A. Northman
05-15-2012, 08:13 PM
As hyperventilation began, I already knew that I was inside a very narrow space, for in my case hyperventilation was always connected with claustrophobia. When I had noticed that I was locked inside a glass booth of some kind, I first looked to the left, then to the right. On my left I saw thousands – no, much more – of the same kind of glass booths. Inside each of them, there was a human being. The row of the booths seemed to continue endlessly. The enormous space was dimly lit, but somewhere – maybe miles away, the shapes of the booths dissolved into blackness. From behind that blackness I thought I saw a ray of light smaller than the head of a pin.
On my right I saw a row of glass booths, likewise continuing infinitely, then dissolving into blackness. But these booths were empty. In the blackness on my right I could see no light, and the space actually seemed to continue forever.
When I paid more attention to the wall before me – which was actually not a wall at all, but a colourless canvas, a curtain of some kind, fading into blackness miles away on both sides – I noticed some movement. Indeed, there was something behind that curtain. Long, formless appendages were moving to and fro, as if trees in a weak wind. In fact, they almost could have been trees. But as I followed that shadow-play, I noticed that the shapes of those appendages were changing, transforming from extraordinary trees to deformed fingers, then to trees again, and then to some utterly obscure forms.
My situation was undeniably hopeless. The door of my glass prison was locked from the outside, and apparently I was bound somehow – though when looking down, I did not see strappings of any kind – for I could not move enough to be able to break the glassy walls of the booth. The realization that I was locked inside a tiny booth in such an enormous space increased my already distressing anxiety.
I decided that I could do nothing but wait. And I waited for hours.
Nobody came. I did not expect to be freed. I just wanted to know what that place was – that space continuing very far on the left and endlessly on the right. I wanted to know why there were people – who were, as I had noticed, motionless, perhaps dead bodies – locked inside the booths on my left, and why the booths on my right were empty.
My last rationalizations were useless, nevertheless convincing. The place had to be so utterly huge that it could in no way avoid wide attention. Secondly, there were so many people locked up there that such a group could not disappear just like that. From this I could conclude that I had transcended into some other, strange world.
Days passed, and physical impossibilities drew my attention to themselves. I had not closed my eyes for a second, although in that kind of a place – locked inside a narrow glass booth, unable to move, in an endless dark space where there was not much to observe, except the absurd show of formless shadows – nobody should have problems with falling asleep. I was not thirsty, and my body did not long for nutrition. I felt no need to urinate or defecate. At the latest my own body's transition from the requirements of reality proved me that the place was impossible.
Weeks passed, and nobody came.
At some point, time – that hostile magician casting its curse on all living things – disappeared. Space had already disappeared a long time ago, time that now itself disappeared, too. The endless shadow-play had also disappeared. Only from me, of course; I was sure that the dull show of those metamorphosing shadows was still occuring on the other side of the colourless curtain, on a stage of time and space.
But for me, there were no such things anymore. It would be pointless to talk about thousands or millions of years. In the disappeared time and disappeared space there are no units.
There I was, I had to accept the fact. Living in a nightmare that can occasionally appear as delusively diverse things. On the other side, of course.
On my right I saw a row of glass booths, likewise continuing infinitely, then dissolving into blackness. But these booths were empty. In the blackness on my right I could see no light, and the space actually seemed to continue forever.
When I paid more attention to the wall before me – which was actually not a wall at all, but a colourless canvas, a curtain of some kind, fading into blackness miles away on both sides – I noticed some movement. Indeed, there was something behind that curtain. Long, formless appendages were moving to and fro, as if trees in a weak wind. In fact, they almost could have been trees. But as I followed that shadow-play, I noticed that the shapes of those appendages were changing, transforming from extraordinary trees to deformed fingers, then to trees again, and then to some utterly obscure forms.
My situation was undeniably hopeless. The door of my glass prison was locked from the outside, and apparently I was bound somehow – though when looking down, I did not see strappings of any kind – for I could not move enough to be able to break the glassy walls of the booth. The realization that I was locked inside a tiny booth in such an enormous space increased my already distressing anxiety.
I decided that I could do nothing but wait. And I waited for hours.
Nobody came. I did not expect to be freed. I just wanted to know what that place was – that space continuing very far on the left and endlessly on the right. I wanted to know why there were people – who were, as I had noticed, motionless, perhaps dead bodies – locked inside the booths on my left, and why the booths on my right were empty.
My last rationalizations were useless, nevertheless convincing. The place had to be so utterly huge that it could in no way avoid wide attention. Secondly, there were so many people locked up there that such a group could not disappear just like that. From this I could conclude that I had transcended into some other, strange world.
Days passed, and physical impossibilities drew my attention to themselves. I had not closed my eyes for a second, although in that kind of a place – locked inside a narrow glass booth, unable to move, in an endless dark space where there was not much to observe, except the absurd show of formless shadows – nobody should have problems with falling asleep. I was not thirsty, and my body did not long for nutrition. I felt no need to urinate or defecate. At the latest my own body's transition from the requirements of reality proved me that the place was impossible.
Weeks passed, and nobody came.
At some point, time – that hostile magician casting its curse on all living things – disappeared. Space had already disappeared a long time ago, time that now itself disappeared, too. The endless shadow-play had also disappeared. Only from me, of course; I was sure that the dull show of those metamorphosing shadows was still occuring on the other side of the colourless curtain, on a stage of time and space.
But for me, there were no such things anymore. It would be pointless to talk about thousands or millions of years. In the disappeared time and disappeared space there are no units.
There I was, I had to accept the fact. Living in a nightmare that can occasionally appear as delusively diverse things. On the other side, of course.