To the lake

This is a thought experiment. All that you are about to witness is purely imaginary, forms part of my imagination and produced predominantly by my subconscious, no matter what I might say otherwise past this point.

I say this whenever I space out too much. Not daydreaming, nothing mundane or trivial. This is not a form of entertainment or escapism, quite the contrary, ‘tis is mental labour in its finest. When I say space out, I mean it, a kid imagining how he saves an entire school from a terrorist attack or continues a cool fight scene he thought of while listening to a metal song is exactly that level of “superficial” that I’m talking about. One of the only similarities is the fact that it also happens quite spontaneously, and there isn’t really a way to initially differentiate between this and simple dreaming. The feels are certainly different, but knowing what is when comes only with experience, like having lived through several strokes, if the next one would be coming, you’d most likely be able to tell. I’m starting to like this beating around the bush so I’ll continue. When I say space out, I can cause confusion, and I usually do when I, in a state of absolute mania, describe this out loud. As said already, this and dreaming are different, usually by spacing out someone could mean losing control of or concentration in a situation due to over fixation on some particular thought or chain of thoughts. In my case, I’m fully conscious, too conscious even, none of that stupid goat-freezing-out-of-fear paralysis. The best way I once described it to my wife’s friend was that the headspace I am in when I’m spaced out is the one of a person solving a Rubik’s cube while having sex with three Brazilian prostitutes and having a shootout with their pimp and the cops all simultaneously. Yes, too conscious is probably the best way to put it.

Shit, to give an example, why not right now? I am driving a car, the speed is a moderate 90 km/h, with a single, gorgeous passenger on my right, to a location I’ve never been to in my whole life. My wife’s feet aren’t the best thing about her, by far not, but they sure do distract me quite well, which is why about fifteen minutes ago I asked her to take them off of the glove compartment as I had felt the spacing out creeping in. We’ve planned this trip, or rather said a holiday for quite some time now and it just happened so that it was her time to pick what we were to do. You see this time is very special. No, I am not driving to kill and/or burry her. No, she isn’t actually dead, and I am just hallucinating her. You see, me and Helen are quite young, in our mid-twenties, and we were planning a child, eventually, not now. Few months ago, she came up to me, however and started talking about how it all feels empty and pointless, how she needs a new milestone, a new “thing” to worry about and wake up to every day. This wasn’t spontaneous as she was feeling down for quite some time, so I took her words seriously. She proposed we speed up the child thing. I said I don’t mind. So, where I’m getting to is that this is the last pre-child trip we are having, so as I said, it is quite special.

The point is, and by extent the main distinction between jumbled fantasies and spacing out is the concreteness of theme. I always eventually understand what I am spacing out about, not today though.

- Honey, pull over, I need to pee

- Mhm

Last time it happened I was engulfed in the idea of the Olympus Mons for almost a week. It’s a Volcanic Shield, a mountain really, on Mars. One of the largest in the Solar System, with a diameter of six hundred kilometres and a height of almost twenty one. Whatever I’d do and wherever I’d go, the still frame of a 3D render would be at the back of my mind, constantly. It wasn’t just the monumentality of it that got to me, or the fact that it is on another planet, rather it’s the beauty, the strange aesthetic appeal which set its roots deep within my cranium. An appeal not deriving from anything or splitting into various aspects, but the whole of it, undivided, as if any single parameter would change the damn planetary pimple wouldn’t even pass by my head, let alone nest in it.

The road is not particularly interesting, just a seaside view, which is nice don’t get me wrong, it is just when that’s the only thing that you are seeing for several hours on end it blurs out and simply becomes the background at a certain point. In this exact moment I finally find a place to stop. I quickly switch lanes and drive onto a little pocket of the road with a picknick area and some trees and bushes. I take the key out of ignition and we both step out of the car. It was warm outside, and as it was spring, the aroma of the air of vital, vibrant. The smell of bloom has to be one of the best aspects of spring as a season, as long as you aren’t allergic, in which case I feel the same level of pity for your weakness as I do for those with lactose intolerance, quite sad state of being if you ask me. This part of the road was not really a cliff, but an elevation for sure, with a somewhat steep inclination after the edge which touches the aforementioned sea. Helen takes her moment while I simply leaned on the car and looked at the view. I suppose it wasn’t so much the view itself that got boring but the rhythm, as after I stepped out of the damn car I have to admit, it is quite pretty.

Nonetheless the issue still stands. I am in the state of which I told you already, but still have not the tiniest clue of why it came up. The length of it from the example I gave before, the Olympus Mons, isn’t a common occurrence. Usually it takes up a day, half a day the least, but now? I have no idea how long this limbo might take. I am on completely unfamiliar ground, which both frightens and excites me. Helen finished her business and walked back to the car. Passing by me she said:

- Should we?

- Yeah

We got in, I started the car, and we drove off.

The next hour and a half was as uneventful as it gets, I even largely stopped thinking, as there was nothing to think about. Rest assured though, the overall sensation remained and so the tension that came with it. I just drove the car, gripping the steering wheel and nodding to whatever Helen was saying. By the passing of this time an idea hit me. When I was little someone told me of a method to combat quite a trivial thing of forgetting that which you were just about to say, radically changing the topic. So, radically or not, the best that came to my head was to carry on thinking of the place where we were heading. Helen, in her boundless love for nature, yes I know very special of her, found a lake with a hotel of sorts right beside it. Supposedly a must-see place in our general area. I did not object, at the end of the day I really couldn’t as the rule of taking turns in things to do is sacred. We are only staying there for some time, few days maybe? I don’t remember, but it doesn’t matter. As long as the text doesn’t end of a meteorite hitting the damn place or Heli contracting a deadly virus, I do not care, this is our last trip and I will make it count. There was also kayaking available at that lake so even if I do get bored of the simply describing the scenery I’ll be able to stretch a little.

As we were approaching the destination, the tension only increased, slowly but surely mounting into anxiety. I still have no fucking clue what I am supposed to be thinking. With that being said though, the drive itself was quite nice, a rare occurrence to be entirely honest. No wrecks, no farmers needing to move their herd of cows to a different field, no traffic in general really, and the weather is nice. Rare.

The hotel is nothing to brag about, outside at least for sure. Bland, 8 stories tall, beige-coloured walls with simple windows dotted all over it. The there are some stairs at the entrance, and they are made of tiles, white ones. On the outside, everything that isn’t a beige stone or concrete, didn’t pay much attention to which is it, is coloured dark brown. It’s a lake-side hotel, I did not expect Four Seasons. Although I would be leagues more excited for something more rustic, a cottage for example. Helen went inside to talk to the receptionist about our room, while I was unloading the car and bringing in the luggage. Once I did, Heli was still talking with the man over the counter, so I went outside again, for a smoke. The entrance was somewhat unappealing, even for a smoke, as all there was were the road and the parking slightly to the side of said entrance. So lit up a cigarette and went around the building, finding a side entrance to the outdoor area of the hotel, where I walked past the bar and onto a lounge area overlooking the lake. I lean over the railing and observe. It is just now that I realised that the predominant colour of my surroundings is yellow. The ground through which we were driving and the one on which the hotel stands, the hills circling the lake and as the sun was starting to set, so was the sky turning an orange-ish, colour, I’d count that. The lake itself was large, seemingly long too, as the middle part in between the hills stretched a bit further, meaning that the kayaking now has more merit to it as it will not be two kids in a puddle, but more so a journey. I finish smoking and in a moment almost forget that I have a woman waiting for me inside. As I almost bolt back inside I see Helen walking towards me, with a light smile and hands in her pockets.

- The rooms are ready – she says while approaching

- That’s great, should we move?

- Nah, I want to see where we came

She then also leans over the railing by my right, visibly relaxing her shoulders

- Are you thinking again?

- Was it very noticeable?

- Quite, yes – She chuckles and turns her head to look at me

- This time is different

- How come?

I mentally pace back and forth a bit, as I try to think over how to explain it

- Just nothing is coming to mind, just the pressure and the rest of the side effects, but how can I say this – I make a small pause, while turning to face the hotel with my back now leaning – there isn’t a theme?

- Strange indeed. Maybe you are just anxious?

- Could be, very well could be

We then both stand there in silence, as a decent gust of wind blows, making me grasp for air for a whole second and Helen to hold her job-provided branded cap. As the wind went away and the air yet again calmed down, the silence persisted. This isn’t something negative, she likes quite moments and I, just like now, often have nothing to say. After some more seconds, or maybe even a whole minute Heli uncharacteristically breaks the silence.

- Do you think I exist?

- Huh? – I turn my head to her

- Well, outside of all this, do you think I will meet you and you will meet me?

I think for a bit

- Well, considering the population of the entire planet, if there won’t be a world-ending cataclysm in near future, I’d say the odds are quite high, yes

We both chuckle and Helen moves in for a hug

- Sorry, it just feels strange

- What does?

- All of it, like its about to end

- Heli, honey, what did I tell you about reading too much news?

- No but I’m serious, what if it will all end in just a few moments? What then?

Takes me a hot second to muster up an answer. I’m not the best existential dread comforter, especially now with the mental headspace I am in, but I try nonetheless

- Well, if we are set about it all, then it will end soon, but, didn’t you want that yourself?

- True, but that doesn't make it any easier. Big moves scare me

- Now now, don’t worry. Look, nobody is forcing anything darling, we are adults here, independent and all, no deadlines to follow with such a personal thing, eh?

I feel her nodding, but after a bit I can see her tearing up

- But its not on us to decide, and you know this. One stroke of a pen, one click on the mouse and that’s it, void, nothing else. How can you say that we are in control when all that both of us are nothing but few lines of code, beeps and bops, zeros and ones, not even cogs in a machine for Christ sake, worse, way worse, words on paper man – she stops for a bit, seemingly to calm herself down before she’d start bawling her eyes out. I do nothing but hug. – I hate not being in control. It’s the worst feeling ever. Promise me. Promise me you will find me, promise me that this is not the end and we will live on

I obviously can’t promise that

- I promise

- Ok, good - Helen wipes the tears of her face with one of her sleeves and smiles at me – Well then, lets go inside, I need to use the bathroom

We walked off. While walking though I noticed two things, she was very much squishing my hand too strong, like I felt the blood flow being cut type of strong, and the other is I finally understood what is the theme of my mental anguish and overthinking. Helen is correct, overly dramatic, maybe, but correct. This is the end, after we walk inside, there will be nothing more, absolute emptiness, death, but boring and nihilistic death, no afterlife and all. Well, that I do not know, at the end of the day we could metaphorically pass on I suppose into something or someone new, as an idea, or a memory even. One thing is certain, there will not be any other vacation.

With that being said, all of this is getting absurd, I need to calm myself and by extent the gremlin to whom I am attached with a marital vow. The only way I can do that is to force other thoughts inside. Daydreaming basically, maybe that will push out the dread and the re-mould my spacing out, who knows, never worked before but hey, I consider myself to be from the daring bunch.

So, really, this is a thought experiment and nothing more. All that you are about to witness is purely imaginary, forms part of my imagination and produced predominantly by my subconscious, no matter what I have said otherwise before this point.