01. The First Meeting
Everyone says that life goes by slower when you're a child. Every day is filled with the discovery of unique sensations that we've never experienced before. But with time, everything inevitably picks up speed. We start to get used to a routine, and almost before we know it, the world has become monotonous. In my case, there was no perceptible acceleration — it was as if I just blinked, leaving my eyes closed a little longer than usual... and WHOOSH — here I am now in the present, not sure what I'm doing with my life. Someday I hope to invent a device that prevents people from blinking at least once every 3 seconds.
I took my compass out of my pocket. There used to be a sort of ritual associated with it. I had a dedicated compartment in my belt bag, and in this compartment was a special pouch covered with shiny metal that I stored the compass in. I would sometimes spend hours taking in every detail of this intriguing object. Sometimes I even deliberately stashed it back in the bag, just in order to be able to rediscover it another time.
It had taken quite some doing to get my hands on this compass. No one else seemed to have such an advanced model. It had a huge, detailed scale, a mirror through which you could send signals to your acquaintances, plus a side button that started the timer. I'm sure it contained other useful features that I had never even used.
But now the compass didn't arouse any feelings in me whatsoever…. it was something that I unthinkingly took out and stuffed back in my pocket. I also started storing it with less care: it often fell out of my hand and remained forgotten in the most unpleasant places. What a stupid thing…
“What do you think they'll add in the new versions?”
“Huh?”
“What's he doing here? And who is he anyway? I'm definitely not in the mood for a chat right now”
“Your model's not bad. Mine is just as good of course,” boasted the stranger. “It's in good working order, although I haven't been using it much lately.”
“Well if he says so,” I thought to myself. “Frankly it's hard to imagine that piece of junk in his hands being operational.” And then I said out loud: “To be honest, I don't really feel like talking with anyone right now.”
“Oh, there's no need to talk! Jump in… we can drive in silence for a few hours. I'm sure we'll come up with a good topic for a conversation after that.”
My conversation partner pointed to a rusty car without wheels and a thick rubber strip around it. It was the same kind you can see at an amusement park — the strip acts as a sort of bumper, so that when you hit another car, everything stays together, even if the crash gives you quite a jolt. The car was designed for two people, and the driver and passenger were crammed in right next to each other.
“There's a to-do list that I need help ticking off” said my companion, already jumping into the car. He gestured for me to join him. “Let's go?”
There are moments in life when you are on the verge of taking a risk. For example you've clambered all the way up to the highest diving platform at the swimming pool, but you don't dare jump. You think to yourself “I'd better turn back before it's too late!” But you just need to take one step forward, and in a split second that thought won't bother you at all.
I decided to risk it: “OK, but only if we use my compass for directions.”
“Sounds great. My name's Ash by the way.”
“And I'm Kay.”
02. Mistakes
We did in fact spend the first part of our journey in silence. I was so exhausted by the whirlwind of thoughts and emotions that enveloped me that I blacked out within the first few minutes of the trip. I woke up in the early hours of the morning with the realisation that my strength had returned to me. My decision the day before to get in the car also didn't seem so rash anymore. After all, I had always been fascinated by the suddenness and spontaneity of road trips.
Ash continued to drive the car in silence, concentrating on the road. The car certainly had an interesting feature: because it had no accelerator pedal, it could only move when the steering wheel was constantly being turned. Of course, it had a brake pedal, but it could only go left or right, so we were following an extremely winding trajectory.
“I hope you don't mind me asking, but where are we actually going?”
“You know, I have no idea where the end of the road is,” he shrugged. “But at least we don't have to figure out what direction we're supposed to go.”
I noticed that his compass was temporarily mounted on the dashboard. And although it was showing a direction, the arrow seemed to be working sluggishly, and periodically wavered from its course.
“Well the thing is, I received an invitation to an event. A colleague of mine from work couldn't make it, so he gave me two tickets as a gift.”
“Uh… at work? What do you do?” I inquired.
“Thanks for asking! I operate a milling machine in a small pastry shop. You know when you you buy cakes with different fillings or shapes? Well, that's my job — I use my machine to make these cakes nice and even.”
“Sounds Interesting...”
“Yes, it's not an easy job in general, but I have a lot of experience and I think I'm doing pretty well at it. It's better to an excel at one thing than be a jack of all trades. What do you do for a living, Kay?”
“I'm an independent consultant,” I began proudly. “I help my clients (companies or individuals) chronicle their lives through photographs. I tell them what moments are the best ones to preserve, plus I help them create photo albums and suggest good captions. Companies need this to sell their useless products better, and people need it to feel more confident and to share important moments in their lives with others. For example, a promotion at work or even the pancakes they had for breakfast.”
“Hmmm, that doesn't really sound as interesting as I'd imagined,” I thought to myself.
“That's great! I'm sorry to interrupt you, but I think we're going to have to turn right soon.”
“Are you sure? It doesn't look like the road leads that way...”
There was a river to our right, so there was no way we could go in that direction.
“The compass says we have to turn though,” Ash argued doggedly.
“There's no way through, there's a river there!”
“But the compass never lies — it knows the right direction!”
As expected, the car skidded through the bushes lining the riverbank and ended up partially in the water. Ash had managed to brake just in time to avoid the car going further in and us being completely submerged in the river.
I clutched my head. I couldn't believe we'd intentionally done something so stupid.
We sat in silence for about fifteen minutes, staring straight ahead.
“You were right, the compass is really out of whack... Sorry, I didn't mean to get us drowned.”
“What's done is done,” I said, “in fact, I've heard of several similar cases. Compasses — even the newest ones — do malfunction from time to time. Im surprised the manufacturers don't offer special insurance against these types of situations.”
“Yes... It's interesting that we sometimes trust compasses so much that we forget about our own senses. It's as if we're not the ones making the decisions, rather that little box is….. But what do we do now?”
“I think I know — I noticed a button on the dashboard shaped like a drop of water earlier.”
I took a chance and pressed it. Suddenly, the car lifted, and I felt the rubber bumper filling with air. In a minute we were already on the surface of the water and floating, the car slightly rocking from side to side. I thought I'd seen something similar in a movie, but I'd never had a chance to try it in person.
“No way!” exclaimed Ash in surprise, “I didn't know it could do that!”
A couple of minutes later we were sailing in the right direction, to the soothing, monotonous sound of the motor that was keeping the car's air cushion inflated.
I realised that everything hadn't turned out at all as awfully as I'd imagined. This situation had unlocked new possibilities, because now we could not only travel along the road, we could also cross rivers. I then recalled that there had been other situations in my life where seemingly catastrophic errors had ended up being the precursor to new experiences.
03. Stories
We hovered along for a few more hours. The body of water we crossed was not a river but a whole system of connected canals, separated by small pockets of land. The view from the cockpit of the car was just breathtaking. Enormous water lilies dotted the surface of the canals, and then all at once they were replaced by beautiful sloping trees, partially submerged in the water. I caught myself thinking that I would have given anything to feast my eyes on that view for all eternity. It's amazing that the mere sight of nature suffuses us with such peace and tranquillity — a frequently overlooked phenomenon.
At some point, the canal system began to lose its structure: the channels were thinning, and the main waterway was becoming narrower and narrower. Eventually, we came to a slightly sloping shore and turned off the air cushion.
We then drove along a wide road flanked by a green plain for another two or three hours. I began to notice other cars coming towards us. It was clear from their frequency that we had reached the main road.
Ash pressed a small button on the dashboard and the compass needle pointed south-southwest.
“I think we're running low on power. Let's stop at this service station just before we turn the corner,” he suggested.
The service — or rather recharging — station, was a small hill with four tunnels running through it. There was a platform at the entrance of each tunnel to which the car had to be driven, and then the platform would guide the car down a conveyor belt inside the tunnel. What happened next in the tunnel was still not very clear to us (the conveyor wouldn't start until you got out of the car). It seemed that mechanisms would somehow connect to the car's body and charge it, and separate sensors would check that the air cushion was working properly.
The procedure took just over half an hour, so we decided to take the stairs up to the roadside shop at the very top of the hill.
“Hey look at this ridiculous map!” I said. A book on a stand for guidebooks and maps had caught my eye. But this book seemed different to the others. Unlike the standard maps there, it was hand-drawn and depicted strange objects instead of cities, such as: a toilet, bowling pins and a pencil sharpener.
“It probably got here by accident…. it could be from the children's section,” Ash replied with some difficulty, as he'd just stuffed a croissant into his mouth.
“No, no, look, it says here: 'A Guide to Roadside Monuments of Cultural Importance.' It seems to be an actual map, apparently, for people who like to stop and look at, well… an enormous toilet by the roadside. It says here that this Monument Valley starts after 50km, if we go a bit off our route. It's hard to imagine who'd be interested in that, to be honest...”
“Yes, what a waste of time. It's also off the main road, so I'm sure that nobody bothers to go there.”
...
Yet within half an hour we were looking at a gargantuan (the biggest in the world, according to the book) lava lamp. Yes, it was interesting to see what kind of idiot had wanted to break that record.
Having suddenly developed a keen interest in the topic, Ash was now not letting the map out of his hands:
“It says here that it took 'three truckloads of wax of different colours and densities' to create. And the lamp is hardly ever turned off, because it takes hours to heat up and cool down. Also, 'the switched-on lamp is meant to symbolise the chaos that prevails in the universe, the increasing entropy, the peak of structure and destruction...'”
“Honestly, who writes these brochures anyway?!” I retorted. “I don't understand why it's so complicated. Surely you can just say something like: 'The lamp is glowing and there are gooey blobs floating around in it.' That's it!”
“Well... Because the book says that wax never takes the same shape twice. Every moment is unique, in fact the lamp gives rise to states the universe has never seen before.”
On that note, we raised our heads almost simultaneously and stared at the blobs of wax floating inside the lamp. We gazed at their movement for a while longer, and then set off again.
The map had a fairly non-linear structure, so we visited the monuments of 'cultural significance' in completely random order.
Perhaps the most memorable was the giant ball of rubber string. It was truly enormous: the size of a seven-storey house. Originally, we hadn't planned to visit it at all — it didn't look very impressive on the map, but up close its sheer size was breathtaking.
We took a seat on one of the viewing platforms at a decent distance from the ball.
“Yes, a fascinating sight. I wonder what the brochure thinks the ball symbolises. Surely 'the structure of the solar system, the centrism of life or the orb as a primitive beginning?'” I said.
“Let me see," Ash said, fiddling with the map, “OK, it says here that it 'symbolises a big ball of rubber string.' Sounds about right!”
“Whoever wrote this book must have seen the ball only once in their life.” said an unknown voice.
We turned around. An old man was sitting not far from us, smoking a pipe.
“I've lived here a long time and I've seen all three versions of the ball.”
“Wait, so this is a copy?” I was surprised.
“More like a new iteration. The rubber in our area is not as reliable as you might think, so every ten to fifteen years, the ball is dismantled and a new one is put together. The old rubber string is not thrown away, but recycled and used to make a lot of small rubber bands to make pickle jars seal properly for the winter.”
“I wonder what they do with the old lava lamp wax then...”
“I'm not in charge of the lava lamp, but it's said that the universe itself absorbs it over time.” The old man took a long puff from his pipe.
“Ah, yes, the universe...”
“Actually, you know what the interesting thing is, lads? The ball always starts and ends roughly the same way, although a lot of tourists are interested in finding the end. Everyone asks: "show me the end of the ball," so they can take pictures with it. But for me, the most important thing is what's inside.”
The old man took another deep puff.
“Each version of the ball has a clear beginning and end. And the path that the rubber string travels is the interesting part. For me it's a new story every time, a pattern I never tire of exploring...”
I don't remember how long we meditatively contemplated the ball. Everyone was immersed in their own thoughts and the old man was slowly smoking his pipe.
