Nocturne

I experienced a bizarre event that no one would believe unless they had seen it themselves. And even I find it hard to believe.

When I stumbled out of that building, instead of feeling the brutal heat of Thailand, the air suddenly turned icy cold, and every breath felt like a knife cutting through my throat. The sky was gray, as if shrouded in a low-lying mist.

It was a city I didn't recognize. The buildings, all red rectangular boxes with window slits like silent eyes, lined the streets. The signs were in a language resembling English, but I couldn't make sense of them. I might have ended up somewhere in Europe, though I couldn't be sure.

What confirmed my suspicions was the sound... the voices of the people. They spoke a Western language, the chatter cutting through the cold wind, making me feel even more chilled. How did I end up here?

The outside world was bewildering enough, but what happened inside me was even stranger. I felt a sudden, inexplicable urge to write something. My hands trembled with the urge to write. I reached into my pocket and found a small piece of blue chalk. Glancing around, I noticed a paper airplane floating out of a building window and hurried to grab it as if it were the most valuable thing in the world. I then ran to a bench in a park.

I began to write something... perhaps a journal entry or a short story. I use the word "perhaps" because, after what seemed like several hours (and I say "seemed" because I felt as if time had slowed down inexplicably), there was only an introductory sentence, a single paragraph on the paper.

"What are you writing?" a voice asked, startling me out of my reverie. The sun was setting, and I realized I had been writing until dusk. The woman in front of me smiled. She had a perfectly clean, balanced face, lightly adorned with makeup, and cinnamon-colored hair cascading over her shoulders, covered by a felt coat. Her eyes seemed to hold a flame inside.

Despite my confusion, I was thrilled to meet a fellow Thai person in this strange, desolate place. She invited me to a nearby bar, and I followed her without hesitation. On the way, when I asked where we were, she pointed to a sign on a building that read "Amsterdam." Amsterdam, Netherlands. But how did I end up here?

The bar was nearly empty. There was only a heavyset man in the corner, inhaling something from a clear plastic mask like an asthma patient. We walked past him to the dimly lit bar counter, and after sitting on a high stool and resting my legs for a moment, I asked for her name.

"Nocturne," she replied.

" Nocturne?" I repeated. She nodded seriously and added,

" Nocturne, surname Noir."

I laughed. "Someone like you named Nocturne?"

"Why not?" She smiled slightly.

"Well... it just seems like a strange name for someone like you."

"Should I be named Diurne? That would be even funnier," she said with a laugh, then rang a bell beside her. She didn't ask for my name, which felt odd. Usually, one would exchange such information, but something was intriguing about the mysterious atmosphere, and I didn't want to spoil it.

The bartender appeared behind the counter. He had a gaunt face and hunched back. His hands, like withered branches, seemed barely able to lift the liquor bottles. She ordered something quickly, which I didn't catch, and I randomly pointed to something on the unreadable menu.

Most of the bottles behind the bar were brown, like medicine bottles. The bartender shook one gently, then used a syringe to draw from one bottle and mix it into another. Satisfied, he poured the cocktail into a tall glass, then inserted a clear plastic tube with a blue cap, with a dangling plastic bubble under the yellow light.

When the drink was placed before me, I was startled. It wasn't a straw but an endotracheal tube, the kind doctors insert into patients' airways. I couldn't bring myself to drink from it.

I glanced at the woman beside me, who was sipping from a wine glass with various-sized and colored pills floating on the surface. A syringe with a red liquid was stuck into it. I left my drink untouched, watching the condensation drip down the glass, and finally spoke up.

"I feel like I've met you before... many times."

Such a pathetic statement.

"And strange things have been happening that I can't explain. I was just in my apartment in Thailand, but now I'm here... in Amsterdam. How is that possible?"

Her beautiful face broke into a slow smile. "You were in an accident, and the trauma might be causing hallucinations."

My mouth dropped open. "How do you know I just got out of the hospital?"

She smiled and pointed to the bruises on my elbow, marked with adhesive residue from IV tapes. "You also have a surgical scar on your head," she added, stirring her drink. The pills dissolved into the liquid, leaving only a few black and red capsules. The conversation shifted to more mundane topics after that.

We left the bar at dawn, strangely not feeling tired. She led me past an art museum and then along a bridge by the river, where boats moved slowly. I couldn't stop thinking about what had just happened.

"Back at the bar, you mentioned hallucinations..."

"Yes," she smiled, tapping her temple and quickly speaking.

"The human brain is the master of deception. You might be experiencing hallucinations, where the nervous system is disturbed and creates non-existent sensations, like seeing things or hearing voices. It can be caused by many things: schizophrenia, epilepsy, dementia, brain tumors, certain medications, or even prolonged hospital stays that disrupt the sense of time."

She spoke like a lecturer, and I felt a dull ache spreading from my head to my neck. Am I hallucinating now, or is this real?

Suddenly, Nocturne pushed me into the cold water. Her laughter echoed in my head. For a moment, the world went black, all sounds ceased, and my breath felt heavy as lead.

………………………………

"The water is only waist-deep, and yet you almost drowned," a sweet voice echoed in my ears. Regaining my senses, I pushed myself up, my feet touching the ground, and gasped for air, coughing up mud. The sunlight was blinding, and the heat was suffocating.

As my eyes adjusted to the light, I saw a young village girl bending over me, with the bright sun behind her. She wore a conical hat, a cotton shirt, and a blue skirt. Her face looked eerily familiar, her eyes shone bright as dew, staring at me.

"Wait, you're..."

"Nocturne, of course," she said, laughing. " Nocturne, surname Noir."

How could this be?

"I saw you in the city, a city of white people..."

I mumbled, perplexed. City of white people? I never thought I would use such words. It felt like my brain was a radio, interrupted by static from somewhere.

"What are you talking about?" she laughed again. "Sunstroke, maybe?"

"I don't know..." I replied, dazed. "I saw someone who looked like you, but in the Netherlands. And I was pushed into the water, and when I woke up, I was here."

The girl shook her head as if exasperated, but then, with an expressionless face, she spoke as if it was the most ordinary thing in the world. "Maybe it's a parallel dimension."

What?

She pulled lotus stems from the muddy water, one by one, and gathered them at her waist. "The complexity of space and time might be beyond human imagination," Nocturne said, turning her back to me and wading out of the pond, her wet skirt swaying with each step.

"Time is believed to be linear, but in reality, it might twist and fold, meeting at some point and then unfolding again. The same goes for space; there could be infinite dimensions overlapping, with different times intersecting, creating countless possibilities."

"You mean..."

"I mean..." she smiled, "while you and I are here, there are countless versions of us, all existing in the realm of time, possibly intersecting at some point."

I couldn't shake my confusion but could only nod and try to pull up a red lotus stem. It was tougher and stiffer than I expected, and eventually, I gave up, following the girl named Nocturne to a hut on the other side of the rice field.

The sound of folk songs mixed with bird calls, the sun was blindingly bright, and my arms and legs felt like they were being burned. The sensations were too vivid to be a dream.

Nocturne led me to the hut. Inside, the first thing that struck me was a strange contrast. The shabby bamboo walls were decorated with famous oil paintings like "Starry Night," "Wheatfield with Crows," and "Vase with Fifteen Sunflowers" by Van Gogh.

Three men were lounging on the hut's floor, dressed only in loincloths, with cigarettes hanging from their mouths. Around them were jars of homemade liquor. They were enthusiastically discussing something, their speech slurred, possibly drunk.

"If you talk about Vincent, it's all about yellow and blue," said a pot-bellied man with dark skin, chewing on the end of his cigarette. "The short, clear brushstrokes emphasize the artist's intense emotions rather than the realism of the subject."

"Why don't you talk about the red and green colors?" another man with a large scar next to his ear interrupted with a slurred voice. "Let me give you an example everyone knows well, like the painting 'Café Terrace at Night,' where Vincent himself said he wanted to convey the intense emotions of humanity by contrasting red and green tones."

I blinked rapidly, wiping my face repeatedly with the end of the checkered cloth draped around my neck as if that would make the scene before me disappear. But it didn't.

"Here," a skinny man with an unkempt beard grunted, holding out a cup to me. "Take a sip, young man, to wet your throat."

I took the cup, its color tarnished by age, but the liquor inside was as clear as a mantis's eyes. The strong, pungent spirit had a sharp taste, burning my throat and spreading warmth to my stomach. After two or three sips, my head felt heavy, the world around me spun, and everything faded to black.

………………………………

When I opened my eyes again, I was in a white room filled with the sharp scent of antiseptic. The beeping of a heart monitor surrounded me. A young woman in a nurse's uniform stood at the foot of my bed, jotting something down on a clipboard with focused attention.

As she turned, I noticed the name tag on her uniform: Nocturne Noir

Again? What kind of madness is this?

I tried to shout, but no words came out, only a hoarse, wheezing sound like air escaping through a narrow passage.

"You just had your breathing tube removed. Your vocal cords are still swollen, so you might not be able to speak for a few days. Don't worry," she reassured me.

Don't worry? That’s easy for her to say. But compared to all the strange things I’ve encountered, losing my voice seemed rather mundane.

I didn’t see Nurse Nocturne again until three days later. In the meantime, an elderly, hunchbacked woman took care of me, wiping my body and taking my temperature without saying a word. Sometimes, when she grimaced in displeasure, I caught a glimpse of blackened teeth, like those of someone who chewed betel nuts. Her small skull, covered with messy gray hair, was so frightening that I couldn't help but think she might be a ghoul if not for the nurse's uniform.

In the mornings, a large group of doctors would come, speaking in a language that sounded like alien gibberish. They wore long white coats, but instead of stethoscopes, they had large white and brown prayer beads around their necks. When they reached the foot of my bed, the oldest doctor would take incense and candles from his pocket, light them, and place them beside the IV stand, and the whole team would bow and chant prayers that sent chills down my spine.

On the second afternoon, a new patient arrived at the bed next to mine. Nurses and orderlies struggled to restrain a hysterical young man, tying his hands with gauze. Shortly after, the medical team rushed in, lighting incense and chanting as usual. The patient seemed to respond dramatically to the prayers, collapsing like a marionette with its strings cut. The elderly nurse offered him a cup, and as he drank, he vomited a black substance that filled the ward with a foul stench before he passed out.

The senior doctor carefully examined each item fished out of the basin: nails, eggshells, razor blades, hair, and teeth.

I watched all of this unfold, wanting to scream but unable to utter a sound.

………………………………

Finally, my voice returned just as Nurse Nocturne came to check on me again. That afternoon, while she was checking my blood pressure, I seized the chance to start a conversation with a pitiful question:

"Did I drink so much that I ended up in the hospital?"

"You misunderstand," she replied calmly, pumping the blood pressure cuff while keeping her eyes on the mercury column. "You were in a car accident, suffered severe head trauma and were unconscious for fifteen days. You're very lucky to have woken up."

I was silent for a moment, trying hard to piece together my memories.

"But I remember strange things... I saw you in the Netherlands, and then in some field where farmers were drinking and discussing Van Gogh's paintings. They invited me to drink, and then I woke up here. It felt like a never-ending dream, but I know it was real."

The young woman laughed softly, removing the blood pressure cuff before looking up at me with eyes that seemed to hold a storm within.

"Do you believe in demons?"

Demons...

"This world has many mysteries beyond scientific explanation. For instance, the phenomenon of the doppelgänger, or the evil twin, is one such mystery. Seeing me in different, unrelated places could mean you're caught in a demonic trick, trapped in an endless nightmare dimension."

"But—"

I couldn't finish the sentence because the woman disappeared from the room before I could say more.

I closed my eyes again, my heart pounding. Suddenly, I heard footsteps approaching the ward's entrance. I squinted to see the medical team, led by Nurse Nocturne, entering the room. How did she get to the other side of the room so quickly? But I didn't have time to ponder this, as a young doctor in gold-rimmed glasses came directly to my bed, examining the clipboard on the bed tray and muttering a few words before rubbing a white clay-like substance on my arms and legs.

"Hand me the tools," the doctor said in a deep voice. The young nurse wheeled in a metal cart topped with a large tray of offerings. She picked up a hard-boiled egg from the top and handed it to me.

Confused about what to do with it, the nurse shoved the entire egg into my mouth. It filled my mouth, making it hard to breathe. It tasted like paper and smelled so fishy that I felt like vomiting. Just as I thought I might choke to death on the egg, cold water was poured over my head, startling me into coughing up bits of egg.

"Your condition is improving, but your spirit hasn't returned to your body. You won't be leaving the hospital anytime soon," the doctor's voice reached my ears.

"Leaving the hospital..." The words struck me, sending a chill through my body.

That's right; I only realized then that I didn't even know who I was, where I came from, or where my home was.

Everyone left, and before she went, the young nurse administered a painkiller through my IV—morphine, she said. As the drug flowed into my veins, a cool sensation spread through my body, and my head felt light as if it were filled with helium.

………………………………

Then I woke up.

My hand was clutching my chest, my heart pounding as if it would burst out. Looking around, found myself in my old apartment in Bangkok. There were no nurses, no strange occurrences—nothing. It was just a dream.

I sighed in relief.

A cup of hot coffee would make everything better. I opened the door and walked down the stairs to my regular coffee shop. However, on the landing between floors, I saw a small boy drawing with blue chalk on the polished stone floor. The drawing resembled a bird from the Nazca lines in the desert. The boy turned and handed me the chalk, his eyes intense and almost commanding. I had no choice but to mutter thanks and drop the short piece of chalk into my pocket.

I staggered out of the building, but instead of feeling the heat of Thailand, a cold wind hit my face. The surroundings were unfamiliar; it was a city I didn't recognize. The buildings lined up like red boxes, with windows like silent eyes, resembling a European city. The heavy fog made the atmosphere gloomy, but inside me, there was an overwhelming urge. My heart raced wildly, compelling me to write... to write something...

Eventually, I reached a bench in a park and started writing. However, even after hours, only the opening line of the story appeared on the paper.

Ladies and gentlemen, this is that opening line. It may sound trite, but I have no better way to describe it:

...I experienced a bizarre event that no one would believe unless they had seen it themselves. And even I find it hard to believe...