An escherian experience

Freefall is weightlessness, packing an exhilarating feeling of absolute freedom and openness. That’d be the case at least, were it not wrapped in utter terror. Even worse, I wasn’t sure I was even on a straight-line path. Fragmented shapes and colors of gray, impossible geometry unfolding and shearing in front of my eyes. My throat was like cheap flat champagne, not bubbling enough to burst a scream.

I don’t know how long my descent was. However, it was by a hair shorter than how long it would take me to pass out. Getting close to the marbled ground everything slowed down rapidly to a stop. Once I came to, I knelt and tried to take a hold of the ground, in fear of it falling away from me again, but the smooth, black-veined marble was perfect and infinite in any direction.

“Well, I didn’t think you’d be that straightforward, not many walk straight down to the Bedrock”, observed a familiar voice looming above me.

I looked up but failed to distinguish anything humanoid at first. The sky, if it could be called such, had a light atmospheric afterglow of warm blue and cold gray, littered with vague shapes and shadows, shifting, and forming, as if looking at the surface of the water from below. My breaths were still hurried and shallow, I was just beginning to grasp the scent of the air, a hint of staleness and an aroma of old houses.

Once my peripheral vision cleared enough, I caught a glimpse of a shadow holding something like an umbrella, descending gracefully, nothing like falling, almost as if skating nonchalantly in thick, quicksand ice.

Eugene landed softly, with a small whiff of air accompanying him, casually closing his bumbershoot, straightening out his heavy ragged coat, taking his time. He then walked close to me, “That was quite a fall, cigar?”, taking out a light red, leather cigar case, a gift, a well serving and well taken care of. The leather case came out of his left breast pocket, bearing marks of only being worn down by time.

“Pardon?”, I could only mutter.

“I take it that you don’t smoke, that’s good, don’t take up unnecessary habits.”

“What is this? How did you even come down here?”

“Normally I’d take the lift, but it tends to be rather excruciatingly slow, top it with a constant background tune, it’s misery. Sure, it’s classy, but it tends to drive one mad-”

“WHERE. IS. HERE.”

Eugene stopped, as if to ponder, tilting his head to the side.

“What in the world is this place Eugene? Where are we?”

A few seconds of intense silence after, “Yes”

“Yes?”

“A place in the world indeed. Or more precisely, a world in a world. A neatly, tightly packed, pocket dimension of near absolute spacial control. A sandbox if you will”.

My mind would be racing, were it not a total train wreck.

“Come, let us walk back to the top”

I followed him mindlessly, while daring to put all this into perspective. “Are you god?”, I mumbled.

”I’m sorry for not believing in you”, I hurried.

Eugene turned a little to face me, half-smiling. “No Shane, I’m no saint, more so a god”. He threw his head upwards, to the shapes and shadows above, “This, is what you should believe in, what you see, what you feel, what you know are facts. And at the same time, question them”.

“You saw two doors today. After you followed me, seeing what you saw, you were unfortunately caught up in the pursuit. We both ran down the alleys into an abandoned warehouse with two small doors and I presented you with two choices. One door would take you back to the main square, a place filled with people where you would easily blend in and be forgotten from the ones chasing us. The other door would lead to more questions than answers, to a different world”

“And this is it? A place devoid of logic?”

“More like built upon high levels of logic. Space is folded, expanded and contracted, used like a tool, but artfully, much like a painter spreads his colours on the canvas, creating a world outside of all.”

“Why are we walking then? Why not fly to the top like Mary Poppins on a bumbershoot?”

Eugene slowed his pace and knelt to the ground, setting his bony hand on the cold marble.

“Can you feel it humming? Buzzing? The borders of this box are fluctuating at incredibly high, low amplitude frequencies, creating a separation field around the Box. Any intense spacial modifications would create a resonance high enough to jeopardize its peripheral boundaries’ structural integrity, collapsing everything upon us.”

“That”, I said, “would be unpleasant.”

“An acute observation. That is why we take the stairs.”

The said stairs were, at least, comprehensible. True to their purpose, as slabs of material, stacked on top of the other, being a mean of scalable climbing. It reminded me of an altar, the heavy chipped stone, the stained-glass panes. But even that humble stone staircase seemed to conspire with everything else, joining in on the madness. Small stones and slabs floating around, bits of glass forever suspended right outside the window frame, as if just broken, but reluctant to shatter any further.

“You are falling behind, come on”

I swear I looked away for but a few seconds, yet, there he was, climbing the same set of stairs, yet, sideways.

“It’s just a different reference frame, don’t dawdle.”

I hurried to his side, as he was the only thing bearing sense here, and the same time, the last. Once I got beside him, I looked back and my previous position was sideways, while our present path was as if we never deviated.

The further we got from the ground, from this nullifying zone, the greater were the waves of shock to my being, as I stood in awe. Opening my eyes to shapes that were only theorized, perfect infinite fractals, catching glimpses of projections from higher dimensions, an unseen glory of nature, unraveling before my very eyes.

Reaching the top of the stairs, I was presented with another door, an old oak one with a bronze handle and stiff heavy hinges.

“Where does this go? There’s more to this rabbit hole?”, I asked.

“You want to go back?”

“This afternoon has been mind-shattering enough”

“Oh, come on now Shane. This, this is reality. A peek at the inner working of the universe. People don’t see this in a thousand lifetimes, and you say you’ve HAD ENOUGH?

Wound you EVER be able to go back to your life as it were? Ignoring all this?

This door is set up for another place I had in mind for us to go, to show you. It can be however, recalibrated to take you back, home.

Just consider, you have already made a life-altering decision, won’t you make another?”

I stopped, pondering the safety of the other side of the door, my houses’ chipped walls, keeping all this unknown insanity outside. Yet, it fell short. By the second I grew more and more confident, rising to the door, grabbing the hefty handle, trembling so. Eugene smirked, he saw my answer, no words need be said.

“Well, that’s good. In fact, this would take us straight to the place I told you. I’d have to do a lot of rework to take you home, let alone my disappointment. No matter. I promise, this is well worth Shane”, said while slightly pushing the door open, letting me do the work.

Oddly enough, opening the door left me even more surprised.