Sunday, June 24, 2012

The Long Way Home From Here

I've been here for so long. I'm pretty sure it's been longer than a minute, but not quite a week. Not yet. I tried to count the number of doors, but I kept losing my place, and I didn't know if I should only count the doors on my right, or on my left, or both. At one point I tried to leave fingernail marks, but after a while I started bleeding. So then I started marking the doors with my blood. I tried to write on them, but that eventually added up to a lot of blood. My thumb hasn't been infected yet. But my beard hasn't grown. If I've spent days here, then why hasn't my body changed? Why haven't I gone thirsty or hungry? Why haven't I slept? Time has no meaning now.
Everything is so recurring. The dull green walls that seem almost grey. The lifeless white paint that still covers the doors. The lamps in between the doors that don't really light up the hallway... they bother me the most. It feels like you could turn them off, and the lighting wouldn't change. It would still be dull and dead. I feel like I'm running around inside the mind of a brain-dead man. But there aren't any rooms. I open a door, and only find myself in another hallway. But this is impossible. The configuration of the hallways aren't always the same. There was one hallway I was in, that was just a square. Twenty and a half paces on each side. I tried a door on my left, on the inside of the square. When I walked through, I stood in a long hallway. But I mean long. I could barely see the end where they turned into sharp corners. More than twenty and a half paces.
I wish this was a dream. But I can feel the disturbing solidness of the floor underneath me, the cold touch of the doorknobs... and that terrible, ultimate, sanity-rendering moment of clarity of thought. That's how I knew I was awake. Not dreaming. When I could clear my confusion away, when I could just focus and think straight, I knew I was in reality. But here I am, regaining my focus, staring at things I learned to be impossible,
all things are possible in an infinite timeline
wondering how I could still be sure everything was real.
But I was sure. This was all true. The crushing reality of the place kept pressing itself against my skull. Trying to burst out from the inside. The pulsating pounding headache. The constant fatigue. The endless, unchanging repetition. Door. Hallway. Walk. Door. Door. Walk. Walk. Hallway. Door. Hallway. Walk. Door. Hallway. Walk.
Door. Hallway. Walk. Eventually, I will either die, or find a way out of here. But I haven't found any trace of anything I've left. So I could be walking around in circles, with every trace disappearing when I leave the hallway. Or these hallways go on forever. They don't end. And nothing changes.
I walked through another door, and saw some sort of twisted and knotted tree stump. The dry, desiccated body of my wife was crucified on the tree. My heart was trying to vomit itself out, but stayed stuck in my throat.
As I tried to walk past it, a cold bony hand grabbed my arm firmly. I turned my head back to see her eyeless skull staring at me. I fell to my knees and cried.