An Unparallel’d Voyage

My phone was ringing since how long I don’t know. By the time I woke up, looked up the watch, searched for the phone in darkness the voice on the other side was full of anger and exciting. The minute I received the news I was awestruck. Neither the watch nor the darkness nor even the silence in the home disturbed me except her name which was ringing in my ears. Is it true? Is she capable of doing such a thing? I had to believe it as I received the news from my lab.

It seems as if it was yesterday when Alisia came to give the best news of our life.

“Honey, we did this finally, we are ready to see a new reality, a reality no one has ever known, but we will know now what is outside our universe”. She said wildly with full excitement to me; her husband cum project partner.

“Yes, our efforts were worth it, cheers Alisia” I cheered back.

We made a technology that is capable of receiving and sending signals from a parallel universe. We both always doubted whether they were just signals that we could receive or send, anyways, it was just a starting of a new era for this world. Things were soon going to change completely.

“Impulsive Transient Antenna” which we call ITA, picks up radio signals produced when high-energy particles coming from deep space encounter our atmosphere and it can send signals by transmitting them through high-energy particles the same way. These particles and waves are unique, they don’t interact with anything of this universe other than the ITA.

ITA works on the technology that whenever it catches or sends signals, the highly charged particles produce more unknown small particles which result in flash and this flash tells us that signal is successfully transmitted, but these tiny unknown particles are still subject of research. Nevertheless, we were successful. That night was the D-day of our success.

It was a late-night success and so was the party. The occasion was special so I thought to try my hands at cooking and I made a hamburger, which I served with some wine. Cheers were everywhere and love was in the air. After a goodnight kiss, we dozed off.

Those beautiful moments were now a part of a lifelong memory.

But, the irony of life is nothing happens the way we want it to happen, life is full of surprises.

I went mad when my assistant told me something strange happened about which he had no idea. Alisia was working on ITA, our invention, and she suddenly disappeared from the place with a loud boom and our invention could be called trash now.

I rushed to my lab, on the spot which had ruined my whole life. It didn’t take much time to turn my favorite place into a nightmare.

“What happened exactly?” I asked in pain and despair.

“Alisia called me to open the lab and even after asking why so early, she said she has got to do something, I agreed.” Jorge, my assistant said with a trembling voice.

“I then thought not to waste time and started working on the silicon solution you asked me to do. Then the other room exploded where she was working and I rushed there and found she was nowhere near her desk and ITA turned into ash.” He started yelling with pain that he couldn’t avoid.

I turned my back and got out of the lab where that space was full of investigators and cops to settle the situation and diffuse if any chemical got triggered accidentally.

It was silent outside, but a rush in my head with thousands of thoughts.

According to forensic reports, there are no ashes of any human in the room so Alisia is surely not dead, but where is she?

I drank a lot that night and was about to doze off when I heard some signals from one of my old inventions which were half advanced in comparison to our new invention; it was capable of just receiving signals.

Signals were probably not of any alien this time. “Hey! Here! Here in the dark!”

I don’t know why, but it felt as if it was her. I dozed off.

The next morning, the first thing I remember was slapping myself for being terrible drunk and then dozing off in the most crucial moment. Thankfully, I remember most of the things about the signal.

I know It was Alisia. She was in a parallel universe. I screamed with pain.

Parallel Universe are a mysterious place. Sir Hugh Everett’s discovery, parallel universe. Everything is strange there as we know by now. Time is not even a quantity to be given importance unlike on our Earth, where time is everything.

In a parallel universe, Time coordinates are different from the earth as life gets reversed there, so a person gets younger every next day. That means a person starts from his death and ends his last day, a baby of one day; make our universe move just a required nano angle shift. Not too far, but too far from our reach. And my everything is alone at some unknown place, I know it’s you, my baby.

I had got confirmation that she is there, the things I had to work on was how I could get her back.

I worked for days and got a little idea that it’s possible if I make myself move a nanosecond shift in a different dimension. It was hard but I had to work on that. Most of us have felt it someday that when there is some emotional connection to something, we humans do that

anyhow. I was just doing everything possible to get her back, I don’t remember even if I used to sleep properly.

It had been 3 years now and my new technological advancements were indicating to me that we were ready to take Alisia back. She was alive, healthy but alone and I could not let her be there anymore.

I was super excited but would not celebrate without her. We get to know what someone means to us only when we lose that person because until then we take things for granted.  Nobody would ever understand how much she meant to me and how much I missed her. I promise you honey, I will never fight with you again in my whole life because I know I am nothing without you.

The plan was to launch it at 8 that night; I just couldn’t wait to see 3 years younger Alisia, I  jumped with joy.

At 8, as planned, I started the procedure. I was never more nervous in my whole life than at this moment. It was just do or die situation. If successful, I would get her back otherwise it would be the end for both of us. The moments I felt were dark and dense and at that place, I  caught her at the exact position with the space navigator and we were in our room.

Even the sound of the clock was too much to bear, one second felt like years. “And…

It’s done!!!” My assistant shouted in excitement. ‘Alisia’, she was there just in front of me.

We both cried and kissed while she was trying to adjust her breathe according to our  dimension.

“Faster, we are fine now”.

It was the most wonderful moment of my life. It felt like I was alive again after 3 years. “Honey, we had the most unique voyage anyone could ever have”, she said.

“Probably the best day of our life,” she said and I agreed, “I know you have not washed the dishes properly, and the bedroom must be untidy as well,” she said with a devastated look on her face. “Ahmm, fine” me realizing she is correct and I have to go home now, life is back to where it was then. But, this time, the only difference was, everything she says is more

loving and I wouldn’t ever disagree with her.

We both laughed encountering the most insane Invention of centuries.