Month: January 2021

It was afternoon and I was awake from my afternoon nap. I decided to play a board game with my mom hoping that she was awake like me too, but to my surprise she was in her room sleeping. It was strange because I was the slothful one. I decided to eat a packet of chips. Unfortunately enough, there was not a single packet to be found. I grabbed some money and went to the nearest grocery store for a packet of chips. Surprisingly, everybody was asleep there too. I tried to wake the cashier up. When my efforts did not succeed, I grabbed a couple of packets of chips and left the money on the counter. As I walked through the street there was nothing but cars at the same place. As I looked in through the windows of the cars I saw people in deep slumber. Something was wrong. I couldn’t be the only one awake. Suddenly, another guy walked in. He was my neighbor, Sam. He said, “Are you awake?”
I said, “Yes, of course. Everybody should be awake at this time.”
“Haven’t you heard the latest news?”
He opened a digital newspaper on his smartphone. An article read, ‘The Whole World in Deep Sleep. Only a Rare Number of People Awake. Reason Unknown.’
I said, “We have to find the cause of this slumber.”
“Yes” said Sam.
Before I could say anything further, I saw a small light in the sky. It didn’t look like a satellite launched by the government as the satellites orbit in the exosphere and we can’t see it. It started moving towards a deserted ground. As I followed it to the deserted ground I saw a manhole. I said, “What is a manhole doing here?”
He replied, “It could be a secret pathway.”
A man appeared and swiped a card and a door opened. He went inside. We both were surprised. We had to get the card. Suddenly, a guard appeared from the satellite. I distracted him by making some sound. A duplicate card was hanging from his belt. We grabbed the card and entered their lair and hid. I looked at a large computer being operated by several people.
The man who had entered earlier said, “Our satellite is working. Everyone is fast asleep. Hey Doctor, what is the news?”
The man monitoring the computer said, “Sir, our satellite has found 3 people awake. They have probably developed the antidote which flows through their blood.”
“What! A minority of even 3 people can ruin my plan. Find them and terminate them.”
Both of us were running away from their lair when a bullet whizzed past the side of my neck. I ran even faster hoping for some help. But with that thought another tangled in. We both were only 2. Then who was the third person detected awake by the monitoring satellite? Suddenly a person came and shot the sniper with a perfect aim. This person was in a car. He stopped the car and let us in. He said, “Hello. My name is Tony. Nice to meet you.”
I said, “So you are the 3rd person awake.”
“Yes, pretty much this is the truth.”
He secretly got into an underground bunker with all you need to survive and there was also a large computer there.
Sam said, “Excuse me, can you tell us who that guy exactly was?”
“Oh, he is Albert Anderson. He is out to fulfill his dream to rule the world.”
“Ok.”
I said, “What are you doing on the computer?”
Tony said, “I am trying to make contact with the satellite and see what type of rays the satellite is emitting to make people fall asleep.”
“Ok. Continue doing it.”
Sam said, “According to his plan he will probably send professional terminators to kill us.”
“Don’t worry. They won’t notice us.”
Suddenly, an alarm rang. He said, “They have found us. Get into the escape pods and put on the spacesuits. We have to run away. The satellite can only be shut down by the main computer in his lair.”
I said, “We have the card to enter the lair. Let’s go.”
We reached there and entered the lair by destroying the pods following us with turbo waves. When we reached the lair, we saw Albert drinking coffee. He was wide awake looking at the computer screens. I took a gun and aimed it at his head. The scientists surrendered and deactivated the satellite. I used a teleportation device to reach home and went to bed like I was really sleepy because I really was.

Lucy was wondering about what to pack for her Asheville trip. She was an introvert, as you might say, a package of eccentricity, social anxiety and self-consciousness— not the kind of person you would want to hang out with. She did not relish family weekends and would go blank when asked what profession she’d pick later in life. Since Christmas was around the corner, she was obligated to spend time with her rather-derisive relatives. As she loaded her luggage into the trunk of a rental car, she took out a book which she had stuffed inside. The road journey was going fine until her parents started some indie music. The book lay on the car’s seat, listening to the soft humming of its owner.
A week later, on December 31, Lucy was sitting in an aeroplane, on her way back to Pasadena. Almost everyone around her was sleeping. Her digital watch displayed “11:40 pm”. As she passed into oblivion, her dreamland had some blissful memories in store for her. She was sitting with her mother, who was narrating sweet incidents from her childhood, by the fireplace. The next moment she found herself decorating a Christmas tree with her cousin Dorothea. Before she could hang the ornament she was holding, on the tree, she was taken to the campfire, where she was laughing and dancing to carols.
She then woke up to find her family celebrating with glasses of wine in their hands. The epiphany that a journey had never been so euphoric before put a smile on her face. ‘Twas the night of New Year’s.

There lived a boy named Peak. He didn’t know what to do with his life. He found school to be boring. He didn’t understand why he was studying, why two plus two is four and not five, why things look different from each other, why we all don’t have similar faces, etc. He wanted to be in, when he was out and wanted to be out, when he was in. He led a monotonous life.

One day he was walking dejectedly through the streets of the city. When he reached home, he dumped his bag in the corner of the room and made his way toward his bed. On the table, he saw a strange tollbooth. There was a letter attached to the tollbooth. The letter had instructions for how to erect the tollbooth and use it. There was a map along with a small cute car. He stepped into the tollbooth. Suddenly, a voice was heard. It asked, “Where do you want to go?” Peak answered, “Dictinopolis – the land of words by reading the map”. 

Suddenly Peak disappeared.

In Dictinopolis, he met Spellbee. He had a great adventure there. He saw alphabets floating in water and Spellbee was trying to balance them by combining the alphabets in a logical way to form meaningful words. Spellbee was instructing them to be arranged in a meaningful manner. When Peak saw that, he was curious and asked her why she was arranging alphabets in that particular order only. Why is ‘APPLE’ spelled as ‘APPLE’ only and why not ‘AEPlE’ or ‘IAPLE’!

She replied in the context of this question- Everything that exists in this world whether living or non-living has its own significance and importance. As we see that everything is in perfect balance in the universe and needs to be symmetrical for ease of the natures. The same way, these words also play an important role in one’s life to communicate and express one’s feelings and if they are not polite they can hurt someone. These words are spelled in such a manner so that the balance can be maintained and others can use them to make their life meaningful.

After sometime he heard a voice, this voice was of his mother. Immediately, Dictinopolis started fading away. Peak was flying in the air. Suddenly Peak woke up, and realized that all this was a dream. But he realized that every human being has been blessed with different abilities and talent. We differ from each other in that we have different interests. There is a beauty of its own in every color. Everyone is great; the need is only to spark their talent. He realized his importance in this world and the beauty of words. He took help of these ‘words of his dream’ and transformed his life. He read many books and penned down his thoughts on paper. When he grew up, he became a renowned author. He also wrote a novel based on the dream that he had visualized many years back. He discovered his talent and lived happily ever after.

Moral: Everyone who exists in this world has a talent that is hidden inside him. They just have to reveal or detect that talent.