And then I wake up. I have no memory of what I was doing, but I’m sure I hadn’t fallen asleep last night. That memory is important, something that deserves to be remembered. It’s gone now, no way to retrieve it. How odd. I spend a moment more pondering this before it dawns on me, I must work today. The thought pounds my head like a wave breaking on the rough rock of an ocean cliff. Always arriving at its’ set time with no delay or rest.
Another day at my sparse, bleak accounting desk clicking away at my gray four-function calculator. A day filled with inexplicable boredom as I file yet another report or calculate yet another sum. A day without interaction even though I am surrounded by countless others that are also slaves to the unforgiving supervisor. All of this only to return home to eat a flavorless meal at a table for two and stare at the black and white screen of entertainment for an hour or more. Then I’ll climb into bed alone and wait for the next day to emerge from the depths of tomorrow.
Time to prepare myself for my daily torture. Rolling out of bed I check the time of my alarm. It is precisely seven o’clock AM, just like it is everyday. I pull on my black dress pants and matching suit and tie, a white dress shirt beneath, the standard office attire. I exit my sparse bedroom and pass through the hallway towards the kitchen. The black framed pictures on the colorless walls remind me of what I am missing. I push this thought deep into my subconscious and continue with my routine. Next I grab a generic breakfast bar from the otherwise empty cabinet and begin to eat it as I stride out of my apartment. Locking the door of apartment seventeen behind me, I walk down the stairs and exit through the empty, echoing front lobby. The sky is overcast and it begins to snow. Walking towards the parking garage, I catch my reflection in a strip of black ice as I shuffle through the cold morning air. The snow is just enough to fleck my coal black hair with streaks of the flurry whiteness.
Turning, I head towards the looming gray parking garage entrance checking my plain black Casio wristwatch as I go. I am precisely on schedule. Stepping into the elevator, I press the white button for the top floor and watch as the black double doors slide shut. I ascend in the elevator, 1-2-3-4 all the way to the top, my stop. I hurry towards my black Sedan and start it up. The radio turns on, how peculiar, I haven’t turned it on in ages. I go to turn it off but nothing happens. All I hear is the cacophonous buzz of static. I decide to just let it be and continue on with my routine. After backing out of my space I begin to descend. A nagging premonition takes hold of me then. What is it? Each floor I descend it grows. Down I go, the feeling only becoming clearer until all at once it is laid bare before me. With that the car accelerates at a furious pace; together we wound around and around and around as each screech of the static accents the continuous revolution of the wheels. Like a clock ticking down knowing it must end somewhere. But no, it cycles all over again at the start of the new day.
Down one floor then two more, the car never slowing, the radio never silencing. It rapidly circles the downward corkscrew spiral of the towering, buzzing cement infrastructure. It repeats the continuous motions over and over, none discernible from the next except for the pounding in your ears and the sick heavy feeling of falling down forever through time. I slam on the brakes and pull out the key but on and on it careens, paying no mind. It speeds up faster still till all that becomes of the parking garage is a swirl of the white snow on the backdrop of the gray sky filled with the sound of a hundred icicles shattering.
The descent continues. Shouldn’t the bottom already have been met? No, time goes on as even the car fades away into the black and white. The air fills with silence. Now it’s just me, falling down through time with no difference to be seen than the black on white endlessly cycling past. Round and round it goes, black then white with a blur of gray between. This lasts for some time until I too become one with the endless spiral. Swirling endlessly around for eternity. Until it begins to slow. At first it is gradual, almost imperceptible. But it does slow, and as the speed drops, the black and gray slowly bleaches into the white. They fade leaving the purest white imaginable as I come to a stop. The white engulfs me and I too become absorbed into the great expanse.
As I go I recount my journey. Nothing stands out. All it was was a swirling of the sky from black to white and back again until the time came for it to end. As I accept this fact, I disassociate into minuscule particles that are slowly absorbed by the light.
And then I wake up...
Another day at my sparse, bleak accounting desk clicking away at my gray four-function calculator. A day filled with inexplicable boredom as I file yet another report or calculate yet another sum. A day without interaction even though I am surrounded by countless others that are also slaves to the unforgiving supervisor. All of this only to return home to eat a flavorless meal at a table for two and stare at the black and white screen of entertainment for an hour or more. Then I’ll climb into bed alone and wait for the next day to emerge from the depths of tomorrow.
Time to prepare myself for my daily torture. Rolling out of bed I check the time of my alarm. It is precisely seven o’clock AM, just like it is everyday. I pull on my black dress pants and matching suit and tie, a white dress shirt beneath, the standard office attire. I exit my sparse bedroom and pass through the hallway towards the kitchen. The black framed pictures on the colorless walls remind me of what I am missing. I push this thought deep into my subconscious and continue with my routine. Next I grab a generic breakfast bar from the otherwise empty cabinet and begin to eat it as I stride out of my apartment. Locking the door of apartment seventeen behind me, I walk down the stairs and exit through the empty, echoing front lobby. The sky is overcast and it begins to snow. Walking towards the parking garage, I catch my reflection in a strip of black ice as I shuffle through the cold morning air. The snow is just enough to fleck my coal black hair with streaks of the flurry whiteness.
Turning, I head towards the looming gray parking garage entrance checking my plain black Casio wristwatch as I go. I am precisely on schedule. Stepping into the elevator, I press the white button for the top floor and watch as the black double doors slide shut. I ascend in the elevator, 1-2-3-4 all the way to the top, my stop. I hurry towards my black Sedan and start it up. The radio turns on, how peculiar, I haven’t turned it on in ages. I go to turn it off but nothing happens. All I hear is the cacophonous buzz of static. I decide to just let it be and continue on with my routine. After backing out of my space I begin to descend. A nagging premonition takes hold of me then. What is it? Each floor I descend it grows. Down I go, the feeling only becoming clearer until all at once it is laid bare before me. With that the car accelerates at a furious pace; together we wound around and around and around as each screech of the static accents the continuous revolution of the wheels. Like a clock ticking down knowing it must end somewhere. But no, it cycles all over again at the start of the new day.
Down one floor then two more, the car never slowing, the radio never silencing. It rapidly circles the downward corkscrew spiral of the towering, buzzing cement infrastructure. It repeats the continuous motions over and over, none discernible from the next except for the pounding in your ears and the sick heavy feeling of falling down forever through time. I slam on the brakes and pull out the key but on and on it careens, paying no mind. It speeds up faster still till all that becomes of the parking garage is a swirl of the white snow on the backdrop of the gray sky filled with the sound of a hundred icicles shattering.
The descent continues. Shouldn’t the bottom already have been met? No, time goes on as even the car fades away into the black and white. The air fills with silence. Now it’s just me, falling down through time with no difference to be seen than the black on white endlessly cycling past. Round and round it goes, black then white with a blur of gray between. This lasts for some time until I too become one with the endless spiral. Swirling endlessly around for eternity. Until it begins to slow. At first it is gradual, almost imperceptible. But it does slow, and as the speed drops, the black and gray slowly bleaches into the white. They fade leaving the purest white imaginable as I come to a stop. The white engulfs me and I too become absorbed into the great expanse.
As I go I recount my journey. Nothing stands out. All it was was a swirling of the sky from black to white and back again until the time came for it to end. As I accept this fact, I disassociate into minuscule particles that are slowly absorbed by the light.
And then I wake up...