I am hovering, floating really in a substance that encapsulates me, like a womb. I can imagine myself being curled up in a fetus position sleeping comfortably and safely in a familiar place, to wake up and start my day. I slowly tried to open my eyes. A dried gooey mucus had glued my eyelids together and made it almost impossible to gain the familiar faculty of sight. After a short while, the slots that formed my eyes, cracked finally open by my retreating eyelids to allow some light to penetrate my retina. I could not recall where I was, or how I got here. I tried to remember what had happened but gave up at the dismal realization that my treacherous memory abandoned me. Filtered through my sore burning and painfully swollen eyes I observed my blurred surroundings. All I could see was a void, gray of color and tone and diffusely lit, not dark nor light, a non-space really, one where I was standing, or really where I was frozen being solidified in space. My feet fell like they were tightly anchored on an edge-less plane, which could be made from some inconspicuous sort of metal. Although they seemed to be tightly fixed, nothing was holding them in place. The space seems to extend into infinity into the furthest reaches yonder, where the horizon softly faded and blended into one grey substance. It was not clear if I was inside something observing an interior world or if this was an exterior world and I was standing on the top surface of something. I tried to speak to myself, but the only sound my voice could produce was a crackling husky rasping noise, resonating a hot and dry gasp through the dusty crumbled trachea of my respiratory system. The crevices and cracks on my lips reminded me that it must have been quite some time since I nourished myself on something liquid. I tried to move my right leg. The nerves were spiking and sparking causing a terrible agony when the pain entered my exhausted brain and penetrated my awareness. My muscles were locked in contraction, and were somehow holding me upright, but moving seemed impossible in the state I was. Fragments of images were teasing my consciousness, but everything was too abstract and incoherent to make any sense of. Time crossed my mind. How long was I here? I could not answer this question to myself. What happened, and why I could not remember anything. The haziness of my mind seamlessly flowed into the oblivious fog that my surroundings imposed on me. I became painfully aware that each part of my body was stuck in space as if I was submerged into a heavy gelatinous syrupy substance. I concentrated with all my might in an effort to move my arm, and I successfully changed the position of it by a small, really pathetic distance. The pain that this unleashed throughout my muscles and nerves was unbearable. It felt like my bones were splintering and crushing under the forces between my will and the substance that entrapped me. I attempted to put all my weight and strength into one direction, to lean over and to move forward. It surprisingly kind of worked, I slightly changed position, and even though all the parts of my body involved were catching fire and screamed in agony, it felt like everything which holds my frame together was tearing apart. But I had moved a little bit more. The heavily painful breathing caused through this humongous undertaken has caused my lungs to explode from excruciating torment and even the act of respiration took its toll on me. A panic started creeping onto my spine and the realization that my memory has been fixed similar as the mobility of my body was limited freaked me out. My freedom of movement and capacity of thought was taken away from me without any plausible reason I could think of, and moreover without a way out. I tried to calm myself down to concentrate myself on moving forward again. Not that it matters whichever direction I choose as all directions look the same to me. Again, I tried to move, this time my other leg. I manage to get into a different position and use all my energy and pain tolerance to move forward. I guessed if the angle of my body leans more forward it will be easier to use my weight as leverage to move. It worked; my body is sort of tilted now at a 45° angle. I managed to move my arm a little forward.
The pain of each motion is unbearable, but I need to get out of this deadlocked enclosure. Strange as nothing visible holds me in place. Perhaps it is not the body, which is locked in this place but my mind, but there is no way of knowing this in the situation I am in. Again, I tried to remember how I got here, but all effort on that front was completely futile. For some reason I have no access to my earlier thoughts or to recall anything from before I got here. I wondered if I was alone here, or if there are others like me struggling to escape, locked tightly in this invisible syrupy substance. I wonder if I’ve always been here, if the reality of my life is being eternally entrapped in this thick invisible substance in this empty and anonymous grey world. This thought of pure terror creeps me out, and fear and anxiety were taking over. I tried to scream, but my voice does not have the power to make any sound apart from some inconspicuous gurgling growl, which sounded scarily bestial to me. I managed with superhuman effort to make another three little steps which made me come to the horrible conclusion, that each little step changed the inclination of my ground plane into a disadvantage. The ground, although flat tilted itself in such a way that I needed to walk uphill. My little courage I gained by doing three little steps sank to the bottom of my feet and turned in despair.
Time is slicing slowly the moments away. Not that I have any sensible idea of time here as everything passes in this torturous slow-motion of which for some reason, I became part of. Frozen in time and space. No changes. The sick soft glow of grayness permeates everything and my mood rocks between an unrealistically thin believe and a fragile will to manage to get out of here, while the panic of being stuck here for eternity was successfully eating my motivation away. The worst of all, due to not remembering anything else, I am doubting who I am myself. The feeling that I know who I am is slowly drifting away, and here I am, trapped in a void, being nothing and nobody, coming from nowhere and apparently going nowhere either. Waiting… for the timeless time. For a moment of change, and for a brilliant idea, which didn’t come, that could get me out of here. Waiting for a memory to ignite. If I remember anything from before or even better from how I came here, then I might find a clue of how to leave here, if ever.
I noticed that there were no sounds here, only the occasional growl I produced myself and the arrhythmic beat of my own hearth complemented by the agonizing torturous noise of my own illogical thoughts. Further than that it was completely silent. The substance that trapped me does apparently not allow any sound to travel. I made myself angry in the hope to bundle my energy, and to use everything I had to move a little, to run preferably. The result was a pathetic small and slow advancement up the hill, which discouragingly wasn’t there before. The more I moved the steeper it got. Each small progression felt like thousands of shards of sharp glass pieces that were stabbing and cutting my muscles and body and the pain was excruciatingly intolerable. Each tiny motion made me almost lose my consciousness due to the pain, but I persevered. I didn’t know how long I already was there or how long I shall be here, but somewhere in my mind I knew that I will get out of there. Whenever that will be, I will appreciate everything and everyone. Was I here placed as atonement for something I did, that I couldn’t remember anymore? Was I a good person or a bad person before this all happened? In this grey world, ironically all thoughts seemed black and white to me. Nuances and subtleties had been fully absorbed by the neutrality of the grey and its silence. Apart from pain, there was not much other bodily feelings. No cold or warmth, no hunger either or thirst. But I felt lonely, and depressed, and fear, and anxiety, and anger, and confusion. I didn’t know what the worst was. The fact of being trapped or the incapacity of remembering anything from outside this forsaken place. Corrupting thoughts of giving up were constantly seducing my motivation to keep on going. If there was a way in, there should’ve been a way out. How long was it since I woke up here? Moments, hours, days?
Or… and the horrible thought slowly came to surface… did I wake up at all? Maybe I was in a deadly car accident and I am in a coma in a non-descriptive unknown hospital fighting for my life. Maybe I died and this is where you go to wait in eternity for another life. Delusional thoughts were elbowing to enter my mind. At least something that kept my sensory-deprived mind busy, and exactly at that moment I thought about all that and it all seemed shockingly unreal and I became instantly aware of the grey world from where there was no escape. I was thrown back in my immobilized body trapped in the desolate emptiness and locked in this gooey invisible gelatin.
One tiny step… exploding neurons in a symphony of anguish… some time to recover and repeating it all over again. How much distance had I covered? A meter, maybe five? The inclination of the ground plane was now terribly steep, and it became impossible to go any further. Earlier I tried to change direction, but the ground plane responded by adjusting itself almost instantly. The only way which I could go at that point was going back. But back to where? I tried to turn around on the spot, and somehow managed to wriggle and wreathe myself through the dense viscosity of my new despicable world. I didn’t want to lose any time and started immediately with the descend. At first the steps were easier to make, and I surprisingly covered some ground quite fast, but soon the angle of the ground started to decline and the advantage of going downhill ceased until everything was flat again. But worse, the further I tried to go the steeper the angle became again. Once more the ground had adjusted itself to me. So, there I went again, uphill in hope one more time. The ground turned steeper the further I went. By now my body was wrecked, it had uncontrollable tremors and my muscles were shivering in compulsions. The levels of pain increased to something so unbearable that I shifted somewhere in the domain between consciousness and an invitingly comatose collapse. I was exhausted and my energy was completely depleted. The slow-motion of my movements was amplified by the diffused grayness and the lack of focal points. Each attempt to move, already inconceivably heavy, became impossible to continue. My motivation and energy were at a bare minimum and am unbearable tiredness came over me as a heavy blanket. My swollen eyes were burning and itching, and I slowly closed them. I listened for a while to the silence surrounding me. The rhythm of my heartbeat started to slowdown. My breathing relaxed and in an absurd moment of peacefulness I gave up the fight. I allowed myself to fall asleep again… But just for a little. A small nap before I will continue to find an exit of this place. Gradually the pains in my body disappeared. Now, I am hovering, floating really in a substance that encapsulates me, like a womb. I can imagine myself being curled up in a fetus position sleeping comfortably and waking up at some point. A creepy déjà vu slightly presents itself into my gently fading mind. I allowed it to be there, while I let the paralyzing sleep take control over me again.
[Short written 22nd of June 2020]