Congratulations You Have Just Won a Trip!

When you wake up you’ll be in a sterile waiting room, surrounded by hospital furniture.  Your mouth will taste of metal, but when you touch your finger to your tongue it’ll come away without blood.  A vague ache will occupy your skull, keep you from thinking, from even trying to recognize your surroundings.  Your legs will wobble underneath you when you rise to your feet.  The florescent light buzz will be fast pushing you towards madness.

The room will be empty, spare you and a man in a suit standing in front of a computer in the midst of a semi-circular desk built into a wall in the midst of the room.  He’ll smile at you as you rise and nod.

“Welcome!” he’ll cheer, beckoning you to approach him.  “We didn’t expect to see you here so soon.”

You’ll cradle your skull in one palm and lick the inside of your mouth.  The copper taste inside it will be fading, growing indistinct.  “Where am I?” you’ll ask.  The man behind the desk will smile.

“That’s not too important,” he’ll murmur, drumming his fingers on the table, eyes flashing between monitor and face.  After a few moments his hands will dance up, his fingers will snap, his palm will slam down on the table.  “What IS important is that you’ve been selected for our Express Transport Package!”  His smile will grow demure.  “It’s quite exclusive.”

You’ll scratch your head and, curiosity of curiosities, your palm will come away with a smear of blood.  You’ll stare at it for a moment in disbelief, then bring your palm beneath your nose for a quick sniff.  There will be no odor of blood, no wound-stink.  When you let your hand rest again and look at it anew, the stain will be gone.

You won’t have time to ponder what’s going on.  The man behind the desk will shove a ticket into your hand and politely direct you to exit out of a door that you won’t be sure was there before.  You’ll walk slowly through the waiting room, but the space itself will race around you.  Before you know what’s happening you’ll be at the door, wondering why there aren’t any windows that show the outside.

A single step will carry you through the swinging double doors, out into a landscape you know only from nightmares and fever dreams.  Ground sloping at odd angles, black water running along the ground in the wrong direction, an odor, indescribable, indecipherable and intensely familiar all at the same time.  Barren won’t be the word: it will be teeming with life, life skittering at the edge of your vision, life just out of sight but infinitely present all the same.  Hostile, then, ominous might be more appropriate.

The only object you’ll find yourself able to focus on will be a man, standing alone next to a river that is somehow flowing in two directions at once.  The man by the river will look considerably less friendly than the man you saw indoors, but he’ll look comforting in a way you can’t quite put your finger on.  He won’t beckon to you or speak a single word.  He’ll just stand there looking impassively at you, into your eyes despite a commanding distance.

You’ll begin walking towards him.

The landscape will race again, swirling around you.  Life will crawl at the edges of your vision, shadows will stretch and reform into new definitions of insubstantiality.  When you realize you’re standing in front of the man by the river you’ll feel as if you’ve been standing there a long while.  He’ll extend his hand to you and you’ll take it without thinking.

At that moment, the world will explode.  You’ll remember the car chase, the flip, the sickening crunch, the sensation of hanging upside down, straps digging into your shoulders, the wrongness of the whole affair.  You’ll remember fumbling with your pocket knife, cutting the seatbelts off, kicking your way out of your open window, bag still in your hands.  The image of a man, a man you know, a man you used to be friends with standing above you holding a handgun, a big one.  You’ll recall the report of a gun, the partial report of a gun at least, the beginning of a burning, pressure-ey, nothing-ey sensation outside of your head and then the memory of a nothing so infinite that this man’s hand will become a welcome constant, unnerving as the situation may be.  As long as you hold his hand, you know you’ll be safe.

You’ll pump his hand twice in a friendly gesture and his lips will split and he’ll guide you gently on to a boat that you didn’t notice before, a boat that was always there.  As you step down on to the boat you’ll feel suddenly as if you’ve arrived somewhere, even though you know your journey is just beginning.

Congratulations You Have Just Won a Trip!