Story: The Event Horizon
Some nights you will find me in bed with my eyes wide open, completely unmoving except a faint heartbeat and shallow breathing. At times, I will have the clarity of mind to turn the lights on, and then I can nearly sleep again.
I can't fully explain what it did to me, let alone tell you what I saw. You know this about me; I never could boast a solid understanding of human psychology. It makes sense somewhere in the back of my mind, but it escapes words, any coherent rationalization. Then again, what if I could tell you? Somehow bring you to the same understanding that I have?
What if I could?
For the most part, the spectators that assembled around ground zero the next day simply left shaking their heads and wondering, "What sort of thing could have done this?" and then on to dinner, and the evening news. It would come up in conversations later, as if its existence and purpose were no more significant than any other conversation piece. "Did you hear that a man was seen crawling out from the epicentre?" They used the word "epicentre" like a dessert topping; it was the popular buzzword from the newspaper article earlier that morning.
It was good enough for them to leave the analyses and explanation to the experts. There were experts, of course. Or that is the image the media crafted, from quoting unremarkable and unimaginative men of science whose names were prefixed with "Dr."
Those men failed to ultimately realize, however, that not even a fraction of all science is yet represented in their books.
For this, almost no one could truly understand what caused it, even if they had shared my experience. Even if they had the faith to believe it. For the most part, those capable of believing are either young children or have gone insane and are near death, residing in supposedly comfortable institutions that focus, no less, on Quality Of Life and Total Customer Satisfaction. Naturally, such comparisons at first led me to question my own psychological stability.
You would think it neurologically feasible for a human brain to, provided the proper connections, convince itself of anything – including that which does not exist. In this instance, however, it would have required my mind to entirely disregard the sum total experience of my life. I believe wholeheartedly that our minds are incapable of extrapolating to such extremes of their own accord. Therefore, I cannot see mental fabrication as being a distinct possibility, even based solely on the noncorporeal effects of the phenomenon. Neither is it able to account for the physical evidence afterwards.
On the next level, I repeat to myself often that it was nothing more complicated than a peculiarity of quantum physics. This feeble attempt at trying to submit my experience to an inadequate human logic set will provide me with a few minutes of peace before the logic exhausts itself, and I collapse. I do not posses the sort of strong mentality that could simply dismiss it as either a non-event or a mere scientific curiosity - not as the experts must have done. What was only visible to the observing world in the aftermath was astounding enough in itself.
I don't know what came over me that day, but you must hold me blameless. A person's mind does not manifest new realities of its own accord. The physical world does not give way to the whims and fancies of a minimal bioelectric current dancing from neuron to axon. Yet I did for those first few seconds, from the very core of myself, feel that I would just then cause such a thing to happen. I did admit to this. And I tore open a hole in the world.
+++
In the worst of my fever nightmares, the whole of existence came unraveled. The stars powered down and became cold. Space and time evolved backwards into lines and circles and mathematical equations while the very fabric of the omniverse was peeled from its framework like skin from a dying animal. The laws of physics expired while spatial perspectives expanded and contracted explosively to infinite and nauseating extremes. I became noncorporeal; nothing more than a reference point in the stormy sea of collapsing dimensions. And within the anguished throes of the dying omniverse was the giant clock that counted down the last remaining hours and minutes: twelve and twenty-four.
I have dreamt of the end of civilization: of the Apocalypse that destroyed all but a few pockets of human life. I have dreamt of the end of the worlds of men, after the battles of Armageddon and Ragnarok. I have dreamt of a galaxy void of life. But for a few moments, I was witness to the masterwork of finality: the end of all worlds.
That horrible, heart-crushing finality.
It was less of an imaginary transaction than I'd thought, that dream. Far too real and sinister was the truth that it only hinted at. It came back to me then as I was enveloped in the expanding spherical event horizon of space-skin. This was my last coherent thought as the crackling energy waves of unfolding dimensions surged throughout me, and my body shook, paralyzed, a slave to the deafening atomic roar:
I am ice cold
I am frostbitten
and the universe is burning away
You will remember that the evidence of an unprecedented phenomenon was irrefutable. That clearing in the woods near town: stretched, twisted and warped into a quivering pile of metamorphic rock and black carbon vein. The rivulets of steaming inky slime that had once been trees. No one could argue with that. And no one could argue that I emerged from those depths minutes later; that I was seen stumbling out of that clearing as the first crowds began to gather.
Who could forget my screams?
[‡]
I can't fully explain what it did to me, let alone tell you what I saw. You know this about me; I never could boast a solid understanding of human psychology. It makes sense somewhere in the back of my mind, but it escapes words, any coherent rationalization. Then again, what if I could tell you? Somehow bring you to the same understanding that I have?
What if I could?
For the most part, the spectators that assembled around ground zero the next day simply left shaking their heads and wondering, "What sort of thing could have done this?" and then on to dinner, and the evening news. It would come up in conversations later, as if its existence and purpose were no more significant than any other conversation piece. "Did you hear that a man was seen crawling out from the epicentre?" They used the word "epicentre" like a dessert topping; it was the popular buzzword from the newspaper article earlier that morning.
It was good enough for them to leave the analyses and explanation to the experts. There were experts, of course. Or that is the image the media crafted, from quoting unremarkable and unimaginative men of science whose names were prefixed with "Dr."
Those men failed to ultimately realize, however, that not even a fraction of all science is yet represented in their books.
For this, almost no one could truly understand what caused it, even if they had shared my experience. Even if they had the faith to believe it. For the most part, those capable of believing are either young children or have gone insane and are near death, residing in supposedly comfortable institutions that focus, no less, on Quality Of Life and Total Customer Satisfaction. Naturally, such comparisons at first led me to question my own psychological stability.
You would think it neurologically feasible for a human brain to, provided the proper connections, convince itself of anything – including that which does not exist. In this instance, however, it would have required my mind to entirely disregard the sum total experience of my life. I believe wholeheartedly that our minds are incapable of extrapolating to such extremes of their own accord. Therefore, I cannot see mental fabrication as being a distinct possibility, even based solely on the noncorporeal effects of the phenomenon. Neither is it able to account for the physical evidence afterwards.
On the next level, I repeat to myself often that it was nothing more complicated than a peculiarity of quantum physics. This feeble attempt at trying to submit my experience to an inadequate human logic set will provide me with a few minutes of peace before the logic exhausts itself, and I collapse. I do not posses the sort of strong mentality that could simply dismiss it as either a non-event or a mere scientific curiosity - not as the experts must have done. What was only visible to the observing world in the aftermath was astounding enough in itself.
I don't know what came over me that day, but you must hold me blameless. A person's mind does not manifest new realities of its own accord. The physical world does not give way to the whims and fancies of a minimal bioelectric current dancing from neuron to axon. Yet I did for those first few seconds, from the very core of myself, feel that I would just then cause such a thing to happen. I did admit to this. And I tore open a hole in the world.
+++
In the worst of my fever nightmares, the whole of existence came unraveled. The stars powered down and became cold. Space and time evolved backwards into lines and circles and mathematical equations while the very fabric of the omniverse was peeled from its framework like skin from a dying animal. The laws of physics expired while spatial perspectives expanded and contracted explosively to infinite and nauseating extremes. I became noncorporeal; nothing more than a reference point in the stormy sea of collapsing dimensions. And within the anguished throes of the dying omniverse was the giant clock that counted down the last remaining hours and minutes: twelve and twenty-four.
I have dreamt of the end of civilization: of the Apocalypse that destroyed all but a few pockets of human life. I have dreamt of the end of the worlds of men, after the battles of Armageddon and Ragnarok. I have dreamt of a galaxy void of life. But for a few moments, I was witness to the masterwork of finality: the end of all worlds.
That horrible, heart-crushing finality.
It was less of an imaginary transaction than I'd thought, that dream. Far too real and sinister was the truth that it only hinted at. It came back to me then as I was enveloped in the expanding spherical event horizon of space-skin. This was my last coherent thought as the crackling energy waves of unfolding dimensions surged throughout me, and my body shook, paralyzed, a slave to the deafening atomic roar:
I am ice cold
I am frostbitten
and the universe is burning away
You will remember that the evidence of an unprecedented phenomenon was irrefutable. That clearing in the woods near town: stretched, twisted and warped into a quivering pile of metamorphic rock and black carbon vein. The rivulets of steaming inky slime that had once been trees. No one could argue with that. And no one could argue that I emerged from those depths minutes later; that I was seen stumbling out of that clearing as the first crowds began to gather.
Who could forget my screams?
[‡]
posted by ~Allie~ @ 8:06 PM
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