VirtualSpace, 2025
Chris the Cursor ran galloping in the vast green undulating meadows of VirtualSpace. Instead of admiring the vastly expanded beauty of the green meadows almost the same as the standard Windows XP wallpaper Chris continuously looked backward as if somebody had been following him. Seeing Parry the Pointer, who was his competitor in the race still away, Chris slowed down a little bit. A bright greenish light illuminated the landscape. Chris wiped his tiny bar-shaped forehead drenched in his own sweat. The sweltering heat was produced either by the semiconductor junctions or because of his own mental state. The exact reason was not clear to him.
'Irri, Irri ... I am going to win this time, dear friend, you are going to lose,' Parry the Pointer came flying from behind and chuckled at his friend Chris, 'Chris, I always get defeated by you. You are thin and long. You look like a thin long bar with a pair of hands and feet that look like small tentacles, an elongated humanoid bar.' Chris and Parry had been close friends since they could remember.
Chris the Cursor frowned at Parry the Pointer in fear.
'So what. You are also a cursor, just take an arrow and tilt its head...by the way tell me does your head ache? Since you keep it always tilted. '
Chris's fear evaporated along with his sweat and he once again marched ahead onto the straight lined racing track of the VirtualSpace to compete with Parry the Pointer.
'I don't like body shaming. My arrow shaped head doesn't ache. I like to fly with my slanted head. A feat you cannot achieve. This is the biggest point, Chris.'
'See a Pointer is making a point.'
Chris the Cursor decided to ignore Parry the Pointer and again took the lead in the race.
However, Chris the Cursor was running out of steam, he asked, 'just wait for me Chris, I have been flying for so long.'
'So long? you were running only for 10^14 clock cycles. Or in simple words only for 41 seconds.'
'I know Chris our VirtualSpace runs on a 2.4 THz computer, which makes time move so fast.'
'That's why don't waste it in foolish arguments, I am on my way.' Chris zoomed leaving Parry the Pointer behind.
Chris had taken a winning lead in the race, it often looked backwards and blinked for a millisecond to check how far he had come from Parry the Pointer.
A squealing sound, like a sudden breaking of tyres on the road, screecheds suddenly. Looking at the huge box shaped structure right in front of him, Chris the Cursor jumped away and emerged on the next straight line located just below the previous straight line on the vast green meadows of VirtualSpace. Yes, the racing track was marked with straight lines like a kid's notebook.
Drawing of the racing track
Parry the Pointer followed Chris the Cursor to the next straight line. 'Watch your step, you were about to punch through Tom the TextBox'.
Parry the Pointer turned his arrow-tip shaped head towards Tom the TextBox and warned Chris the Cursor, 'Tom the TextBox has a rectangular tummy and once you bump into it, you will just keep blinking there. You will not be able to come out of its rectangular tummy without the help of our master- the User.'
Chris the Cursor had narrowly avoided the TextBox by jumping to the next straight line.
'Thanks dude, I was about to bump into Tom the TextBox. Tom is also a strange creature, first it does not move without commands of the User and then it has a large tummy where I often get stuck during work,' Chris's eyes were fixed at the mustaches of Tom the TextBox though he was talking to Parry the Pointer.
Parry continued, 'And then you have to wait for the User to help you get out of the tummy of the TextBox. I never get stuck in its tummy. I am special. I cannot create so many characters on WordPages like you but I don't ask the help of the User either. In fact, I only take the User wherever he wants.'
Chris the Cursor enhanced the lead it had in the race, 'Stop your shit and please don't talk about WordPages now, we spent most of our lives on WordPages. See I am much ahead of you, had it not been the rule that I can move only on straight lines I would have already left you far behind.'
'But that is what I am supposed to do, take the User wherever he wants to take you or the TextBox on the WordPages,' Parry the Pointer said with a smile of big pride on his face.
Tom the TextBox covered a huge area on the straight lined track. He could not keep quiet for long and joined the conversation between Chris and Parry, 'Come on Chris why are you running away from me? Like Parry, I am also your friend. We all work in the beautiful land of WordPages. We toil the whole day, sometimes even at night. We get some free time only when the User logs out, then we can come to the meadows to have fun. Come on, Chris, write some beautiful poetry on my rectangular back.'
Seeing that Chris the Cursor is busy talking with Tom the TextBox, Parry the Pointer hurriedly flew ahead by jumping sideways and crossing over two straight lines on the green meadows of VirtualSpace.
'This race is not your business Chris, go and write poetry as TextBox is asking.' Pointer tried some leg pulling on Chris the Cursor.
'This is cheating. Why did you jump over two straight lines.' Chris the Cursor complained.
'I can jump and fly so I did.'
TextBox was not interested in usual pestering between Chris the Cursor and Parry the Pointer.
'Hey guys, I am preparing for the Cursor Assembly meeting scheduled to happen anytime soon. It seems there is going to be a big announcement.'
Chris the Cursor was not ready to accept defeat so soon at the hands of Parry the Pointer. He sprinted ahead moving his feet as fast as he could. The sound of his steps grew louder. After a while, he looked back at Parry and claimed proudly, 'You can jump, you can fly but you can't produce anything. All creative works, great novels, scientific formulae were written by me. I also keep learning after all it is the aim behind our creation by the Creationists. I am confident that I can do a lot of it on my own..." he (turning to Tom the TextBox.) "we shall be there for the meeting in time, is this meeting compulsory for everyone to attend.'
'Yes, it is-,' Tom the TexBox's reply was cut short by Parry the Pointer.
'-Oh what a grand talk about your achievement .. as if you have made all that yourself. It was always some User who did it. You are just a tool. And dear Chris, the race is always going forward, dude. Looking back is only for humans to waste time analyzing the past. As set out by the Creationists we always keep learning.'
'I know that.. but don't underestimate me. If the pen is mightier than a sword then a Cursor is mightier than a nuclear bomb. A pen also writes characters like I do but the pen never learns anything. It just cannot. But we cursors continuously learn. Even when we are not busy doing the job of the User, we update ourselves. We have this vast VirtualSpace to explore and improve us.'
Clanking sound.
Chris the Cursor tumbled over after hitting something on the ground of meadows, his face had hit the ground, the feet went up. Chris tumbled again and took a full roll, 'Ah ...,' Chris moaned.
Parry the Pointer stopped immediately and turned behind to understand what happened, 'Chris are you alright, how did you-'
'-I am alright,' Chris the Cursor said shaking with pain, his eyes were bewildered, 'there was something which got stuck in my feet, I just fell on the ground.'
'You were racing ahead in full throttle that's why you went rolling over.'
'Yes, but what was that? Shouldn't we check what was this thing on otherwise unblemished vast green meadows of VirtualSpace?"
Parry the Pointer lifted up Chris the Cursor with his hands and flew back to the same spot on the straight lined track where Chris the Cursor had tumbled over.
'See.. There is a hole on the ground covered with mud. The rim of the hole was elevated with debris to hide it from outside.'
'I had never imagined that such holes could exist on our vast green meadows; it seems I can go inside this,' Chris the Cursor estimated the size of the hole by putting his head into it. His elongated bar shaped body flexibly curved allowing him to bow his head down.
'No, don't! We have only a limited amount of computing power in our account. We cannot waste time,' Parry the Pointer stopped Chris the Cursor from entering into the hole.
The User logged into the system.
In a flash Chris the Cursor and Parry the Pointer disappeared from the green meadows and went back to their designated workplaces i.e. Parry the Pointer at the center of the computer monitor and Chris the Cursor on the left corner of the first row of the straight line on the WordPages. Tom the TextBox waited for the call from the Pointer when it would take the TextBox to a designated place on the WordPages.
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