“The only way of discovering the limits of the possible is to venture a little way past them into the impossible.”
– Arthur C. Clarke
I awoke
from a late morning nap, sleepy and groggy, my mind still filled
with the gossamers
of insomnia,
fogging up my vision.
I pushed back the blankets and
carefully made my way down
from my bunk, Bunk 59-A to be specific,
and walked over to the bathroom
area to conduct my business.
The sun was shining brightly
as the skies blazed
in a vibrant hue of blue;
another glorious and cloudless day,
the kind of day one imagines
as a perfect summer day.
The rays of light shine through the windows; golden blades of steely light crossing over my path as if I was some scantily dressed assistant to some eccentric magician, preparing to send me through a dangerously convoluted contraption of a trick which involves me being sawed in half; cleaved in two; sliced and diced; chopped and scalloped and shredded, yet remaining perfectly intact the entire time; the revelation of the obstacle as I make my way to the other end of the gauntlet
completely untouched unharmed,
unmoved;
the same as I was in the first place: an inmate in blue; shades
of blue; sky and midnight and navy varieties; layers of sadness;
of sorrow; of grief; of regret; of remorse; of anger; of frustration; of
dysfunction; of revenge; of hate; of loss; of degradation; of
schisms; or raptures; of discrimination; of pain; of hopelessness;
of not having enough words to describe the situation to everyone, but at least they didn’t choose red.
Although I would have had a lot of fun
with the old school striped from the past:
adding some stars to them,
turning myself into a walking representation
of the country these days;
bars and gripes.
Anyways, I was getting distracted from what I was telling you, the whole point of this tale.
I was returning to my bunk,
having completed my task
and was preparing to
climb back up and maybe
read a book to help pass the time,
when something,
let’s say, peculiar,
caught my eye;
something out of place;
something that didn’t
belong,
and I don’t just mean within the confines of a prison, but in the confines of this planet, this Galaxy even, this plane of existence.
Letting go of my bunk’s ladder, I made my way over to the impossible, the curiosity which had ensnared my attention. The strangest thing, which I was not at all prepared to understand, and yet was there in the middle of the pathway between the endless rows of bunks; in the middle of the normality of the mundane, floated a crack.
That’s right: a crack, like the kind you’d find on the sidewalk; removed and suspended in the air like a feather caught in a spider’s web. A sundering in reality, simply hanging there like a Christmas ornament, but the oddest thing about it was its three-dimensionality, and the fact that no one else seemed to notice it, or that I was even examining it, as if I had been rendered invisible through a trickery of optics just by drawing my attention to it.
It was a sliver of light that shimmered from all directions. A hole from
every side. I leaned in closer, but could only see the white radiance
from within. I leaned in even closer and it pulsed. I gasped; it
pulsed again; I held my breath; it pulsed once more. Daring
reason to stay with me, I raised my arm and did what any
science-likened mind would do, and stuck my finger in it,
batting caution to the wind. I mean, what’s the worst that could
happen? There’s already a three-dimensional crack floating before
me, yet unlike a black hole, it isn’t pulling me in, and everything
else for that matter, save for me curiosity. It was a perpetual white
hole of sorts, breaking all of the known laws of physics.
Somehow,
my entire hand had been stuck inside and,
despite its radiant,
near heavenly brilliance,
it felt cool on the other side of,
whatever it was.
It was not ominous,
or deathly cold mind you,
but rather refreshing and crisp,
like the ideal Spring morning.
It was invigorating in a way,
feeling a sort of exciting and lovely electricity
dance over the surfaces of my skin;
microscopic sparks jumping
between the fine hairs of my hand,
sending
a tingling
sensation
up my arm
and gleefully
registering in
the synapses
of my brain.
Strange doesn’t even begin to describe it.
I soon realized that my arm had been engulfed in this riven in the air, and had grown to accommodate the larger appendage which had entered it, although its general shape remained the same. Slowly, I attempted to pull my arm back out, only to find it stuck, not immobile, but more akin to being in a tar pit or a dumpster filled with grease and fat from a liposuction clinic; it was a mucus like substance, which made it harder and harder to move my arm, until its resistance overcame my own strength.
Panic crept into me slowly like a quietly rising tide on a serene beach. I tried to pull myself out once again, budging an inch or two, only to be lured back more than I had pulled out. This continues until my shoulder was against the shimmering threshold. For some reason I thought that this must be what fish feel when they see our brightly colored lures.
Deciding
to give freedom
one final shot, I pulled
with all of my remaining
strength to see if I can break
away, but it’s all futile. I can’t even
move an inch. Yet curiously, I didn’t
sink in further either. Maybe this is as far as it
goes, I tell myself with some inkling of hope, even though
my arm feels nothing but the persistent numbing sensation of
nothingness on the other side of this magnificently terrifying anomaly.
The more I think about HOW this is possible, the deeper I stumbled
down Alice’s rabbit hole.
Resigned to the fact that I couldn’t liberate myself from this thing, I opted to cry for help, but before I could even squeak a word, something grabbed a hold of my arm and tugged me with such force that I am pulled into the crack of light with relative ease and the grace of a stumbling ballerina trying desperately to catch themselves as they saunter off to the background:
Exit Stage Right.
For whatever reason, I closed my eyes as I was pulled in; it’s a natural reaction, I’m sure you can relate to. When I opened them once again, I found myself afloat; drifting; gliding through and alien sky, a spatial dimension I never dared to imagine, full of strangely colored stars and queerly constructed planets that seemed to have more in common with a round, cat’s eye marble than anything else.
Below me,
I found a sun of wonderful proportions,
making it difficult to tell how far away I
was from it. All I knew was that it took
up nearly the entirety of my view. The
most peculiar aspect of it though was its
color: purple, a deep, cool purple; the
kind of purple fit for a king, regal and royal.
My attention was completely absorbed by its sheer
weirdness, and let’s be honest here, what hasn’t been weird about this whole ordeal? that I failed to notice a different fiery, albeit smaller in cosmic terms, ball of fury speeding towards my general direction.
My
panic
returned,
only
this
time
as
a
stormfront
as
I
tried
desperately
to
find
some
purchase
to
avoid
the
oncoming
devastation;
waving
my
arms;
kicking
my
feet;
swimming
within
the
void
of
this
strange
space.
The fact that I didn’t have a space suit
on didn’t bother me at all, yet the fact
that a planet-sized orb of blue flames was
rushing to little old me, did. It most
terrifyingly did.
I flailed
and flopped,
kicked and paddled,
but nothing
seemed to work:
I was stuck in the bullseye of this cosmic dartboard, face to face with the
oncoming
onslaught
of
Oblivion;
the stampeding annihilation;
the marauding obliteration of myself,
ready to be erased from existence,
all because of my curiosity in a miniscule
crack of light
caught suspended in the air.
The blue dwarf star was now directly in front of me, taking up my
entire field of vision. I was nowhere near ready to die, but I was ready to
face it nonetheless. Closer and closer it got; I could imagine its infernal
roar; its rage; its fury, as it approached, though why I thought it was
angry I did not know. I guess we’re taught to assume if you’re inflamed,
you must be angry.
It is very close now.
Closer than one could possibly be to a star,
but then again,
here I was, floating in the vacuum of space, about to
be taken out like an astronomical bowling pin.
‘Impossible‘
was no longer a part of my
vocabulary at this point.
I closed my eyes and spread out my arms and legs, praying to whatever
God or gods
there may be here for
a quick and
painless death.
I can feel the sparks of flame kissing the surfaces of my skin. It is so
close now. And as I prepared myse—
‘COUNT TIME! COUNT TIME! THIS IS A MANDATORY SIT-UP COUNT! NO TV’S, ELECTRONICS, OR HEADPHONES, AND ABSOLUTELY NO TALKING! IT IS NOW COUNT TIME!’
I sprung up from my bed to find myself in my bunk.
A dream.
It was all a dream.
At least my bed isn’t wet.
The day has still only begun and nothing has been done. Something tells me this is going to be a really long day.
FIN
A Place for Stories 