The Glitch

You were stuck in the elevator for what seemed like an eternity. Those were, however, just two minutes on Earth. You're not on Earth now, or are you? It's a different world altogether. It doesn’t seem like the Earth you have lived for the five decades of your life. Oh, you are a lot younger here, in this place, whatever it is. Everyone is young here. People who are walking about on the streets.

So how did you get stuck here in the first place, you wonder. All you did was step out of the escalator that halted for a good two minutes because of a power outage. No one came to rescue you. You pressed the emergency button non-stop but to no avail. You pressed some random floor numbers too. Your mobile phone stopped working as well. And when the escalator did resume with a sudden thud, the next thing you knew you had stepped out in a very different world from yours. You looked around yourself in amazement. It just did not make sense. At first you couldn't point out what was ‘different’. 

You then looked around for your car. It was there but it was brand new as it was when you had purchased it four years ago. Where did all the repair paint vanish? In fact now that you look around, you find everything is ‘new’. The buildings, the vehicles, the signboards, even the natural things like trees and plants. So young. You are beginning to understand that things are not alright. You gently make a fist with both your hands, you can feel the muscles stretching. But wait a minute, the wrinkles on your hands, where are they? You turn your hands around, there are no wrinkles. Your skin is smooth, wrinkle-free, quite like that of young adults in their 20s. You slowly want to check your face in the car mirror but you are worried that the face that would look back at you perhaps would not be yours! Yet, very bravely you raise your face and see it in the mirror. It's yours, yet not yours. It's of your younger self, not that of a 50-year-old man!

Just then you hear someone tap the window of your side of the car. You are startled. It's a young lady. She is trying to say something. You slide down the window very carefully. 

“I wonder if you can drop me to the next station,” she says with a plea in her voice. She has a big trolley bag by her side. 

“Sure!” you answer, noticing that you have even started to sound young. 

The lady smiles and opens the car boot to keep her trolley bag. She then gets in the co-driver seat.   

“Sorry, I just can’t seem to be getting any cab and I really have to reach home soon... have my piano lessons!” 

You give her an awkward smile and turn the engine on.

“You'll have to tell me the way, please! You see I am... new here!” you say with a stutter.

“Oh! No problem! You just keep going straight for now!” the lady replies.

You want to find out more about this strange place, about this city that no more seems to be like your own city. You look back through the car mirror to see the building from where you stepped out. It is still there. 

“You need to take a left turn now,” the lady says, breaking your train of thoughts.

“Oh ok!” you reply.

You finally muster courage and say, “I come from a very different place than this.”

“I see! What do you mean by different?” she asks.

You wonder if you did the right thing by bringing up this topic and that too with the first stranger you have interacted with, but nevertheless you carry on. You are still in a state of shock.

“From where I come from, there are old people too, everything is not so new and young as it is here!” you say, trying to make sense.

The lady is quiet.

You are quiet too. You feel awkward but continue driving silently. Suddenly the lady asks “what do you mean by ‘old’?” 

“Old is when things begin to wither, turn maturer,” you say, looking at her in between while you drive.

“Wither, maturer,” she repeats these words to herself.

“Yes, like when we're first babies and then toddlers...you know... the life cycle!”

“Babies? Toddlers? No, I don’t know what a life cycle is,” the lady replies.

Suddenly you look around and notice that there are actually no children, babies anywhere around. All the people seem to be the same age as you are! You start to get a splitting headache.

“Is there a pharmacy here? I am getting a headache,” you say to her.

“Oh, I have a pill,” the lady says and begins to open her purse lying on her thighs.

You stop the car, swallow the pill and resume driving.

“Ok, the station is here!” the lady says. 

“Thank you so much for the lift, I am sorry I could not help you with your questions,” she says.

“No problem, I will figure a way out,” you say and drive away after the lady has taken out her trolley bag from the car boot. You go back and stand by the same building from where you had stepped out.

You realise the lady has left the whole bottle of pills in the car. It is too late to go back and return it to her. In all probability she would have even reached home after boarding the train.

You turn to read what is written on the bottle of the pills. Year of manufacturing: March 4022.

“March 4022,” you say to yourself. There is no expiry date. There is no other information. 

Just then two officers dressed in a blue and white uniform come running towards the car. You panic. Did you do anything wrong? You wonder.

“Mr Mani?” one of them asks.

“Yes,” you say as you clear your throat.

“You're not supposed to be here,” the other one says.

You look at them quietly.

“Please follow us,” they say. You get out of your car, lock it and follow them. Will they lock you behind the bars you wonder. 

They take you back inside the same building from where you got out from.

“Please get in the elevator,” one of them says.

You do as you are told to. You have no choice.

“Did I do anything wrong?” You ask the officers, who also get inside the escalator.

The officers look at each other. One of them then says, “there was a slight glitch in the elevator and you ended up reaching another time period.”

“Is this what the future is like?” you ask them.

“Yes, it is perfect, no oldies, no babies...just one age!” one officer replies. The other one laughs.

“You call THIS perfect?” you ask them, sounding terrified.

Just as the escalator is about to open, one of the officers quickly injects a needle in your back. Before you can react, the doors of the escalator open. You step out, looking at the two officers, as if they are two strangers. You look confused. 

You get back to your car, you have no idea what just happened. There are fuzzy memories but they disappear as you look at yourself in the car mirror. You look at your fifty-year-old self. Unknowingly you touch your face and hands. You have no idea why you are doing this.

You get off the car as soon as you reach home, dropping something as you walk home. You bend down to pick it up. It is a bottle of pills. You turn the bottle around. 

“Year of manufacturing: March 4022,” you read it aloud. You throw it in the bin on your way to your home.