Thursday 14 April 2011

Sin... nowhere...

Everybody has to be somewhere. You can't help it. Wherever you are is always somewhere. If you're lucky, you'll find that your somewhere is Somewhere. That's if you're lucky.

Mostly, though, I wish I was Nowhere.

At night, if you haven't done anything that day to warrant being strapped down tighter than a duck's billabong, or be used as a human dartboard, complete with a double top and bullseye, you could almost feel like you were in a sensory deprivation tank. The lights are out. The padding on the cell walls mutes all sounds except your own breathing... or crying. Even your bed is cushioned to prevent you hurting yourself, either accidentally or otherwise.

'Lights out' means exactly that. The lights go out and nobody, because in here we're all nobodies, is home. The world winks out in the blink of an eye and the skip of a heartbeat. If you wave your hand in front of your face (difficult if you're sedated or strait-jacketed) you won't see it, and if the Boogeyman is standing in front of you pulling his ears and sticking out his tongue, you'll be none the wiser. You could be in a coffin or an aircraft hangar and either way would still feel claustrophobic - the darkness surrounds you, holding you still, wrapping you up. Its hand is hovering over your mouth in case you cry out, ready to suffocate the unwary. As your sight is taken away, your ears open up like flowers to the morning sun, trying to capture every ray of light or whisper of sound.

And failing.

There is nothing. Silence and darkness wander hand in hand along the meandering path of your senses.

You can almost hear, if you listen very carefully (which you can't help but do), your nerves crying out, your body attempting to fill in the blanks left behind by the absence of everything. Then the floating begins. What's left of the world falls away, even the sensation of a bed beneath you, and you're left with nothing to anchor you to this plane of existence.

Some scream. Some daren't. I will admit to both at one time or another.

Even then you can feel Connors' spectre hovering by, ensuring this Nothing is still no escape.

The nights, where even your heart is afraid to beat lest it makes a sound, are the closest one can come to Nowhere. When there's nothing left in or around, you must surely be in Limbo. You can forget, for a second or sometimes as long as a moment, that you're not.

Then the realisation that it's just dark and you're just laid or strapped to your bed and it's just a few hours until the world begins again hits you.

And you're Somewhere once again.

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