Get Set, Go!

The mysterious appearance

I wince at the sudden entry of light into my eyes as the man jerks open the cloth that blindfolded my eyes. As my eyes get adjusted to the light, I find myself standing on top of a skyscraper, which had to be at least forty stories high. The view from there was dazzling.

My mom would have blacked out if she was here. She has this strange fear of heights. She probably fears falling off which I don't quite understand. She has this amazing control over her legs and knows exactly where to step so she can't just trip over something and fall. I don't see any way for her to fall unless someone pushes her off.

That's when I find myself floating in air. The man who had kidnapped me had actually pushed me! I always wanted to sky-dive but that was with a parachute. I did not want to jump off a skyscraper to meet my death. I freaked as I saw the ground getting bigger. Just two minutes more and that's it for me.

One minute more.

Twenty seconds more.

I closed my eyes. I did not want to see myself dying, not that it would prevent it from happening. Within no time, I'll be history. With a thud, I met the ground.

Whoa, it was faster than I expected it to be. But how was I still thinking? Was I in heaven? I always thought that if I'd make it to somewhere after death, it would be heaven. I don't think I am capable of getting into hell. So, this must be heaven. Plus, I don't expect hell to be so silent.

Ouch! My head ached from where it hit the ground. But the dead are not supposed to feel physical pain right. At least that's what I was told when I was alive. So I am either imagining the pain, which I doubt, or I am still alive. So, that only means that I survived the fall, unless it was...

"A nightmare." I slowly open my eyes. It certainly was my room and I was lying on the floor. It wasn't a skyscraper I fell off from after all, it was my bed.

Sighing, I got up from the floor. Rubbing the spot where my head had bumped into the floor, I walked towards the window to let the morning breeze in. As I pulled up the blinds, my eyes almost popped out of their sockets.

There on the lawn stood a huge labyrinth of rails, touching the sky. A roller coaster? I sigh. This must be a yet another dream. No, it was an after effect of the dream, a hallucination perhaps.

By the way, I have a great imagination. Once in an orchard, I saw canaries growing like fruits on trees. The buds bloomed into eggs, which suddenly burst open to release the canaries, that flap their wings and flew away. But that was only a hallucination.

I took a shower and got ready. Hallucination or not, I had to make sure that my lawn was as normal as always. But there it was, standing gloriously, the labyrinth of rails. It certainly was a rollercoaster for I see the car standing where the labyrinth started.

Even wide awake, I could be hallucinating. I go ahead to touch the rail, expecting my hands to go through the rods, as it always did when I hallucinated, before the thing dissolves into thin air but no, that doesn't happen this time. My palm hit the solid rod. It wasn't a hallucination after all. I pulled my hand back with a start.

"Phineas!" I shout out, only to realize that I might be Candace but I don't have a pair of brothers who invent crazy things every day.

I walk around the thing to survey it, careful not to touch it. Whether the lawn cracked open to elevate it or the sky dropped it down or the air conjured it, I did not know. All I knew is that it lay there, enclosing so many questions that needed answers.

That's when Jeremy enters. Okay, my life isn't that comical, I swear. Other than me, Jeremy's the only person who shares his name with a character in an animated series. It's just a coincidence that both our names were being used in the same animated series. And just to clear your doubt, in case you have it, he is not my boyfriend.

"Wow, Candace! You never told me about this," he said, approaching me, his eyes glued to the rollercoaster.

"Well, I am as confused about this as you are right now."

"So you are telling me that it just mysteriously appeared this morning?" he laughs and looks at me for an answer. I wanted to say, bingo! That's exactly what happened. But I just grin at him and I knew that he understood.

"What? Wait. This huge thing can't just appear here overnight, can it?" his smile had vanished and he looked at me, puzzled.

"You know such a huge thing just cannot be built overnight and neither can it be transported from a shop, if they even made such a thing. So, yes, it did appear mysteriously," I reply, pulling on my innocent look.

He did not reply to this. Together, we walked the rest of my path around it, till we reached where I had started my survey.

Pointing at the car, he asks,"Have you checked that out yet?" I nod and he walks towards the car. I move before him and blocking his path, I say, "Hey, I don't think we should touch this thing."

"It's okay. We'll just see it from inside," he replied.

"What if this thing just starts? It doesn't seem to have a return track if you noticed."

"And neither does it have a control room if you noticed. So how will it start?" he says, "Come on, we'll be fine, I promise."

I don't argue anymore. We walk to the car silently. He gets in first and then helps me in.

The car was a small thing, capable of seating two people. "You see this is meant for two people," grinning, Jeremy says with mischief in his eyes, "Two people as in the two of us." I roll my eyes and say, "I wonder how this thing came here. I think we should get down."

Before Jeremy could reply, the car gave a sudden jolt, dropping is onto the seats. Then the seatbelts automatically buckle themselves up around us. Nothing we did helped us out of the seat. The seatbelts only pushed us further into the seats.

The track below us grumbled. Jeremy and I exchange horrified looks. "If this rollercoaster can mysteriously appear on my lawn," I say, "it can also start on its own, Jeremy." And with that the rollercoaster took off.