The New World

Feeling nothing. Not a thing in the world. This is where it starts. You feel absolutely nothing, like being in a dark sensory deprivation tank. But it's like a switch has flipped, and suddenly you're back on.

A feeling like being dragged through a tunnel at hyperspeed. Your stomach is in your throat. Your heart is beating so quickly. Your brain is coming back to life, as if after sleep, but it can't possibly keep up with the sensation of being pulled so fast, it's like it's--

Your eyes open.

You're in a white space. Not a room, but just a space, like the walls are so distant that you can't see them from this far. Everything seems polished, and impossibly bright, but you can't tell where the light is coming from.

"Hello."

It's a very emphasized hell-low, coming from behind you, and then suddenly in front of you. The person who said it is a man. A young man, maybe five foot seven. Blue eyes and short blond hair that is gently moving in the wind.

What wind?

"Welcome to the New World," he says again. He's maybe three feet in front of you, staring directly at you, unblinking. When he says the words, his lips curl around them but not entirely of them, as if the words don't match his mouth. Like the words aren't coming from him.

"What?" you speak. You feel as though you haven't used your voice in so long, you half expected your speech to come out as a croak, but it's perfectly smooth.

You notice that the man is free of blemishes. Not only on his face, but his clothes as well. He is wearing a white button up shirt tucked into black denim pants.

"The New World," he says again, slightly more enunciated. His words still don't match his lips. He pivots on one leg to stand slightly to the side, his eyes still on you. He reaches an arm out away from you, gesturing to what exists beyond. You see other figures in the distance, silhouettes, as if blocked out by fog or some kind of haze. You think you can make out a woman, and maybe a man further beyond her. You think you hear the sounds of a child, but you don't see it. You think maybe the woman is holding it.

You blink. But you don't. It's like the sensation of blinking, but your vision is uninterrupted.

You ask, "What is this place?"

"Let me show you," he says. He moves forward, and you feel yourself move forward as well. It feels almost like the sensation of walking, as if putting one foot in front of the other, but you can't feel the floor against your feet. Or is it your shoes? You look down and there are no shoes at all, or perhaps no floor at all. Your legs continue down but slowly fade out. The same idea as the walls, as if they're too distant to see beyond the haze.

The walking seems like a long journey, but also like it's short. You go by many silhouettes of people that seem very familiar. You see elements that look like they could be something of yours or something you relate to. There's a bed frame at some point. The outline of a book. The silhouette of a teddy bear. Even in the distance, you think you spot the angled roof of a building, maybe a house, or a restaurant--

He brings you to a bright square. Almost like a computer, except this is flat. There's no clear indication of where the light is coming from, and it doesn't seem to be sitting on anything. It's just a space in the fog that seems clearer, with defined edges that seem to refract a little. If you look too long at the seams, it's the same sensation of looking through a lens that doesn't fit your eyes.

"Is there something you'd like to do?" The young man says flatly.

You look at him for a moment, confused. A thought comes to your mind-- dinner at your house. Sitting down for a meal. Mother has just finished in the kitchen and has called you to sit. But of course, that's not Mother, it's just what you call her in this house. She calls the children, too. They scurry to the table, a young boy and a young girl, the former the older of the two. Then you sit, next to them, at the head spot of the table, your children on one side, your wife on the other.

You can see this all in the square. You can see it because you are watching it, but you're also in it. It's so tantalizing. You can smell the roast your wife has prepared, the mashed potatoes, the gravy, even the warm butter smell coming from the bowl of heated canned beans. You can hear music in the background. It feels almost distant also. The lyrics a little fogged, but you can almost make them out. ...for you... ... even try to turn the tide...

You feel the hands of your boy and your wife as you hold them to say grace. Your children are still, their eyes closed, hands together. They seem peaceful there. Smiling slightly. Grateful for... you?

...this heart of mine...

The room in front of you, it's foggy, too. You look past the table and it's just dark. Not black, but like a mixture of browns that fade into each other, just enough dimension to make you think there's something there, but there isn't. You try to push past the fog, to focus past it, maybe to see kitchen, or the hallway past it, the hallway to the bedrooms where your children will sleep, to the master where you will spend the night next to the woman you love.

...keep my eyes wide open all the time...

But you can't see it. You find yourself instead staring at the ring on the finger of her left hand, the hand in yours, but you find that it seems to refract as well. That you can't focus on it for very long without it becoming fuzzy.

You shake your head and close your eyes, but of course your eyes don't close. You realize this table, this scene, is something that has happened before. You peel yourself out of the memory of it, and you're solely back in the space with the light square and the young man. The square displays several different blocks, each with different names and numbers.

You see a variety of blocks, with the same name on them, each one with a different number. You start to feel uneasy, unnerved. You look at the young man, whose one eye at first seems to be set on the square, the other eye on you. Then you blink, or not-blink, and both eyes are on you now. The blocks disappear from the square and it has reset to simply white again.

"Is there something you want to do?" the young man asks again, the same flat tone.

You automatically think of something else, unintentionally. It begins to appear on the square. It's some place dark. The smell is earthy, dirty, almost like iron. You can hardly see anything, but there are distant bright lights that give you an uneasy feeling. There are sounds that are not like sounds, but booms. You feel them under your feet and in your stomach. You can't see anyone else, you don't really know where you are, but you can feel the atmosphere. This feeling, like it clings in the air and soaks into everything. Fear. And not an anxiety, but a dangerous fear that coats everything, a violent and dangerous fear.

B o o m.

You peel yourself out of the scenery and back into the white space. You hardly feel in control of your body, but before you realize you've moved, you're plummeting your fist -- or what you believe to be your fist -- into the light square. It breaks but holds itself up as if nailed to the air it clings to. You feel for a moment a sense of relief, then a dread as the white around you seems to get closer and closer, the distant fog closing in, starting to change into black. The young man beside you opens his mouth for a moment, to let out a soft "I--" and then he's gone, and everything is gone.

And you're back to the nothing that you came from. Feeling nothing, like being in a dark sensory deprivation tank.

This is where it starts.