Limbo

Aasaath, the head coach moved to the practice room after hearing a sudden noise from the room. He was astonished after watching Vineeth who was undergoing a serious boxing practice there. His face reveals that he is in some kind of fear. It was 1.30 am when the coach checked his wrist watch.

“If you practice in this mode, then you might win by first round” the coach laughed at him.

Vineeth did not care his words, instead he stopped his practice and sat down near the boxing ring. After a second Aasaath also sat beside him.

“I had a dream coach” mumbled Vineeth.

“Gold isn’t?” the coach asked in response.

“No a nightmare. I fell down after beaten up to death. Everyone in the crowd shouted at me, including you. I am scared coach” Vineeth uttered in fear and tears were rolling from his eyes.

“It can’t happen even in dream. You are my best student and your 12 years of hard work will never go vain” the coach told him some cool words. “Even though I feel some fear in me” when Vineeth said these words Aasaath closed Vineeth’s mouth and told him, “There must be no fear in you because it makes you a coward. The match, which is the only thing you should brood over until tomorrow. Clear?”

He nodded his heads and moved to his room. Two steps ahead, the coach once again called him and said “The doctor called me a few hours ago, he said he was trying to catch you by phone but could not”

“Yeah, my phone is malfunctioning and so I could not attend his calls. Better I will visit him morning in his home” Vineeth replied.

“Ok, but return in time because we have our press meet tomorrow by 2.00pm” Aasaath reminded him.

Both shared a good night and went to their rooms respectively. Early morning Vineeth started to move to visit the doctor. He choose the lift to get into to the ground floor. Once he clicked the ground floor number the every other numbers blinked and the lift remained unmoved. “****” he grunted and came down through the steps. “Lift is not working. Please take care of it” he complained to the watchman in the parking area. The watchman in doubt looked at the lift in the parking floor through which some persons were moving.

“Bizarre, it was not working for me” vineeeth shouted in discomfort.

“Sometimes it happens sir. Sorry for that” the watchman made him calm down. But Vineeth was confused about it. “Sir Can I have your autograph please?” the watchman asked him in soft manner.

“If you are ready come let us take a selfie” Vineeth made him happier.

“You will be the winner today, sir” the watchman blessed him.

Those words made Vineeth some comfort and he kept the lift incident aside. He got into his car and rushed to the doctor’s home. During the ride he switched ON his mp3 player to play a song. But it did not work and instead some numbers were flashing one by one on the display screen.

“Oh, it’s all my time,” he murmured. Continuing his journey he reached Doctor William’s home. Doctor Williams was the old friend of Vineeth’s father. He was like a godfather to Vineeth and also he was the one who found the boxing skill in Vineeth and wanted him to be the Asian champion. He was a scientist too. His ideas were far away from ordinary mankind. He had a belief that nothing in this world is impossible for the mankind to do. He used to spend most of his time in his own laboratory which is infested with some new kinds of computers and self-prepared medicines. Vineeth entered into the doctor’s room.

“Good morning doctor,” he wished the doc. “Welcome champ. I thought you were so busy when you did not answer me by phone” the doctor chuckles by uttering it.

“Mm, the reason is the LTP (Long Term Potentiation) Process. The brain has possibly 100 billion neurons, each of which connects to up to 10,000 other neurons. As information flows through the neural circuits of the brain, the activity of neurons causes the connection to become stronger or weaker in response. Depending upon this strong or weak phase we are able to remember some incidents from very long time and some incidents we may forget soon. This mechanism is called LTP” the doctor explained and moved to the projector to play a video. “This is the ‘HIPPOCAMPUS’ region where our memories are stored. But our scientist group found that the memories are temporarily stored in the hippo campus region at initial and then by ‘MEMORY CONSOLIDATION’ process the coding are done and stored permanently. This above stated process happens only during our sleep because our brain functions little faster during our sleeping mode” he added to his explanation and sighed.

“Is there any use for us due to this process?” Vineeth questioned the doc.

“In fact yes. Take this dog, we give him a sleeping sedative that takes him to a deep sleep. By that time the ‘Memory consolidation’ process starts in his brain. Then we connect him to this our own made supercomputer and we make an artificial coding process in his brain and extract the whole life time memory from him. Then we store it in this computer and we can use it at any time” the doctor elicited the amazing truth.

“It reminds me one of the scenes from ‘Harry Potter’ where Dumbledore stores his memory in a form of liquid” Vineeth expressed his vision.

“Exactly” the doctor nodded his head.

“Wow! Scintillating. You are really genius sir” Vineeth dazed by doctor’s work.

“You are quick. I have not yet told about my project” the doctor’s words made Vineeth dumb. “Using this extracted memory I am planning to create a new artificial world known as ‘LIMBO’. The world of our memories. For example, now I have the memories of this dog extracted till this second. If this dog goes dead in this real world, I can bring this dog alive in limbo using his memories. And also using this super computer I can view the happenings in that world and I can control the world too” laughed the doctor and drank some water from his flask.

“So the dog has no death? Isn’t?” Vineeth asked the doctor.

“If I wish I could do. If I know the reason for its death in the real world, then I can stop it in limbo world when the same day repeats there. So that the dog can extend his life in limbo and his memories too swell with it. And In opposite action if I did not save his life in limbo then the dog dies there and the limbo world gets razed with it. But this all matter is possible through this super computer only. If the people from limbo has to contact with us then they should also have a super computer there which is impossible to have” explained the doc.

“Whether the people in that world will come to know that they are in artificial world?” Vineeth asked his doubt.

“Impossible until me, the man who controls them utter it” the doc replied and looked at his watch. After hearing those appalling concepts Vineeth just felt like entering into the limbo for a second.

“I am insane after hearing it. Nearly equal to god now. Have you created any species till today in limbo?” again he questioned.

“No, my research is just in beginning stage. But I will achieve a day surely” the doctor said in confidence. “Sorry Vineeth I have to leave now. I have a video conference meeting now. Just give me half an hour time and wait for me here. I have a parcel for you when I return” said the doc and moved from there.

As said Vineeth awaited by reading some books in the meantime. In a jiffy Vineeth’s mobile alarmed. It sounded freak when he noticed his mobile. That was not a call instead some numerical numbers were running on his display and to make it even worse, he found that the numbers were same as what he saw in his mp3 player. He was in dreadful confusion and brooded over it. Incidentally the mystery swelled and the same numbers appeared on the computers, television, and digital clock which were around the corner. Also a humming noise creaked around him. The grim situation continued and a hint strike his mind.

The freaky dream, old man and the question he asked, lead him to an idea. He took a piece of paper and wrote the English alphabets in order. Nearby he wrote the numerical numbers in order too. Then he matched the numbers that appeared with the alphabets and elicited a word. The numbers are (4,5,1,20,8) And the word was ‘DEATH’. The words gave him a gory feeling and his eyes swirled in fear. He found something around him filthy and it is heralding him something fishy. Mean time those numbers got changed and new digits appeared. He applied the same formula and elicited another word “ON THE SUPERCOMPUTER BY LIMBO”.

He rushed to the nearby room and switched on the supercomputer. But it was in need of a password. He spelled the word once again (ON the super computer by limbo) and typed LIMBO as the password. Now the computer processed and as a bolt from the blue the old man from his dream popped in the screen. “WH…o whoa… Who are you?” stammered Vineeth.

“I am doctor Williams, Vineeth” he replied after a minute gap.

“But, doctor just now… how can?” he mumbled and made a small pinch on his hand to make sure that he is not in dream.

“It’s real not a dream Vineeth. But you are a dream and you are living in a dream world that consists of only memories. Yes honestly you are in ‘LIMBO’” startled the doctor with his words.

“God forbid” muttered Vineeth in shock.

“Listen to my words keenly. You committed suicide after losing that boxing match 25 years ago. Now I have re-created you here by my project ‘limbo’” the doctor revealed the truth behind.

“So the dream is true and if so I will be defeated once again today. Then why the hell you re-created me?” Vineeth yelled at the doctor with tears.

“You did not lose the match by yourself. He did it. Your coach Mr. Aasaath. He was sold to the adversary team and by the 3rd round he injected, you slow poison through the juice he offered during the drinks time. By then you were not able to focus on the match and the result was instant knock- out. Respectively, he informed others that you have committed suicide in disgrace and the rest believed his words. They brought you here at the last moment, but I failed to recover you. But what I did was I stored your memory till the last moment before your death. Recently your coach told the truth to the world when he was bedridden.

After knowing that I wanted to do what I did. Yes, I re-created you from today 12.00 am and thought of intervene sing your death. But due to some problem in my system I lost the power to control you and if you are dead again along with you the limbo also goes vain. And so with the help of dream and the electronics items I thought of conveying you the truth. To gather it, I made use of the Alphabet game which I thought you earlier in childhood. After all, if you need to be connected with me, you need a supercomputer there and so I made use of the time you came here” the doctor explained the behind scenes.

“I am in the dark whether to believe you or not” Vineeth collapsed down after uttering it.

“If still you are in dark please drink the acid nearby you” the doctor ordered him.

“Aren’t you insane? I would die if I do” Vineeth cried.

“Never ever you will die until 7.17 pm today. That was your last second on the earth before you died in the real world. So if you are a memory as I said you have more time to go. Drink it quickly, after 3 more minutes myself in that world will return there once conference over” the doctor kept a test.

He staked to the condition and swallowed the acid by closing his eyes. When he opened after a few seconds he found him normal and gathered that he is a memory as doctor said. He cried loud and asked the doctor “What should I do now?”

“Stop weeping, today you have to re-gain your match. For that to happen, you must avoid the juice which will be offered by the black sheep coach on the 3rd round. If you are alive here after your deadline, then your memories continue to live with you here in this world ‘limbo’. And you must strictly maintain this secret and no one knows it. Once your problems are over, come to me again without the knowledge of myself in that world” the doctor disappeared by uttering it.

Vineeth switched off the computer and wriggled out of the room. He had billions of questions to brood over. He was unable to brook the offence done by his coach and it was hard to believe that he is just a byte of memory. By the time the doctor Williams in limbo world returned there. “Sorry Vineeth it took time to return” the doctor apologized for the late return.

“It’s ok doctor,” he chucked a low voice.

“Your eyes remain wet. What of it?” the doctor questioned.

“Nothing, just the filthy dust” Vineeth replied. Doctor took a parcel from the rack and gifted it to Vineeth “A small gift from your godfather”

When he opened the parcel he found a pair of boxing cloves inside. “You have to punch today by wearing this pair of cloves” the doctor said him.

Vineeth roused in tears and hugged the doctor tight and said “You are my god”.

“Was that cloves worth of much feeling? Miracle” the doctor joked and Vineeth laughed in reply. Vineeth bade farewell to the doctor and returned to the boxing stadium. The match began as per schedule and Vineeth played with much concentration. The 3rd round drinks break was announced and as doctor in real world said the coach Aasaath brought the juice bottle to Vineeth. After a few seconds Vineeth threw the bottle and said “You the one I believed than others, you the one who told me I won’t lose even in dream and you the one who did it to me. But why sir? No, no, no, I won’t lose again”.

The coach was dumb found on his reactions and dazed too. Vineeth won the match and became the champion that he longed since he started boxing. He stayed alive and so his memories. After some days, Vineeth entered the research room without the knowledge of doctor and processed the super computer. Doctor Williams in the real world once again appeared.

“I have won doctor, I am a champ now. This is only because of you. Thank you so much to your science doctor. I feel very happy now” Vineeth cackled in happiness.

“I did a mistake Vineeth. A big one. Anything far from nature is not suited for the mankind to do. But I did that I did. Creating and demolishing a human is god’s nature. We mankind should not try. Even how much may the science is bigger it is short in front of some kind of natures and matters” the doctor grunted.

“But nothing you did was wrong. Right?” Vineeth asked him.

“Nothing as of now. But days may change, human may change as like your coach and me a human too. If so there will be a severe damage in future to the real world. And I have decided to stop my research after you the miracle man. Once you die there the limbo will come to an end, but the problem is as your memories are continuing, myself in that world will also continue the same project there and it may create problem. So you have to do me a favour?” the doctor asked him.

“Will do anything for you” Vineeth replied.

“Delete some of the programs from that super computer that I mention. If that program are lost I can’t continue this project in limbo and no problem occurs” he ordered him to do.

“Right or wrong, you are my god always. Good bye doc” Vineeth uttered him.

“Take care of myself in that world” the doctor laughed and disappeared. Vineeth deleted the programs from the computer as the doctor said and made the super computer worthless. He stayed in that limbo and began his new journey there. Doctor Williams in limbo withdraws the project as the computer was malfunctioning. The fate of limbo was designed to destroy with Vineeth.

–END–