Ship’s log 2016/05/11
Entry number T-5.

It has been almost two weeks since the last TAKE FIVE session. I swear to God, sometimes those meetings are the only thing that keep me going. When we were asked by the International Multiverse Committee to investigate the gateway and the possible universes we can explore, I didn’t know what I would sign up for. Well, I’ve sure got a handful now. But we have to keep on going. For science.

As I’ve mentioned, it isn’t easy, examining these universes. We never know what twisted world we will set foot on. I mean some universes aren’t so bad: we’ve been to the future, we even met a whole new alien species! But there were some universes that bore an eerie resemblance to ours. I still get chills from the communist society we stumbled upon. Or the one where you are the only person in the whole universe… my blood curdles when I think about it.

The crew is more than satisfactory. It’s a great team, and we complement each other with our individual skill sets. It’s amazing how well-oiled sometimes work goes. Of course, it’s not all easy. But we do try. The experiments are on schedule, and many of our findings may alter the way we think about life and English clubs. The IMC knew what they were doing when they asked us for the job – I can only hope that we’ll continue in the same vein and deliver on the promises that are expected of us.

As the ship’s Speech and Lame Puns Officer it is my duty to check for and analyse all forms of linguistic communication we find in these universes, and try to make a badly formed joke on words out of them. It’s not always easy, but as long as there are inhabitants, we’ll manage. It would be hard to crack a joke about a universe with no-one in it. Although if we called it a blank-verse we might get the literature majors to move there, as long as they don’t notice the hyphen. Well, one can always hope.

The mission was off to a good start, but our work is far from over. We had to send out Era on a special sole expedition. The girl’s got guts, I gotta give her that. I know she can handle herself, but still I worry. Until she returns it’s just Zsombor and I, so we’ve got our work cut out for us. I’ll be interested to see though what she comes back with. I hope it’s not the place where people wear 90s clothes, have 80s hair and talk like in the 50s. Science has so far failed to explain any of those things. They’re just… not natural. All that denim and windbreakers, those curls and waves, and those sounds… I mean if there were a universe where the eyes could vomit and the ears could weep that would be it. I desperately hope for Era’s safe return – this expedition would be lost without her.

Speaking of which, which universe do you think we should go to next?