 years ago.

Slick and I were going to planet Shoul to see the gem of Grey. This gem is named so because it had been carved to perfection by a man called Grey.Legend has it that some very strange things happen to the person who possesses this gem. What happens still remained to be discovered until........

We reached Shoul by one of Slick's hi-tech flying machines that i don't have a very good idea about. We were immediately attended to for lodging and food (You have to remember how these matters become trivial when you're with a prince).

We were accommodated in the best hotel where we ate the most delicious food ever made.I would describe the entire menu to you if i could but that must take up another later post, which i assure you, will come when the time is right.

It was after this that we went to see the Gem of Grey safely kept for display at the house of the richest woman in the galaxy for she had a mansion large enough to hold the number of people who came to have a look at this mysterious gem. Slick being royalty of course, got special preference and hence we were immediately given permission to view the gem(see what i mean about a universe quite perfect for me...).

The gem was incredible.Crafted to perfection was an understatement,it's shape was so queer that we were left absolutely breathless for a moment.It SEEMED to have no edges but wasn't a circle or an ellipse. What was it?
It's translucency caused strange light effects all around us and in our eyes.The mere sight of it was hypnotic.When i looked through it, i felt as though i was falling, as though I've been falling for a trillion years, falling where or into what...i didn't know.Where was i? Colours swirled around sometimes,they were metallic, like extremely sluggish bolts of lightning of different colours.................

Slick shook me out of it. "Yes, that is known to happen. you shouldn't stare at it for so long."

It was at this moment that Dr. Anonymous and his minions came crashing into the mansion armed with pocket lasers(do not under estimate the power of this gadget).He said, " All right,I'm going to make this quick.I'm here to steal the gem and anyone who tries to stop me will be annihilated."

He stepped forward and took the gem from the glass case it was kept within and started heading back towards the ship to escape. Slick, jumped at him from behind and they both fell down. The gem slipped from his hands and came straight into mine. Talk about coincidence or was it......?
The minions pointed their guns at me to take the gem away from me, but i didn't care for that anymore.My eyes were locked. I couldn't move them away from the gem.I felt like i was going into it and then falling, falling,falling and i saw the end...it looked like water.Water that kept sparking...it rippled in different patterns and i fell right into it.

I came out from the trance back into reality.I came out from the trance back into reality.I came out from the trance back into reality.I came out from the trance back into reality.

There were 4 of me.Or rather 4 different sides of me.The extremely calm one.The extremely furious one. The quite annoying sarcastic one. The extremely worried one.

"Am i sure there isn't more of me?" said the sarcastic one with an eyebrow raised at the calm one who seemed to be looking around and analysing the situation.

"Where the hell are we?" said the furious one holding up the worried one by my collar.

"I swear i don't know! OH my god! if this is the case, then we will all fight with one another till we destroy each other completely unless the minions get to us first,in which case we're all going to DIE NOW! WE'RE DOOOOOOOOOO......"

Whack.The furious one punched the worried one.

The entire crowd seemed to be in a state of shock and curiosity including Slick and Dr. Anonymous.

"Let me get this straight.... you had the gem in your possession and now there are 4 yous?" asked Dr. Anonymous.

The calm one replied with absolute calmness,"That is correct. But,you may have noticed that each me has a different personality.For example,i am relatively quite calmer than the rest of them and probably the only one of me who can give you logical answers right now."

"Oh,i see!So that's what it does.It separates the sub-conscious levels of an individual.I would have never guessed that." said Slick who was quite excited about the turn of events.

"yes, but how are we to become one again?" asked the worried one.

"Leave that for later. For now, let's take care of Dr. Anonymous.",replied Slick with confidence enough to assure the worried one to the point of being able to carry out the instruction. So, the 4 mes and Slick worked together and managed to defeat Dr. Anonymous with the help of Slick's weapon-stealer ray gun.(I know it makes things seem too easy. But,it wasn't that easy because our aim wasn't very good and the ray guns had weak lasers that didn't work well enough to steal pocket lasers which were quite massy.)

Ok. Now,this is the point where i tell you that the sarcastic one and worried one were of no use.At least the sarcastic one had a good sense of humour.The worried one was very unhelpful as she would start palpitating every time an enemy was nearby.

After the whole fiasco, we need to think of a way to get me back together.I asked Slick if he could design a ray gun to do that."I don't know how to go about because i don't know on what principle the gem works on."

The worried one fainted.

"Is she dead?" asked the sarcastic with a wicked smile on her face.

The furious one gave Slick a threatening look and said "NOW LOOK HERE!YOU BETTER COME UP WITH A SOLUTION OR I AM GOING TO TEAR YOU APART AND FEED YOU TO THE GLUTTONS OF PLANET HUNGRY !"(which by the way, does exist).Lucky for me, Slick doesn't get scared very easily.

The calm one then said, "Isn't it possible to use the gem in your ray gun to reverse the process?"

"That's not a bad idea.In fact that might just work..." said Slick and got to work immediately.

The ray gun was ready.

"Okay,here goes." and he pulled the trigger at one of me....

I came out of the sparking water. Not a drop of it was on me. I saw a hint of something a little further away. I walked up to it.It was a string of infinite length and finite tension.I plucked it.It vibrated and the sound resonated in my ears and i found myself back in reality.There was only 1 of me.

"Woohoo!I'm back!" , i exclaimed with joy.

Now that's an experience worth remembering.
Thank you for reading. Feel free to comment on it.

By popular demand, this post is about Slick. This is how the story goes.....

It was about a 100 years ago that the queen of planet Trionedent gave birth to a baby boy and named him a name that nobody in the universe could pronounce except her. Hence, they shortened his name to Slick. It was during this time that the very old and very wise emperor came to visit him. He told them, " There will be a time when this little boy seems prepared to face the responsibility of the throne, it is then that i want to meet him.
You must ask him to visit me at this time for there is a great secret that i wish to reveal to him. " "For" he said, "there are great many things that lie in store for him and he has the capacity to be a great ruler. However, there is one thing that i must make sure of, he must not use his special talent during his quest to find me."
The queen did not believe him and her motherly instincts urged her to find out as to how he could possibly know this. And he said " It is because i have the power to forsee things. I am the very old and very wise emperor!Have you not heard of me?" and the queen replied that she hadn't infact. After many hours of identity verification, it was finally clarified that he was indeed trustworthy. So, the queen promised him to send her son. (For the manwould have pestered her for many hours if she had done otherwise. He had a way with people...).

So it was that the boy grew up to be ........quite .....Ummmm....well he turned out to be a very bad warrior, wasn't much of a lady killer either and.... he was the only one in
the universe who could design a ray gun for any purpose. Nobody knew how, but, he would always find a solution.They say that it's an inborn talent for there was nobody to teach him this skill.

It was around the age of 20 that his mother told him about the very old and very wise emperor's visit on the day he was born. Slick, being a huge fan of the emperor, could not believe his ears and hence, set out in search of him.His travels are legendary and too long to explain. To make a very long story short, Slick travelled through a 100 galaxies, and one huge galaxy which was being formed due to the merging of 5 different galaxies(It was here that he had to cope with several aberrations in the gravitational field and went through a wormhole that led him
back to where his home was after which he decided to take different course), discovered the most startling creatures ever several of which he has been awarded for, went through a black hole and came out as a quarky and (lucky for him!), arbitrarily reached another black hole
through which he came out just a little taller (good for him), got to visit the secret finitely seeming infinite chamber of all lost objects and finally reached the chamber of the emperor which was on a small, green, prosperous meteor called Tin.

The emperor called out to him - "I've been expecting you,......Slick. I have a secret to tell you."
Slick could not believe his eyes. He was finally here. He had made it and now he will know the secret.
He said - "I know. My mother told me the whole story. So what's the secret?"
The emperor said, "Why don't you have some snacks before that. You have come a long way."
Slick replied,"OK."
And so a great many extraordinary snacks were brought and Slick quite happily ate them all up.
The emperor said,"Now, it is time to reveal to you what i have revealed to none yet."
Slick couldn't beleive it. This was it.
The emperor said,"Never let, what people tell you, put fear into your heart."
Slick said, "OK i wont and?"
"And what? That's it."
"That's it????? You made me travel millions of light years to give me this idiotic piece of advice??"
And with a lot more grumbling, Slick left for his home planet. It is said that despite his anger at the whole situation, he still followed the advice and is now one of the greatest rulers the universe has ever seen.
The end.

Dedicated to Amy

Bizarre occurences....?

The worlds in which we live in are so gigantic that most of us might find it quite a challenge to fathom a world that is much smaller than that of ours. You must not misunderstand me when i say 'much smaller' that i am referring to some microscopic world. What i really mean is a world much smaller than what any microscope on the Earth can view. Did i manage to give you a better estimate?
OK. Think quarks.

This world is quite different from ours. One of the main reasons for this would be because everything is so chaotic here. This is called the arbit rule. You don't decide who you hang out with here,or what you want to eat next or anything else for that matter. You take what you get. You cannot set up meetings with people because you can never find somewhere or someone you want to find. And if you do not want to find something, then it doesn't mean that you will find it. People and things keep arbitrarily appearing and disappearing in a location.Everything's a question of probability. But, this is also the only world where you don't have to be technologically advanced to travel from one end of the universe to another. Anything's possible here. Or rather, anything's probable here.The people of this world call themselves quarkies and they are the most spontaneous bunch that ever existed.

This story is about a quarky who tried to take over the world. His name was Geb. Geb, who was stuck in the wrong world for he did not realize that the quark world cannot be taken over because it has no rules and when you take over, you start making rules which goes against the basic rule that makes the world exist - the arbit rule. Or so the quarkies believed.It is for this reason that Geb has gone down in a history that has never been written as Geb the macroscopic quarky.
(It wasn't that the quarkies had any clue that a world above their dimensional size existed, it was just that the word seemed befitting for some reason.)

However,perhaps, there was more to Geb than meets the eye. He pondered over the problem at hand with an obsession that rarely manifests itself in quarkies. The solution to the problem can be obtained by finding a loop hole in the rules of this world. And behold! he had found a solution!

This is what he did. He started persuading the quarkies around him to do something that he tells them to. Lucky and quite arbitrarily for him, he had a rare charm about him that made the other quarkies do what he told them to. Like to drink some juice, or kick a ball etc etc. He would then say, "Now, i will find that point in front of me." He would then reach a completely different location where he would persuade the quarkies to do something for him. And so the hundreds of years went by in this way until there came a time when every quarky was trying to do something that Geb the quarky had told them to and it can be said that for that brief time unit, Geb ruled the world. Unfortunately for Geb, he did not realise this and continued with his quest till the end of his time.

Some of you might say "This is rubbish. Such things cannot exist and such incidents cannot occur. They make no scientific sense whatsoever." Then i would courteously reply," Who are you to say what can and cannot exist? And for that matter, who am i to say that it can? I am not the one who makes the rules."