Fiction Short Story – With a Click of the Pen
Photo credit: octaviolopez from morguefile.com
My red hooded sweatshirt served in nice contrast to the gray sky cocooning me. The orange, red and yellow leaves also contrasted nicely with the sky. My steps were fairly light, at least compared to what they were when I was sixty pounds heavier. I longer had blood pressure nor did I breathe heavy climbing up steps nor did I sweat while sitting in class, regardless to whether or not the air conditioning was on or off. My steps were also lighter for another reason. My physics professor, Dr. Anthony Z. Fields,told me he might possibly be on the verge of inter-dimensional travel. I was twenty, I had no girlfriend and I saw no purpose in life, other than my writing. I would sit in the cdr, or the common dining room, alone and pondering. Pondering what to write, how precisely to balance my writing for pleasure or to fulfill my grandiose notion of being a world famous novelist and my classes.
I entered the science building, a bulky structure devoid of color. It was definitely a perfect fit for the science majors that would spend copious amounts of time in that building, sitting through hour long lectures that seemed more like three hour excursions to mars or three hour labs, although once a week, that felt like three years burning in the flames of tedium.
I opened the heavy door, using more strength than usual. I felt a charge of power coursing through me that could only be attributed to the fact I was so excited. Of course, this had to be an internal excitement, surely even the dullest of academically minded pupils might give strange looks. ”Must he be so exuberant?” They would think. ”Why are you so cheery? Have you been drinking?”
The walls of the science building were white and the floor tiles were slightly lighter than dirt. Any other time, being in this building I would be screaming on the inside. ”Let me out of this f**king place; this is no place for a literary giant, such as myself.”
Dr. Fields told me to meet him in his office in room 301 at 3:30. I came to the stairway and as I was ascending the steps I thought to myself, ”Someone farted, gross.”
I fought through the wall of invisible heinousness and made my way to Dr. Fields’ office. His door was wide open but he paid me no mind, instead he just sat at his computer, his eyes racing across the screen, scanning it behind a pair of rounded frame glasses. I knocked on the office door. He glanced over and gave me a simple nod. ”Hello Montgomery,” he said.
”Hey,” I replied.
”Ready to get started?” Dr. Fields asked, raising his eyebrow. A speck of excitement filled his eyes.
”What do I have to do?” My imagination ran rampant. I imagined being strapped to a table, Dr. Fields doping me up with all kinds of weird hallucinatory drugs.
”Why did I have to agree to let you give me a shot before doing this?” I asked.
”To protect you from foreign bacteria you may encounter during your trip to another dimension.”
”I see.”
This turned out to be a lie.
He walked over to me and reached into the breast pocket of his five hundred dollar suit jacket and pulled out a pen.
”You’ll need this.” He said, allowing a tiny smirk to cross his mustachioed face.
I looked at the pen and then back at the professor? ”Um, how is this going to allow me to travel to another dimension?”
”Just click the top, my boy,” He said, practically leaping out of the way.
I shrugged, nonchalantly clicking the pen top. I leaped out of my seat and spun faster than light toward the wall. I went through the wall, unscathed. It felt more like going through water as opposed to a solid wall. I found myself in a jungle. Thick shrubbery and trees surrounded me. ”Where am I,” I thought.
I began walking. The sky was red, as was the soil. I felt something sting my hand. I looked down and saw a mosquito bite me. I swatted him Splat. I flicked the corpse off my hand and he sank into the red soil. I continued walking, completely ignorant of where I was or even where I was going. ”Had Dr. Fields’ pen actually worked?” I tohught.
”Was I actually in another dimension? If so, which one? Wait, where’s the pen?”
I soon realized the pen was in my back jean pocket. ”Weird,” I thought. ”I don’t remember putting it back there, oh well.” I shrugged.
I continued walking. I happened upon a tribe of native looking people. They wore white face-paint and had big crazy pierced ears. Huge holes in their lobes. ”Gross,” I thought.
The natives were dancing around a giant bonfire. One of the natives noticed me and gave a grunt. He spoke in an alien language and alerted his tribe. ”Sh*t,” thought I.
The men chased me, shaking their pea shooters atme and I felt a dart hit me in the leg. I started feeling faint. I fell to the ground. When I awoke, I found myself tied to a tree.”Who are you people; what do you want with me?”
I saw one of the fat chief raise his machete and plunge it into my belly. He sliced me open, pulled out my heart and ate it. I became world famous after that, Apparently Dr. Fields had a spare pen and used it to go into the Tribal Dimension, which was the dimension I had wandered into and came and retrieved my brain.
He had given me the shot to extract part of my dna. He used this dna to clone me and he used my brain to animate the clone. He shot a serum directly into my brain to erase the part of my memory that would remember traveling through another dimension.
The serum failed and in fact, I, or the clone me, remembers everything, even memories of the dead, but that is another story.
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