Bad Experience #1

Written by Matthew Shute

PART 1

??:?? Start experience.

01:23 You turn off the light. Walk on bare feet. Pull back the sheets. Slip in to bed. Pull the sheets over you.

01:24 Lie back. Thoughts dwindle.

01:25 Your mind is blank. Close your eyes. Relaxed. A nice empty feeling.

01:27 A few synaptic reactions.

01:30 Think about distant school days. Your mind wanders. Visualise. Linger on an image. Follow the imaginary mouse. Or rat? Pass imaginary shops. Speed. Drift.

01:47 Thoughts fade in and out of focus. Recognise sleepy pattern. Fading. Losing the thread. Numbing.

01:54 Now completely numb. Oblivious. Part of you is gone.

02:53 You dream. A twisted urban journey. Familiar but strange. You accept as normal. Streets turn into mazes of leaves. Remember these strange bugs. Memory of a teacher. Journey continues.

05:41 Nightmare scenes. Sharp rain against the pavement. A terrible flicker of purple. Wool? Falling naked. Blisters. Your skeletal hand clenches. Boiling sand. The army thing with churning eyes.

06:00 Keep sleeping.

07:00 Mind unwrapping. Reveal those beneath the rocks. They scurry.

08:05 Wake for a moment. Urgency. Open your eyes. Look at the time. No... Plenty of time yet. Close your eyes. Calm. Fade slowly back into sleep.

08:34 Look. The concrete. Vivid insects. Flowers. Dream on.

08:55 Sleep. Now dreamless.

09:30 An image. A point of near-perfection dissolves.

09:46 More sleep.

10:55 Come awake. Open your eyes. Observe the clock. Groan. Rub your eyes. Yawn. Stretch.

10:57 Lie there. Stretch out. Almost alert. Wish for the moment to linger. Think.

10:58 Moment passes.

10:59 Curse. Throw back the sheets. Climb out of bed. Stumble. Look around. Get dressed.

11:03 Leave the room. Walk to the bathroom. Wash. Brush teeth.

11:10 Go to the kitchen. Make breakfast.

11:15 Sit down. Eat. Sit back. Try to enjoy.

11:26 Stand. Wash up after breakfast. Glance at the kitchen clock.

11:27 Find shoes and jacket. Put on shoes and jacket. Check for keys. Nod. Go out onto the street.

11:31 A dull day. Not cold. Dense cloud cover. Go right. Walk. Look at traffic passing. Hear sounds. Think about noise. Keep walking. Just easing into your thoughts now.

11:40 Pass your old friend's house. Half hope to bump into an old friend. Half dread it. Avoidant ideas. Imagined conversations. Further into your thoughts now.

11:51 Reach the bus stop. Wait. Hands in your pockets. Lean against the side of the shop wall. Wonder when the bus will come. Do not really care. Slightly anticipate. Turn to other inner ponderings.

11:52 Look at the other 6 people at the bus stop. Think about them. Think about what they are thinking. Imagine. Only 2 of them are talking. The rest are thinking about what you could be thinking. Or they are thinking about shopping. Or work. Numerous possibilities.

11:53 Start to think about what you are thinking.

12:01 Oh. At last. See a bus approaching. Walk to the bus stop.

12:02 Bus slows to a halt. Follow the others onto the bus. Pay fare. Get your ticket. Walk about halfway down the bus. Sit. Feeling okay now. Less stress than usual.

12:10 Watching streets go by. Houses. Shops. People. Colours. Fences. Garbage. A sense of perspective rushing onwards. A multitude of shapes. People thinking. Expressions. Drains. Pipes. Sides of buildings. Old brickwork. Graffiti. A myriad of meaning and meaninglessness.

12:13 Think about your life. Current situation. Negativity stings then fades. Find a positive link.

12:14 Chain reaction climaxes, then ebbs.

12:15 Still watching. Thoughts flowing nicely now. Strange quality. Subtle but shattering. Fluid motion.

12:30 Listening in on various conversations of other passengers. Thinking. Seeing. Direct neural current. Smile inwardly. You are you.

12:45 You are you. Here we are. The city centre. This is the stop. Numerous passengers get up and walk to the doorway. Get up. Walk to the doorway. Exit the bus.

12:46 Decide where to go first. Put off decision. Decide in a while. Just walk.

12:48 Look at all these people. Feel anonymous among the throng of consumers and commuters. Safe among strangers. You are you. You are different. Nobody knows. Just walk and enjoy the knowledge.

13:01 See a shop. Walk in. Glance at yourself in the image from the security camera. Feel ugly. Push that idea aside. Ride up the escalator. Look at some books. Isles of items. Walk towards favourite section.

13:05 You have found it. There. The book. Not just any old book. This is the one you saw before. This time you have the money to buy it. Study it for a while. Relish the fact that you are going to own it soon.

13:06 Go to the que. Wait your turn. Take the book to the counter. Pay for the book. Walk away. Feel a quiet joy. Ride down the escalator. Exit the shop. Warm air of the shop is replaced by the cool air of outside. Refreshing.

13:07 Dismiss thoughts about pollution.

13:10 Walk through the underpass.

13:12 Notice a homeless black man lying against a wall. Shadowed. Wears a purple pullover. Stained. The man is familiar. A shudder passes through you. A sense of paranoia. Fuels a dark imagination. Pass by.

13:15 Emerge now from the gloomy underpass. Notice the cinema opposite. Turn right. Keep walking. Think about the waves of people surging along. You are among them. You are separate from them. They are alone in their heads. You are alone in yours. A universe apart. A reality apart. If only they knew.

13:23 Turn right, into a quieter area. Stop at the public toilets. Open the door. Creak. Squeak. Squeal. Door sounds. Enter. Hear your footsteps. Observe the off-white surfaces. Walk to the third cubicle. Go inside. Lock the rusty-hinged door. The toilet seat looks grimy. Wipe with toilet tissue. Unfasten belt. Pull down pants. Sit on toilet.

13:30 An intimate moment. Hope there are no observers in your head. No. Alone. Just you with your own consciousness. You are you. Why so? Look at the graffiti. Some is interesting. Some is insane.

13:34 Finish in the toilet. Wipe your ass. Pull up your pants. Refasten belt. Unlock the door. Walk. Hollow footsteps. Creak open the main door. Step back onto street. Head towards the library.

14:07 Arrive at the library entrance. Your legs feel slightly tired. A tad hungry? Yes. Go to the McDonalds next to the library. Very crowded inside. Noisy. Buy a burger, fries and a milkshake. Not much money left. Find a table. It faces the glass front. Sit and eat the burger and fries. Dismiss thoughts about BSE and CJD. Sip at the milkshake. Watch people passing by. Feeling slightly melancholy. Thinking about that strange black man in the shadows. So familiar. Shudder.

14:15 Finish the burger. Not much milkshake left.

14:17 Finish the milkshake. Get up. Walk out. Walk up the steps into the library.

14:22 A calm and peaceful atmosphere inside the library. A refuge. Decide to go to the fiction section. Look through the books. Pick up a novel by Charles Dickens. Read the back. Looks good. Haven't read this one before. This will be a good read until you can get home and start on THE book. THE book, the one you bought, should not be opened here.

14:25 Look around for an empty chair.

14:28 Find a soft grey seat with nobody in it. Ease into the seat. Comfy. Start to read.

14:29 Slide effortlessly into the narrative. Consume.

14:55 This is an excellent story. Want to read on? Yes. Keep reading.

15:31 Happen to glance up at the clock. Ought to get going. Must have lost track of time.

15:33 Put the Charles Dickens book back on its shelf. Saunter out of the place.

15:36 Cooler outside now. Cold, even. Very cloudy. A few spots of rain.

15:40 The entrance to the pavilion. Take a quiet route. Not much light here. Take a right near the back of WHSmiths. Then a left. Wait a sec.

15:43 Wait a moment. Something's wrong. Search your pockets for Return Ticket. Where...?

15:44 ...searching and re-searching...

15:45 Shit! No ticket! No money! Where can...

15:45 What t-

15:45 Impact. Something hits you. Pain. Extreme pain. Dull but growing. What the hell? Blood! Whirl around.

15:45 A black man with a knife. Purple pullover. Raising the knife for a second go. The guy looks mentally ill. "Revenge", he rasps.

15:45 Too late. Another stab wound. Not quite as deep as the first. Oh my God, you're bleeding. Quite profusely.

15:46 Bring your knee up hard, crushing the attacker's testicles. That was hard enough to ruin his chances of ever having children.

15:46 He groans and curls over. Quick. Snatch the knife. Get a firm grip. Bring it up into his throat. Pull it out. Jam it in again. (Jam it in? Reminds you of that porno; "Oh yeah, that's right, jam it in"; Double penetration.) Stab him again in the neck. This time, twist the knife to cause a more fatal wound.

15:47 "Picked on the wrong guy, you crazy bastard." Stab him one more to make sure. Pocket the knife. The guy falls to the floor. Kick him in the face, as an afterthought. Stagger towards the nearby public toilets.

15:48 Going to puke any second. Smash though the door. "Move out of my way, asshole!" Quick! Vomit into the sink. Look. There's some red in the vomit. A punctured lung? Shit. Stagger out of there.

15:49 Where are you going? Everything looks hazy; vague. Move through shocked-looking people. Determination, now. Stay focused. Gotta get home. If an ambulance comes, that'll mean hospital. Once there, the police will eventually come wanting to ask questions. The police'll recognise you straight away. Then: jail. No thanks.

15:52 There! A car. Stagger in front of it. It skids, almost hits you. Reach through the window with your new knife. Thrust the knife forward. Nice juicy impact. Like old times. A scream. Pull the blade out of the flesh. Stab her again. Open the door. Drag her out, onto the floor. Jump in and drive.

15:55 Concentrate. Try to remember how to drive. This is too hard. Everything is fading. Where did that crazed bastard stab you? Are you dying? Bleeding to death? Shit, look at all this blood.

16:00 No! You've veered off the road, into that bus-stop. CONCENTRATE!

16:01 It's no good. Too badly injured. You're losing consciousness. Crawl out of the car. Crawl along the street.

16:01 A voice: "Are you okay, mister?"

16:01 Collapse. Blackness.

??:?? ... ... ... ...

??:?? ... murmured voices ... fading out ...

??:?? Everything is blank, silent.

??:?? ...

??:?? Dead?

??:?? ....

??:?? Dead?

??:?? Nothing. Numbness. Pure... nothingness. Inside and out. All things are... gone.

??:?? There is absolute zero. You are empty. You are... nothing.

??:?? Is this eternity? A prison of blindness and deafness? Is this all there is?

??:?? Wait. What's that? A tiny red light. Like a faraway star in this eternal void.

??:?? This is very weird.

??:?? You are speeding towards the tiny red light. Somehow, you can feel the momentum gathering, a mental (rather than physical) awareness of movement. You are travelling at an extreme speed. Faster than light. Faster than the darkness itself. Faster than thought. Terrifying speed. The red thing is a long, long way away, almost infinitely far.

??:?? However far away it is, you will get there soon enough. You are instinctively aware that you are travelling the distance of many universes with each passing moment.

??:?? The light is getting larger. It is now the size of a penny in the centre of your visual field. Growing. Growing.

??:?? Suddenly in this numbness... pain! Pain reaching into the absence of feeling. Sensory death replaced by... a subtle ache. Like fire and ice at once. Now it is becoming more intense by the second.

??:?? The red thing that you are approaching must be truly immense. That you can see anything of it at all at this distance boggles the mind.

??:?? The pain is gradually becoming unbearable. But bear it you must. It is too much already. Too much! Stop!

??:?? Nothing will stop it. Now excruciating. The darkest depths of you are being violated by a burning, freezing sharpness; penetrated like a tooth under a dentist's drill. It feels like your every nerve is under a blowtorch. These are not nerves as you understand them, however. These are like... nerves of the soul: far more sensitive than anything of flesh.

??:?? STOP. STOP. STOP!

??:?? Growing! This pain, somehow manages to ... DOUBLE ... every second. Can't take it. Can't take anymore. No!

??:?? No choice but to take it.

??:?? Not only pain, but a piercing sense of doom and despair grips you like a vice. This vice of anguish closes in, crushing and squeezing all hope from your mind. Each time you think the optimum level of misery has been reached, you are shown that you have only reached a fraction of the full nightmare awaiting you. The pain and terror multiply every second, as you get closer to the red orb. Look at it! Twisted, red, black, brown. It is a WORLD. A world... AH, the pain... A world with valleys and hills and rivers. It appeared purely red from a distance because it's oceans are crimson with... blood?

??:?? A world... the size of many universes.

??:?? In the death-planet's red glow, you can now see your rotting body. It oozes filth from every pore. Small grubs fester in clusters inside your veins...

??:?? THE PAIN!

??:?? Red fills your vision. You land with a thud. The red sand fills your lungs. AGONY withers and pulsates and resounds through your form.

??:?? Stand up. These sandstorms contain tiny razors, that slice through your nerve endings like hot blades through butter. Cough. Blood splashes from your mouth. Never, you now realise, could a mortal mind ever imagine such physical and emotional turmoil.

??:?? It is just the beginning.

??:?? Look. It's the thing from the dream. You shiver to think of a reality in which such a gigantic abomination is permitted to exist. You sense that it's mind is vacant to the point of retardation. Vacant, that is, except for the desire to inflict torture upon the likes of you. It's ability to indulge this desire has been refined over countless billions of years. The beast is almost upon you now. You can't outrun the fiend, though you certainly try. It's shadow covers you, like the shade cast by a mountain. Here it comes with it's instruments of torment protruding from the stumps at the ends of its limbs. Here it comes: the army thing with the churning eyes...