Innovation Encounters
First Contact
By Maxis122
It was another cold winters night, christmas was on its way. Everything was lit and shining on this dark cold night, the footpath beyond was visible. On this cold winters night, there was me. I was trudging through the snow, hearing the grains of ice crunch underneath every one of my steps. I was almost back at my home, a small home, but it was still mine. After a day of working I had wanted to try and return to my house before the night fell, but it seemed like I was required for a couple of extra minutes. Those minutes turned to a hour, then two. If only I had just left when I had to, but life has that effect. It just has to slow you down.
As I turned into my street I could see that the snow laid undisturbed, alone. Until I came along and disrupted the peace and neatness of the white substance. This was my street, the one that I lived on. After my parents moved away to France they left the place with me. I haven’t talked to them since August, but they need their space. Since I had taken some of their time with my presence. Its only fair, and I guess they wanted me to spread my wings and move ahead. Alone or with my other half. They did care how I moved along, as long as I was happy.
I can’t say that I am happy, but I can’t say that I am in the state of relentless suicide. Life is life. And the world of work isn’t always meant to be the funnest route in life. But the job is stable. I haven’t tried balancing it on a stick, but I think it would if I were good at that kind of thing. As for what I’m good at, that is something that is limited. I draw from time to time, pretty much anything that I can see and when I am feeling in the mood. The relaxed mood. As for my career skills, I am a computing genius at heart, yet I ended up standing behind a games counter in the end. In retrospect the gaming degree could have gotten me into a better job, but with the economy at an all time low, I can’t really hope for anything more. It would take a miracle to make a better job land on me.
When it comes down to hobbies, drawing once again heralds my time. Modeling airfix models was a past time at some point, but eventually I stopped doing it. Maybe it was because I looked at the planes and realised that I would never fly in them. Or for that matter like them. So that thought stuck to me and my plane production line ceased to exist. I’m not a big fan of television shows, I generally try to avoid them. The fact is that I don’t enjoy seeing other worlds have happiness as I sit in front of my computer screen and wish to be there. That could even lead to me writing about such shows. Imagining that just makes me cringe, and the amount of those stories as well. So, for that I actively avoid getting into cartoons. I’m quite happy to sit down and watch zombies walk around and slowly kill of one character at a time, while half a season is wasted on some random farm. That, I can handle.
Interest wise, I am quite into mythology. Legends and myths of the worlds before us. All of that fascinating material about a time where things could have happened, and because they are all that we have, we don’t know whether to believe them or not. It’s all down to whether you would like to believe in them, or simply see them as stories. Either way, they are exciting. Interesting stories that have a lot to say. And so, with this interest, I look out for anything that I could document and create myths and legends with. And you never know, you might become a legend one day. This exciting feeling always gets to me when I think I see something new, and indescribable. The feeling that you alone have found something, and you will be the first to ever see it. That, or you will be the second person to ever see it! The latter doesn’t sound as cool though, even with exaggeration.
But something that I did feel like going into was the case about the random bang that happened over Grimsby in the early days of 2012. As far as anyone knows, it could have been a fighter jet breaking the sound barrier. Or an explosion of some kind, or even an earthquake. But most of these theories were denied by their respective researchers. Turns out they have no idea what could have caused it. It could have been any of the above but they just didn’t know. And as the days rolled by this event got pushed aside like every other phenomenon and forgotten. As quickly as the row was taken up, it vanished like magic.
Even to this cold winters day in the same year, I still have no idea what it could have been. Where others have forgotten, I have remembered. These small details of the past have been seeded in and removed. Hidden. I know the truth is out there, and there are plenty of possibilities. But, as I said before, I still can’t think of anything that fits the bill. Something that could create a sonic boom, yet disappear without a trace. Almost impossible. Or maybe impossible. Period.
With my house now in sight, I searched my pockets for my keys. After a few short seconds I found them wrapped around my headphones. Damn things, always find a way to get tangled up. And this time around my keys. Now standing in front of the door to my house, I fought the vile wires in a quick battle. No one was spared as I freed my keys and held them in glory. Not today headphones. With the the fight over, I pushed the cold metal into the lock and twisted around for a moment, I always forget which was to turn. But after I found the key moving, I unlocked the bottom of the door. After withdrawing the key, I searched the ring for the next one.
The ring must have been broken because the other key then fell to the floor when I found it. Sighing, I knelt down and picked the runaway key. The cold brass wasn’t too kind to my skin as it decided to adsorb as much of the freezing cold from the ground as it could in its short life there. I shivered a little as I held the key to the lock again. My gaze returned to the lock, which was now shadowed. I tilted my head at this, what could possibly make another shadow... appear...
Slowly, I looked up the door, seeing the shadow was much taller than me. And I thought six foot was tall. Tracing the shadow up made me shiver at the thought of what was to come. A robbery from a seven footer. Yikes. But, as every man must do, is to face his fate. Gulping, I moved my feet, biting my lip in an attempt not to break out into a cry of fear. I held my eyes closed as I turned to face the man behind me. The next part was hard. Opening the eyes that had glued themselves shut. Sooner or later this punk or letterman was going to do something. So this was it, now or never. Face your fate, and never back down.
The sight that I was greeted with was one that I would have never expected. My head decided to spin as I gazed into the two large eyes in front of me. These eyes, eyes that I had never seen before on anything. Bigger than anything normal. But as I gazed on, I saw two rose red eyes. I blinked, and began to take in the rest of the face. The cyan blue colour covering this creature. Its beating wings beside it, almost silent. But the thing that stuck in my mind the most, was the thick lock of hair that it possessed. Don’t get me wrong, hair is normal on any mammal. But the colour of the hair, that is a story in itself. I could count five, make that six different colours on this creature hovering in front of me. Each colour representing one of the rainbow. Each one shining in its own individual glory. My gaze then returned back to the two eyes, fixed on me.
Me and the creature retained eye contact, neither one of us moving. Just staring into each other, curious. What were we? We probably knew what we were ourselves, but the opposite wasn’t so clear. I tilted my head, and it did the same. My small eyes hidden behind my streamline glasses, looking out at these two unprotected eyes. This moment of curiosity lasted, and lasted. Neither one of us moving, but just observing. Learning and discovering. A rainbow hovered in front of me.
Most people would have the courage and strength to go ahead and talk. Try and communicate and make first contact. But I, on the other hand, am not that person. The most I could do was not scream and run away. So I had some courage, but not enough to move along to the next step. If someone else was in my place they would have probably been explaining the working of our world by now. But I am still at square one, the staring contest. Brilliant.
The creature then narrowed its eyes and leaned forward, looking deeper into me. Being slightly terrified, I leaned back, stepping back as I did so. One step lead to another, until I was backed up against my door. The creature was now within centimeters of my face, looking into my eyes. I wasn’t sure if this was now curiosity or the intent to kill. Fear, that is what now runs through my head. The fear that this thing may not be peaceful and that at any moment it could rip my head off. Probably not the best first encounters I would have liked to be a part of.
Then, it quickly backed away and shot into the sky. My eyes followed it for a split second as it flew over my house. I walked forward and looked to where it had flown to, but it was gone. There was just me again. My face was now showing the emotions that I currently posses : Confusion, fear and the feeling of what the hell just happened. I walked back over to the door to my small house and opened it. My face sustained its current state as I closed the door behind me and took my coat off. What the actual hell just happened?
My first instinct was to consult my number one source for problems, the internet. I dashed upstairs and quickly pushed the button to start up my desktop. My patience was thin as the loading time felt like forever. God damn Vista. I have to get that upgraded. When I finally got onto the internet I opened up Google and looked at the search bar. The question was, what does one type. One does not simply ask google a question and get a straight answer. I hit my head on the table and thought about what I could do. What could I recall that was going to help me?
Rainbow, that went into the search bar and I hit enter. After the results popped up I got what I should have expected, pictures of rainbows. I went to the pictures and quickly scrolled through them. But there was nothing for a couple of pages. Shaking my head I returned to the mighty search bar. I rubbed my temples as I considered what else could be entered into the bar of destiny. Rainbow Cyan blue, that found its way into the white box and I clicked on images. I sighed at the sight of nail polish and hair styles, knowing that I had already hit a dead end. After returning to the beginning again I thought about what it was. Some kind of horse, or equine. Yes, that might work.
I typed into the search bar : rainbow haired equine. After hitting enter I already found a wikipedia entry on something that might be of use. I clicked on it and instantly sighed again. The Rainbow Brite wasn’t what I was looking for, not by a long shot. A show about a rainbow haired horse was not what I was looking for. Maybe this was going to be a lost quest. Maybe. In the idea of defeat I clicked onto the images tab to see what more could be shown of this Rainbow Brite. But instead something else dominated the page, something a lot more familiar.
I suddenly regained the gaze of this creature, through the computer screen. This equine of rainbow hair was now all over the page. It was well known and drawn by many. I scrolled down and looked through the large amount of pictures of this creature. As I looked at these pictures I found that one of them had a name for this creature : Rainbow Dash. I frowned at the picture, even though I wasn’t into cartoons - I knew that this was one. It had to be. But how could this Rainbow Dash actually exist?
I searched the name to find that it was a her, and she was from a television show. Figures. Furthermore she was from a recently made cartoon called My Little Pony. I was aware of the old toys and show, but I had not heard of a recent adaption. From what I could gather, they had completely rebooted the show. Everything was new, with its own style. And the reviews seemed to be mostly positive. I then thought back to my original motion, how could she exist? This pony from an animation surely couldn’t be real. There was no way that it could work. Right?
The thought began to hurt my head. With a headache storm on the horizon, I decided that a hot drink would be the calming agent. I then stood up and walked downstairs to my kitchen. Pressing the button on the kettle caused it to roar to life as the water began to boil. I retrieved a cup and a tea bag and stood facing the window. Outside somewhere there was this pony, I didn’t know where, but she was out there. And so far I was the only one that had encountered her.
I couldn’t tell if this was just sheer coincidence or destiny. But either way, I had an encounter. An encounter with another kind, from another world. That feeling suddenly rushed into my blood, the feeling that I was now onto something. I was onto something that no one else could even imagine, the discovery of a real life character. This was my first Innovation Encounter.
Innovation Encounters
Sight
By Maxis122
When seeing something that you can’t believe, you start to doubt yourself. This is the stage that I hit next, the stage of ‘I have no idea what I saw or what the hell to do’. The fact that this happened was the thing that hit me the most, and the fact that I never asked for it. Wait, I kind of did ask for this. In the way that I wanted to discover something. And now I have. Wish fulfilled in a nutshell. But the next stage is the hardest of all. Its the point where you really have to start putting aside what you think is the real world and work on thinking about the new world that you have discovered.
But I was slow on getting into investigation mode, I was still in shock mode. My face seemed to return to the same state that it was in when I got home that night. Every time I was alone or walking back from work, I seemed to return to that look. My mouth was in agape as I thought about it. This singular fact that I had an innovation encounter. I knew there were several things that I could do, but I couldn’t get myself to go and do them. I was just still in shock that it had happened.
It took about three days for me to finally get my head straight. I was walking home again, on a Friday. I had the weekend and Monday off to do as I pleased. This was going to be one of my opportunities to begin my work. As the snow crunched beneath my feet I pondered on about my plans. I was going to have to get a sketch pad and plenty of pencils to begin my work. Everything had to be written down or else it would haunt my thoughts forever. With my house in sight I decided to get my keys ready before I got to the door. Luckily my headphones had taken the hint today and had not tangled themselves into my keys.
I quickly unlocked the door and walked inside, but just before I closed the door I looked back outside. Then it hit me like a meteorite. Doubt. Who’s to say that it wasn’t just a hallucination, a misinterpretation of something. I was under a lot of stress and it was as cold as the moon. I could have easily have had a dream. Anything could have caused this experience to happen. I blinked and took a step forward.
It couldn’t have not been real. That was the thought that I wanted to believe. It happened here. And it did happen, no doubt about it. No hallucination could have caused me to see something that I had never seen before, right? And it felt real. Heck, I could even recall the warm breath of the pony. The wings beating, and those eyes. It had to be real, it had to be.
Motivated by my thoughts, I closed the door and ran up the stairs to my bedroom. Pulling out a spare sketch pad, I turned a light on and began to sketch what I could remember. Those two big magenta eyes. The rainbow colours in the mane. I even got the right colours for this sketch. Colours, all of the colours. After my sketch was completed I began to write alongside it.
Rainbow Dash, sighted on the 4th of December 2012, documented on the 7th of December 2012. She approached me at 9:00 (approx) and looked at me. I didn’t talk or move a lot. After a short amount of time she left, flying away over my house in a western direction. Towards the forest. So far, she is apparently a fictional character from a television show called My Little Pony : Friendship is magic. I think she may be friendly, but I will be cautious. So far, I think this could have been a hallucination, but in retrospect, I think that she is real. Today I shall begin my investigation into the case of this Rainbow Dash.
I then sat back and looked at my work. The first page was filled. A big sketch with a description at the bottom. I decided to draw her when she was looking at me for the first time, because when she narrowed her eyes she looked a little menacing. With that done I closed the sketch pad and titled it ‘Rainbow Dash Investigation’. Not very subtle, but I was never the creative type. At least I know knew what it was. I then slotted this away next to my computer tower and turned the PC on.
The rest of my night was filled with the usual things that I did. Video games, watching videos and learning about more mythology. This would normally carry on until about 11pm, that was when I would call it a night and go back to the land of dreams. A couple of times, I found that there were some related videos about these ponies. I thought that it would be better not to watch these as I wanted to go in on a clean slate. I didn’t need other opinions to damage my view of what was to come. I wanted this to be my own adventure. These thoughts died down as I did call it a night and fell into a dream.
My feet were wet as I ran through the forest, my breath running out and sweat dripping from my head. I was being chased, I had to be as when I looked behind me I saw a black figure with two red eyes behind me. I suddenly turned right into a slightly more crowded area of tree’s. The figure seemed to be flying, so when it came to the crowded area of tree’s it flew up. Tears started to stream from my eyes as I continued to run, it was going to get me. I was so scared that I failed to see the root in front of me. It clipped my foot and made me tumble to the ground and roll down the hill. When I got to the bottom, it was a clearing. Perfect, I was now screwed. The figure then flew over this clearing, missing me completely. I froze for a second, looking out for it. After a few seconds I let my head rest, I was safe. I sighed as I relaxed a little. But it then appeared in front of me, looking down into my soul.
I shot up, sweat on my forehead as I looked around. My pulse was raging as the nightmare consumed my thoughts. Everything was shouting out at me. I searched the room with my eyes, seeing if there was this figure still chasing me. My breathing then slowly returned as I calmed myself down. It was just a dream, just a silly nightmare. I looked to my digital clock to see that it was six in the morning. There was no use in trying to get back to sleep now, I thought as I was still shivering a little. I decided that this would be the best time for a morning walk, in the dark. Brilliant, just excellent.
So within a couple of minutes I was on the footpath, walking down the empty street. People lived here, good people, but they were like my parents. They would have this house for coming back here to see relatives, and then another one in a foreign country. Quite like that T.V show where they helped people to get two homes. Home and away. But mostly away in this case.
My ears had taken the role of lead scarefest as they picked up every little noise and amplified it in my head. Thanks ears. My eyes weren’t helping either as they made a massive deal about every little thing that moved. With these senses I should be part of the damn army and help look for terrorist missiles on computer screens. But that wouldn’t work all the time for me because my senses are only doing this to annoy me. If it was all the time then I would have probably taken the bait. I shook my head and continued to walk down the street until I came to the edge of it.
There were a set of stairs that ascend to the forest layer. This surrounded the area of town that I lived in from three sides. The forest then spread out for a couple of miles. Nothing but tree’s and wildlife. A perfect hiding place for anything. I walked up these steps and looked into the forest. There was a public footpath going around the forest, but none going into it. You were allowed in but you were not assured a way back. I considered my chances were better on the footpath at this hour.
As I walked around I kept on looking up to the sky and into the forest. I was automatically looking for this pony, even though I didn’t have to. I was like a magnet that didn’t know which way north was. A compass which was pissed so bad that it needed to take the next month off to get its bearings straight. I just kept on looking and looking. The fact was that I was probably never going to see this pony again in real life.
I stopped and sighed. What was I doing? I never go out walking in the morning. Seriously, I never do this kind of thing. Yet, here I am, walking down this path on this dark winters morning. Looking for something that may or may not exist. Hoping that I might be part of something worthwhile. However I am just pulling away at strings, very fragile strings that could become loose at any moment. I tried to get myself to continue walking, but I was stuck. I couldn’t go any further in this direction.
I turned around and began the trek back home. At least I was awake now, but it was still as dark as hell. Though hell wouldn’t be dark because of all of the fire and... never mind. Anyhow, the path ahead was dark as I walked back in silence. The winter wonderland around me served as a white canvas, blank from the normal world. If only the world was as simple as this, then I guess everything would be so much easier.
