Chapter 3 - The Mysterious Orb

 

Chapter 3 

The Mysterious Orb

 

 

I

 am writing to you from the annals of my mind. Yet, my scope of knowledge extends far beyond that finite reach. I am able, somehow, to enter into another world from the short span of this writing desk.

 My mind doesn’t think. It’s exercised insofar as it speeds the raw exertion of my hand. Indeed it, or the quill itself to be truer, is the main instrument behind all of this. I cannot stop--cannot pull away from the page in front of me. A savage will inspirits me to get out all I have the inability to say.

Like a floodgate raging, so too do these loose words escape my grasp. We were at the beach, Daniel and I. This was earlier, still today, but at a foregone instance thereof. It’s an awkward fact to try to relate. Daniel was in the water, catching waves upon his belly--he was bodysurfing. I was sitting off my beach towel, digging an endless hole in the sand.

My finger struck on something hard.

I thought it odd, for shells and rocks don’t normally reside at such extraordinary depths. I traced its contour and discovered no rock there, or anything of the sort.

It was an orb.

In the same elusive manner that I helped the orb home just an hour ago, I kept it hidden from Daniel. We walked through the pinching path and ended up both at my house. Everything next went like clockwork. My mother was reading. She, myself, and Daniel had a brief exchange on the couch, ending lastly with our spreading ourselves out across the house. She went to the kitchen. Daniel went to my room to wait for me. I went upstairs to see my father.

We discussed his tribulations over sketchy tale fifty, no further along than ever. He left his office and I stayed behind. But here is where the two histories diverge. I didn’t sit down. I never did pick up the quill.

What did happen after that meeting was that I walloped on Daniel over four intense games of Shoot to Kill. He was furious every time we crossed eyes, so I decided to keep my head down and my breath to a minimum. I’m trying to recall--that’s it. The orb had remained in the towel. It was beside me the entire time. I glanced at it furtively during play, and perhaps that gave a little extra panache to my victory sweep.

We quit, for the sake of friendship. Dinner was still being made. I broke down. I saw his sweat-beat brow, his cruddy glasses, the uneasiness of his mouth, and knew he’d suffered enough. I wanted to make amends, and introduced him to the blanket. He was unimpressed with my lameness in effecting a truce. I said be patient, and carefully set to unfurling the heavy cloth upon a makeshift stage on the floor.

Carpet was apparently too much to ask for of a basement. The ground was cold, chinked, soiled in spots; but this revelation about to happen gave effusive warmth to my surroundings. In a lonely dreaded dungeon there was opportunity to kick the elements.

It was out at last, and you should’ve seen how it gleamed!…as did both our eyes.

“What is it?” Daniel asked, putting a finger on it.

“Don’t touch it!”

“Fine. But what is it? Where’d you get it?”

“Slow down. I’ll tell you.” We, on our knees, faces bent to this one miraculous sight, were Christmas children opening the sought-after present. We were astronaut dreamers gazing into space and seeing our imaginary selves there.

I told him everything I knew about it.

“What does it do?”

To this I could give no answer. He went to pick it up. I still regarded it as my own, being the finder. It was awfully trying for me to give up any part of it.

His first comment was to its irresistible weightlessness. He let his eyes swim over it and his hands brush the smooth, polished surface. Looking inside, his voice was stuck dumb by the clever implementation of a full galaxy encased in this fabulous object. The stars, moons, planet, and sun completing the scenario, were beyond doubt the most poignant vision one could see.

He got more friendly with it. He began simply by tilting it around and rotating it. Shifting the angle by degrees, he could view all sides of the planet--the lighted half, the unlit half, the two halves together from the side. Looking deep into it now, he was possessed by yet another fascination. The interior didn’t expire where the physical limits of the orb did. The landscape of space went on and on for as far as the eye could see.

What is more, all the scene’s components were fully animated. The stars twinkled; the sun buzzed perceptibly with atomic light. Watching for long enough, one may even have seen the moons twirling around the planet--testing the credulity of the imagination.

For God’s sake, this thing was unreal!

But it was real, and here in our possession. And yet, what did it do? Or, knowing what it did, how would we use it? Was there a special incantation to rattle off? A tactile sequence of button presses that could rouse it to action?

Stupefied, amused, Daniel began lightly to toss it up and down in the air. He shook it with cold aggression and a lump stopped in my throat.

“Not so rough!” I gasped. But it didn’t matter. The orb just sat there, calm and peaceful, when it had landed back in his palm after one last uninhibited hurl to the rafters.

He set it back on the towel.

We watched the orb for some seconds after that, ruminating on the small and large of it, yet to arrive at any full conclusion.

“Maybe that’s all it does. It could be nothing more than…an ingenuous snowglobe, lacking the particle effects.”

“Nah, I don’t think so. There’s a lot more going on here than either of us can realize. You get this idea of having a profound gadget with no owner’s manual.”

We were at a crossroads, with time ticking away before we would be hurried off to dinner. I lifted the orb up gently, cupping it in my hands, as if atoning for the ungentlemanly-like nature in which Daniel had thrust it around. I took a hard look at the planet.

It was an Earth-like planet, in that it was divided into land and water, and there was stagnant cloud cover over parts. The geography was noticeably dissimilar to ours. Whereas we have multiple continents floating in vast open oceans, the planet I saw consisted of a single giant land mass with various water systems strewn throughout. The architecture seemed to shift nearing the blackness of the unlit half, but of course there was no penetrating that endless night.

I couldn’t tell, as a whole, how big the planet was. There were no good reference points to judge from. In comparison to its mother star it was miniscule, but so is ours by the same example.

I was about to lower it back down when Daniel reached his hand out. Instinctively I pulled away, but he persisted to stretch his long white fingers at me. I had to issue a decree with myself not to be selfish, and gave it back for him to take. He touched it, and a soft blue glow winked on its surface.

His hand jumped.

“Did you see that?”

“I did… Do it again!”

My heart was pounding as he laid his finger on it. The remarkable apparition came back to life: a velvet luminosity around its spherical shell.

“It’s when you touch it,” I told him.

“It’s when we both touch it.”

It’s true; the longer we held contact with it, the brighter and warmer did it get; and there rustled a not-so-subtle tremor over its entire body. The shaking action increased with the warming blue glow, and we held on for whatever might come.

“How long do you think it’ll go?” Daniel asked.

“You mean, how crazy will it get? I’d be surprised if the whole basement wasn’t flooded over before it’s done.”

“Gabe.”

I stared brightly at the orb, but comprehending it in full. Only Daniel saw the specific adaptations it was making.

“Gabe, we’re going down.”

I looked, and saw what he meant. We were riding a smooth descent toward the planet--smooth so far, but that little shake was getting stronger. I let out a girlish chirp that I regret now.

But that’s what my enthusiasm was.

Our vantage point on the outer limits drifted in. A steady suction, I soon become aware of, kept the orb tight in my hand. This, I perceived too, was also increased with time.

It wasn’t missed on Daniel either, for he voiced my sentiments exactly. “This-- This is not normal.”

He was right, and I got a thrill to think we were dabbling in some alien hardware. I spun dreams in my head that grew to hysteria, and had to calm myself. My attention, as ever, went to the orb--a marvel to watch, a demon to imagine if not looking straight at one.

This was four elements that reciprocated our touch: the orb grew brighter, warmer, more disturbed, and the suction effect was that much more pronounced. Then there was the creeping descent toward that far landing zone.

What would happen when we got there? I didn’t trifle with the thought, for it proved too much to ingest in one fluid take. First, the great mystery of the orb, it’s origin, what of that? And secondary, now that we were on this mission, what did that mission entail? What was the final condition of our meddling with the orb? Was there reward for us down the road? Was there goodness, evil waiting? 

I couldn’t know, and thus didn’t try. I made an unspoken pact with Daniel that we should hang on till the bitter end, despite the natural fear that balked us.

Our thoughts combined as one skipping single pulse. The air sat heavy around us, and a flush of blue heat pervaded the room. I knew not to be afraid. No harm could there be in aligning oneself with such a noble invention.

The logic was proof enough.

The sequence drew itself out, and we found ourselves passing close by one of two moons. Its huge form filled an expanse in space, and we could admire the droll shapes and craters that formed it. Neither of us had a word to say, pinned we were to majesty before us.

We left the moon behind, it melting into the side of the orb. Soon we were plowing a course directly at the planet. The grandeur of it, as seen from above, would be too ponderous to try to tell of now. Let it suffice to say, a gluttonous power seemed to consume us as, for better or worse, we made our way down.

“Oh, it’s like that! Okay. Bring it on!” I grunted.

We had experienced a speed burst in what had always been a practiced descent. We had entered the atmosphere and were dropping like flies. The seconds whisked by across the dull face of the orb. I knew it wouldn’t be long now.

A destructive weight was pulling us into a freefall at the highest pitch of madness. Ripping torsion upon our vessel and rocketing blows took their toll. Yet, the orb surged brilliantly, and never seemed for a moment in distress.

Suddenly, all momentum broke; we stopped dead, and the planet was perfectly still all around us. We’d come to rest at a neat altitude above ground, and could see for many miles in either direction. We were up high enough that the planet curled away before dropping out of sight. Here we were; we had stopped. But that wasn’t all…

The orb went still. At the same time, the suction force on our hands let go. Some dramatic drivel left Daniel’s lips. My sympathies went out to him, for neither of us could understand this by any stretch.

We had been kneeling. I had the orb at my waist. Then, suddenly, we were left in humility by the orb’s rising, of its own power, off my hand. Daniel retrieved his finger and together we sat back in cushy wonder. Along a long vertical line it crept until it was at our heads. We sat there, dumbfounded, our faces showing with sublime blue light.

It hovered, motionless, and glowing profusely. We were absorbed by it, and couldn’t budge from the intense supplication that bound us. Although the light shone vividly in our eyes, we were still able to peer just as well into it. A radical glow that, though bright, did not blind, nor hindered one from seeing through…

Daniel got the gusto to speak, and it was a weird sensation hearing that voice in this mute concert setting. The basement had been washed clean by the performance of the orb; and it was a narrow dramatic theater we gave our hearts to. A disturbance to it was discomforting to my sense of order, as it seemed then that we were speaking out of turn in the heat of the moment.

“What do we do now?”

I was amazed, and had nowhere to go, so I stood up. Daniel stood up with me and we waited. Blind obedience secured knots around our intellects. Nothing was happening, and yet we took great care not to do anything rash. It was a divine power, a celestial invader. To tamper seemed sacrilege. So, we waited, and nothing happened.

Daniel said, “All these theatrics have gotta lead up to something. It’s unfair to leave us hanging like this.”

“Can’t you see? It’s waiting. It wants to be touched. By me.”

“Look at that crater.”

“Where?” I looked.

A large crater was depressed in the center of the planet. All other geological features seemed subordinate to it. 

I reached my finger out to touch it. Daniel smacked my hand away. “No! We don’t know what it does.”

“Well. Let’s come back. Man, I’m starving!” I made a bogus move to go upstairs.

He spat and fumed to try to get me back. “G - Gabe!?”

“Ha…like I’d leave.”

I resumed my place. I noticed that the glow had faded some, and the orb was down from where it’d begun.

“Does it look less bright to you?” I asked.

“Hmm. I think it’s gone down, hasn’t it? Wasn’t it higher?”

“…F**k. Daniel, I’m gonna touch it.” I put a finger out at random. Daniel tried to catch my hand. It was too late.

I hadn’t seen where I touched. Sources say later that it had been an impenetrable forest of very dark green trees. 

At the instant I touched it, the orb flashed like a blistering nuclear strike. The basement stirred no more with life.

We, and the orb, had vanished.