IMAGICA

A Matter Of Fact

1
"Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic," Mr. Pearson said, moving towards the blackboard, "These words were said by Arthur .C .Clarke."

"Excuse me sir," a voice rang out from one of the benches, "I beg to differ."

As all eyes turned to that one girl at the back of the class, she tossed aside her hair and began speaking, "Sir, magic is illusion, a mirage. Science is based on facts and experiments. How can science be magic?"

Mr. Pearson adjusted his gold rimmed glasses and said very coolly, "Ayla, there are certain things in the universe which has no explanations in science. Everything from dark matter to parallel universe is still unknown, yet we continue to believe in them. What would we call them? What is science to us, may be magic to a layman. It all depends on your perspective and the level of your knowledge."

She was opening her mouth to argue when Mr. Pearson said, "I think you are not convinced. Come to my house this evening."

She slumped on her chair and hit the desk in her frustration. She had just earned a pep talk from her professor in Physics.

2

Reaching his home, Ayla was shown an empty sofa where she slouched.

Her heart beat increased with each passing minute. Her teacher would again try to feed her a bunch of crap.

"Science is not magic," she convinced herself, 'I have to prove my point."

It was almost five minutes but there was no sign of Mr. Pearson.

She strained her ears for any sound of approaching footsteps.

A faint sound caught her ear. It was soft but there was a steady beat to it, like a muffled drum.
She was suddenly very curious and decided to explore.

She knew it was wrong to sneak into someone's house, especially if he is your teacher. But her curiousness took over.

Searching for the source of sound, she walked along the corridors to a room. The sound was fairly audible now.

Very cautiously she opened the door and peeped in to find a room stuffed with all kinds of weird gadgets, all beeping, beating and whistling. There were tangles of wires, monitors, tools and displays. Nuts and bolts were strewn everywhere.

This was some kind of research area. She was amazed that her teacher did all such crazy stuff.

Suddenly her eyes were drawn to a white cylinder in the middle of the room. Drawn by an unnatural attraction, she reached out and pressed a button on the walls of the cylinder.

The cylinder opened up and she could see a variety of mirrors, levers and switches.

Curiosity gained the better of her as she put one foot inside. Then she was in the machine.

But to her utter horror, the doors closed behind her. There was a low grinding sound as the machine started functioning. The lights above her head danced on the walls and hit the mirrors bathing her with an eerie blue light.

For the first time, Ayla was scared. She beat frantically against the door but no one could hear her cries.

3

Mr. Pearson burst in through the door to find Ayla inside the machine.

Immediately he rushed to the machine and pressed some buttons. The machine sounded a siren and he clutched his head in despair.

As the door opened, Ayla came out.

She looked at herself. Everything seemed fine.

"Sorry sir, hope I did not do too much damage," she apologized.