"Well, William! Do you know when World War II started?"
"Um … 1947?"
"Congratulations, William. You have just won yourself a trip to the Principal’s office."
William, moved out of his seat, walked towards the door and stepped out of Mrs. McIntyre’s history class on his way to the Principal’s office. He was surprised that she didn’t comment on this being his fourth visit in as many days and that he was going to break the school record for most visits in a week. When he thought about it, though, he couldn’t care less. He hated history class. He wasn’t the least bothered whether George Washington was born in 1674 or 1998. Moreover, he hated Mrs. McIntyre’s presence.
William thought "What do I care if I break the record? At least, I’ll always be remembered (I’ll also remember the firing I’ll get when my parents find out)".
William felt strange. He knew that he was going to the Principal’s office, but something was telling him that this was not going to be any ordinary trip to the Principal’s office. He somehow felt that something BIG was going to happen. And it did! William tripped over his untied shoelace.
When William got up to tie his shoelace, he didn’t notice his surroundings. It was when he had re-tied his shoelaces that he realised that he wasn’t in Kansas anymore (not that he ever was). He wasn’t even in school. The land around him was … weird. The landscape was an undecided mix between light black and dark black. There were protrusions out of the ground, which looked faintly similar to molehills. There were tall, green and brown, plant-like structures with red and yellow elliptical sphere-like structures on them. And to top all of that, there was a collection of multicoloured eggs to his right, which looked rather disorienting.
Seemingly from out of nowhere, a giant thing appeared in front of him. It was vaguely humanoid and possibly 23 feet tall. It was purple, had four arm-like structures and was hovering half a foot above the ground. Its face had a square eye-like opening and gill-like slits on what would have been its cheeks. "Awesome!" William thought.
Just then, a thought popped up in his mind "Do you actually think that I am awesome?"
William fainted.
[For the convenience of the reader, all Krint conversations will be written in English for a better understanding of the complete lack of a story]
What William did not know was that he was on the star Krinton. Actually, Krinton was half-star, half-planet, quite literally. One half of Krinton was an inferno of a constant nuclear reaction and the other half was the planet where the Krints lived. The Krints actually lived inside the planet-star and utilised the heat from the star-side for their needs.
How William had reached there was due to a gap in the space-time discontinuum (As the Krintons, a more advanced race, referred to it). William’s untied shoelaces had opened it and William stepped through the open gap by tripping up on them. It has been speculated to be an unnecessarily painful procedure for space-time travel in the Inter-"Time and Universe" court, but since no decision had been reached upon, unfortunate travellers were forced to untie their shoelaces and then trip over them to travel long distances in space-time. The actual method of the journey was still unknown, even to the "gallaposides" (translated in English to "scientists") of "Zeta-eta Zo", the smartest gallaposides in the space-time discontinuum.
We now return to William, who fainted at the sight of a dwarf Krint on the planet-star, Krinton.
When William awoke from his unconscious state, he was not on the weird landscape, which was an undecided mix between light black and dark black. Instead, he was in a room, the walls of which were an undecided mix between light white and dark white. It had an almost blinding effect. William thought of the colour of the walls of his history class – the dullest yellow imaginable – and agreed that that would have been better. Jut then, when William was about to think about how much he hated Mrs. McIntyre, he noticed that the colour of the walls in the room had changed – to the shade of the dullest yellow imaginable.
William was stunned. He was not stunned by the fact that the colour of the room had changed before his eyes, but by the fact that he was lying "down", staring down at a the same Krint which had saved him (not that he knew it, for when seen from above, every Krint looked like a pile of sausages). He was about to faint when he realised that fainting would possibly mean him falling down, resulting in an unwanted dose of pain.
A thought appeared in his mind, "I’m glad that you have decided against fainting. More time is going to be wasted if you do."
The thought continued "If you want to come down, think that you are not upside-down."
William tried, and failed! The result of that was that William had not fainted and still felt an unwanted dose of pain. He immediately got up to his feet and saw that he was face to face (this us wrong since Krints do not have faces, but ventral photo-visual receptors) with a Krint, not a pile of sausages.
The thought thought (since thoughts are not spoken, but thought) "You must learn to control your thoughts, William. You do let your imagination run wild."
This was irritating William, who furiously shouted, "Stop thinking in my head. My head is mine, not anybody else’s to think in."
"I am sorry, but you will have to bear with us since we have evolved past the stage of using speech to using telepathy", the thought continued.
William screamed "Who is "we"?".
It was then that the Krint, who William was thinking with explained that William had travelled through the space-time discontinuum, via his tripping over his untied shoelaces, to the planet-star Krinton, which was inhabited by the Krints (This took much longer than it looks since William was insistent on learning about his travel procedure and the planet-star Krinton). The Krint William was thinking with explained to William that he had been summoned there by the Krinton assembly of "prufee-ops" (translated to "idiotic political figures" in English) to save the space-time discontinuum from complete destruction.
William decided that this was as good a time as ever to faint.
When William regained consciousness once more, he had a weird feeling he was being watched. When he woke up all he could see were 50 feet tall Krints. Realising that he was not being subjected to the most pleasant sight in the universe (for when a 50-foot tall Krint looks at one, one remembers how wonderful toxic waste looks), he rose to the occasion. He stood up with the speed of a cheetah and the grace of a pineapple. When he regained his senses (Both consciousness and sense were rarely with William at the same time), He could hear 27 and a half thoughts flowing in his brain (A Krint forgot what it was thinking midway). It was quite jarring, especially to realise that the thoughts were concentrated on whether the "weirdo" (translated to "human being" in English) knew how strawberry jam was made.
The Krint who William was thinking with explained to William that he had to appear before the Krint assembly of "prufee-ops". The reason was quite simple. The "prufee-ops" were on a balcony structure 150 feet above the other Krints. Since a Krint looks like a pile of sausages when seen from above, the "prufee-ops" thought that the entire race had been transformed and they were saved. They just thought that the thoughts they heard were stray thoughts caught in the space-time discontinuum. Moreover, the Krints did not want to startle the "prufee-ops" by hovering up and spoiling their exhilaration about being the only ones left. Since a human would not look like a pile of sausages when seen from 150 feet above (although quite small), William was chosen.
William felt important. He didn’t know what he was going to be told, but he felt that something BIG was going to happen. And it did! William tripped over his other shoelace, which had untied itself.
For the umpteenth time that day, William regained consciousness, and got up to a worse sight than 50 foot tall Krints. Mrs. McIntyre was staring at William, who was now on the school floor and experiencing quite a large dose of pain from all the fainting and tripping.
"Dear William, I see that you have fallen down. Are you hurt?"
"Ummmmmm…. (William was in a state of shock hearing Mrs. McIntyre sound nice) My head –"
"How dare you try to get out of going to the Principal’s office! We were trying to be lenient with you, but I am afraid I must give you detention for yet another day. …. And, congratulations, you have broken the school record you so dearly wanted to. Now hurry up to your next class."
Mrs. McIntyre walked away. William was relieved. He was happy to know that Mrs. McIntyre wasn't being nice to him. That memory would have haunted him forever. As William got up, he couldn’t understand what he was doing back in school. He looked around. The corridors were empty. He would have to hurry back soon or he would be severely penalised. He wondered what had happened to the Krints and the task of saving the space-time discontinuum.
William thought about the Krints all-day and even in detention. When left alone for a minute, he tried untied his shoelaces and tripping over them. He realised two things from those trippings. The first that it was not working. The second thing he realised was that his body was aching all over.
His life was quite confusing. One minute he was thinking on a planet-star with piles of sausages and the next he heard nice words from Mrs. McIntyre. This was too much for a young boy who didn’t know that World War II never happened. George Washington was never born. However, he was there and so was everything else. Something was wrong but he didn’t know it yet. The space-time discontinuum was turning into a continuum. Chaos was appearing. And all William could do was wonder if chocolate fudge cake would cure his aching body before anything else happened (or didn’t happen).