The Pendulum is dying. Andra is missing. Save her, or the time may cease to pass.
A young man named Eberhard sets out on a magical journey to a post-apocalyptic, dystopian reality, where he must complete a vital task. He must rescue Andra. If he fails, the world will fall apart.
Meanwhile, his friend and roommate, Frederic, wants to help his friend. Although, all he can do is wait until it rainsâŚwith clock hands.
Join them in their amazing adventure, listen to Starfishâs voice and, whatever urges you to, donât look for The Pendulum.
The Pendulum is dying. Andra is missing. Save her, or the time may cease to pass.
A young man named Eberhard sets out on a magical journey to a post-apocalyptic, dystopian reality, where he must complete a vital task. He must rescue Andra. If he fails, the world will fall apart.
Meanwhile, his friend and roommate, Frederic, wants to help his friend. Although, all he can do is wait until it rainsâŚwith clock hands.
Join them in their amazing adventure, listen to Starfishâs voice and, whatever urges you to, donât look for The Pendulum.
âItâs hard not to miss, isnât it? It seems almost impossible to win.â
I heard a pleasant, deep voice from somewhere near me.
âYes, youâre rightâ, I said, and I turned around to see who I was talking to, but I didnât spot anyone. I felt a little anxious, but I quickly managed to get myself together. This voice had clearly been just my imagination.
âNo need to look around. You wonât find me this way.â
The deep voice carried on.
âIâll tell you how to see me and Iâll introduce myself. Itâs just not the time and place for it right now. Let me help you first.â
The voice kept silent for a while, as if it was mulling something over. In a minute, it spoke again.
âI need to ask you something. Why are you playing this game?â
âI want to get this teddy bear, the one other thereâ, I said, and I pointed at the award I endeavoured to get.
âI just canât win. To get this teddy bear, Iâd have to make a whole pyramid of aluminium cans collapse by throwing a ball at it. My best is to make just two cans fall over. Iâm hopeless at it.â
âIs there someone you wish to give this bear to?â
âProvided that I winâŚâ
âProvided that you win.â
âYes, there is. Iâd like to give it as a gift to my girlfriend.â
âWhatâs her name?â
âI donât know.â
âYou donât knowâŚâ
The voice repeated after me.
ââŚbut still you want to give her this teddy bear.â
âThatâs rightâ, I confirmed.
âShe must be very emotional and sensitive, your girlfriend I mean. I guess she gets along with children pretty well.â
âI donât know. To be frank, I havenât met her yet.â
âYou havenât met her yetâŚâ
The voice repeated after me again.
ââŚbut you will.â
âI will?â
The voiceâs certainty surprised me a bit.
âYou said you wanted to give her this teddy bear.â
âI suppose.â
âThat is why youâll definitely meet her. In fact, I even know her name. Do you want me to tell you?
âTell meâ, I asked.
âHer name is Andra.â
I was silent.
âYou donât like it, do you?â
âI doâŚI adore it. Iâve never heard such a beautiful name before.â
I lost words and kept silent for a moment. When I heard the name âAndraâ, I quivered. I quivered so hard that I found myself completely paralysed. I couldnât speak. I felt my lips move but no sound came out of my mouth. Just as if I forgot how to utter or as if someone had cut off my tongue. Neither of these two would be pleasant for me. For the first time in my life, I experienced beauty in such pure form. I saw this name, I felt it, I heard it. It carried along a smell of blackberries and pink pepper. I squinted my eyes and I ended up watching colourful stripes and dots flying past me. In a while, they merged into colourful syllables: âAnd â raâ. The former looked purple, and the latter seemed red. I felt dizzy.
âHow hard do you want to meet her. Tell meâ, the strange voice asked.
âSo hard that I could travel the whole world to do it right now.â
âGood, because you will have to take a bit of a challenge. Brace yourself.â
âLife is full of challenges.â
What a hackneyed bunch of words. Sadly, nothing else came to my mind.
âYouâre saying it in a way it sounds sad. Would you rather life was just dull and monotonous?â
âI guess not.â
âYou guess not.â
The voice was mocking me a little.
âYou choose words very cautiously. Something tells me youâre afraid of the meaning they carry.â
âI amâ, I confessed.
âYou are a bit cowardly, but you seem to be a kind man. Iâll help you get this teddy bear.â
âThanks. What do I do?â
âYouâre trying to make a pyramid of aluminium cans collapse by throwing a ball at it. The cans are light, and the ball is quite heavy, so there shouldnât really be a problem. However, you still find it almost impossible to do. Why?â
âBecause Iâm so bad at this game?â
âBecause you donât know where the ball is going to hit.â
âNobody knows it. Iâll only know if I throw it. Well, actuallyâŚâ, I hesitated for a moment, then continued with the thought.
ââŚactually, I could predict where the ball hits if I used a formula assessing a throwâs range and thenâŚâ
âThen you wouldnât know where the ball hits. Youâd be able just to estimate, where this place might be. Thatâs completely different, donât you think?â
âHow am I supposed to know where the ball hits for certain?â
âYou canât, but I can, and Iâll show you. Buy credit for four more throws. The fourth one will let you win the game.â
âHow do you know?â
âTrust me on this. Iâll explain it to you later. An amusement park isnât the right place for such conversations.â
âOkay.â
âThen letâs go.â
âThen letâs goâ, I repeated.
I felt a bit weird talking to myself. I often do it in fact. I came back to the game stand and I bought credit for four more throws, just as the deep, eerie voice asked.
âA stubborn one, arenât you?â, the lady at the game stand asked.
âKids told you to win this teddy bear for them and thereâs no getting out of it, am I right?â
âMore or lessâ, I prompted and closed my eyes for a second.
I focused and I threw the first ball. It flew past the pyramid of cans and landed on the ground just a few inches away. It happens, this is quite likely. I threw the second ball. Watching it spinning hypnotized me and I got the impression I could hear its flight through plain air. That was peculiar but quite amazing. I felt separated from the rest of the world, and it was only that throw which mattered. Just as the weird voice predicted, the second ball missed as well. I took a deep breath and threw the third one. I missed once more. I couldnât believe it. Was the voice a clairvoyant or what?
âTough luck, misterâ, the lady seemed to pity me.
âWhy wonât you just let it go? You can go to a store and buy the same teddy bear with no effort.â
No, thereâs no other teddy bear like this one anywhere. I ignored her words and focused on the throw. Before the ball got out of my hand, I heard a sound of water splashing. It was so intense, loud, and clear. I hadnât time to think about it though. The ball hit the pyramid and made it collapse. I did it. I won.
The lady at the game stand went pale while handing me the teddy bear.
âTough luck you said, huh?â, I teased her, then I turned around and walked away.
When I left the amusement park holding the teddy bear in my hands, I thought about the strange deep voice and I wanted to thank him. Something made me anxious though. I couldnât see the owner of the voice during our conversation, but I felt his presence. Iâm not sure how exactly, but I did. I sensed this warmth and humidity all around me. Oh, and the smell of rain. Iâve just become aware that I felt this to. My nostrils were being hit by thousands of memories picturing beautifully shaped drips of water. It didnât rain at all today though. Thatâs crazy. Anyway, the smell of rain was gone by the time Iâd left the amusement park. I struggled to feel it, but I just couldnât. I wasnât able to find it. It felt said. How can I thank somebody I donât even know the name of?
I was still lost in thoughts when I got in my car and started the engine. I needed to put all those thoughts away for a while and focus on the road. When I got home, I put the teddy bear on a couch in the living room and sat beside it. What a peculiar adventure Iâve just had, I thought. I stood up and poured myself a glass of black currant juice. I drank it bottoms up and put the glass in the washing machine. I went to the bathroom to take a shower. Before I rinsed myself, I peered at my towel for a while. I spotted a tiny little crab hafted on its corner. The ball hitting a pyramid of aluminium cans. What did it have to do with a sound of splashing water anyway? I closed my eyes and pictured myself throwing enormous bubbles of water at the pyramid. They were so heavy and dense they must have weighed hundreds of pounds. Just one such bubble was enough to make the whole pyramid collapse and then it went beyond it to make a huge hole in the canvas the stand had been made of. The waterâs temperature got so high that I started to suffocate so I immediately turned it down.
I felt tired when I left the bathroom. I covered myself with a towel, lied down on the couch and fell asleep. Iâve never had such deep and long a sleep before. I dreamt I stood naked on a peak of a mountain and was letting raindrops fall right into my mouth. They tasted incredibly well, just slightly sweet. They refreshed me a lot. It was all dark and scary around. I heard thunders and I saw bolts cutting the sky like knives made of light. To my own dismay, I didnât feel any kind of fear. I was so calm Iâd never thought I could be. This overwhelming sanity made me feel a bit strange, but it didnât bother me. Suddenly, I felt pain in my left foot. I looked closer at it and I saw something sucked up onto it. I wasnât sure what it was, but I manged to spot a few scales shining in the darkness. Then, I heard this eerie deep voice again.
âYou will have to take a challenge to find your girlfriendâ
It said, and then the dream ended.
I woke up swimming in my own sweat. I was terrified. I glanced at my watch. It showed four a.m. I didnât have the slightest clue why, but I suddenly thought about Hamletâs monologue and remembered it so vividly that I had to say a part of it out loud.
âTo be or not to be, that is the questionâŚwhether âtis nobler in mind to suffer the slings and arrows of outrageous fortuneâŚâ
I felt sleepy again after Iâd said it and didnât wake up till the next morning.Â
Does the world really look the way we see it? What might happen if the word âtrueâ lost its meaning?
These are some of the themes explored in this Alice in Wonderland meets The Matrix and Somewhere in Time type fantasy novel.
Eberhard (âEbi,â meaning âshrimpâ in Japanese) is a private hospice worker. A sea creature talks to him in a dream and asks Ebi to do him a favor or ârun an errand for him.â Starfish, who lives in The Grove, explains that âThe only series of events leading to the completion of the task is the one where you find Andra.â Andra is Ebiâs future girlfriend. Meanwhile, whoâda thunk the existence of the whole world hinges on a starfish and its ability to close an underwater passage? (It worked for Frodo.)
Many dreams and much rain ensue. Ditto microchips. Magnetic gloves. Seas of illusions. Poetry. A comet strike and a vault. A sentient squirrel. A glass maze and a minotaur. An enchanted seat in a cafeteria. Riddles wrapped in engimas. And whatever you do in this task, do not look for the pendulum.
This book has potential, but the timeline and focus are problematic. It essentially attempts to cover the âpendulum of everything,â the time/space continuum, the âdeath of life,â the meanings of love and life in the universe via fantasy and magical realism. Itâs a pretty tall order for a 237 page fantasy tale. In the end, it tries too hard. The storyline remains obtuse and elusive.
The narration also has some trouble with basic English. Some of the phrasing and word choice is a bit clunky. (Alcohol kicking in and warming up Ebiâs âvines.â He thought heâd âliveâ his phone number. Batâs stomach full of âpray.â Eberhard puts his drinking glass in the âwashing machineâ?) Â
The text is also overwritten in places. We get that sudden darkness can feel âscary, mysterious and gloomy.â No need to pontificate further. Â Also, seemingly random characters tend to wander in and out of the story without substantively advancing the plot.
Although the text suffers from occasional grammatical and usage errors and overwriting, readers may be willing to overlook same due to the unusual premise and a deep dive into the time/space continuum. The story is told backwards, with the Table of Contents following the Epilogue. Some readers will find this approach fresh, creative, and invigorating. Others will find it incoherent. (Curiously, the narrator does not seem to be aware that starfish are salt water creatures. They do not live in fresh ponds from which deer drink, as described in this book.)
Still, this is a valiant effort at tackling an intriguing subject. With some rewrites and professional edits, this story has potential. Like a sweet fairy tale.