Preface⌗

I’m labelling this as my first log, but it is really my third time trying something like this. I will make mention of some things that refer to those previous excursions, and I won’t waste time trying to explain them, because I suspect they will be present in future trials. Also, this was written a day or so after the fact. I will try to get things down with more immediacy in the future.

I. Excursion⌗

I started sitting on the park bench. I’m fairly certain that I forced that this time, despite my best efforts. It was still night-time, and the bench was still opposite a dense wood. A gravel path still separated the two, acting as a sort of moat between me and whatever could be found in the trees. My first thought was to wait for the woman again – even at the time of writing, I don’t have her name – but I got the sense that she wouldn’t be coming this time. So, instead, I got up and chose to head to my right, along the gravel path.

I don’t remember if there was any warning of the change, but following the trail led me into a sort of concrete tunnel. It was completely dark inside, and I couldn’t see an end either in front of me or behind me. My lack of apparent options made me a little nervous, and I rather immediately lost interest in proceeding. Instead, I found myself with a pickaxe, or a hammer and chisel, or some sort of tools suited to breaking the wall beside me. It didn’t take long, even subjectively, to break away the concrete and escape to a new place.

I ended up in some place that approximated daytime, outside. The sky was clear and blue, and the land was unnaturally green. Also, notably, the terrain itself was unusually angular – it didn’t look too far off from a low-poly landscape in an old videogame. I recall thinking that the place I now found myself in was also fake, and a quick walk to the edge of the landscape confirmed my suspicions. My hand seemed to hit a solid wall as I reached out over the border between solid ground and water, but I was able to force my perspective through the barrier, and found nothing but pure white beyond. Still, I had my destructive implements handy, and was able to break through – into another, similar room.

My new environment, much like the first, seemed to present itself like a part of the outside world. The floor seemed to represent the ocean, and I recall the sun seeming to be setting, painting the sky a nice orange-pink. Unsatisfied by my newly expanded and less fake-looking surroundings, I continue to break through a number of walls, again in little subjective and objective time. I ended up in a room with a starry sky and a mix of land and water, if I remember correctly. What happened from there isn’t exactly clear in my memory. Seem to recall a mix of different things that may have happened: a wire fell from the ceiling and I climbed out, or I simply noted that I had no real means of escape, and then was elsewhere.

Regardless of the transition that actually occured, I found myself in a hall of white. The surfaces clearly had physical relief and detail, it looked as though it was carved stone, but it was all perfectly white. At fixed intervals throughout the hallway, which I believe to have been infinite, were perfectly black orbs floating overhead, centered between the floor and the ceiling. Instead of taking the time to travel on foot, my perspective seemed to fly down the hallway, and I noted the shape of the stonework that constituted the hall change as I advanced. Sure again that I’d find no end here simply by pressing forward, I decided instead to enter an orb.

The world behind me slowly receeded, and darkness grew to envelop my being untl the hall was just a bright speck, a point of light – and then it was gone. I, myself, had a body of only light now, but was still going forward, deeper in to wherever I was. I would wager that no matter which direction I went, at that point, I would still be travelling towards the center. At some point, I came upon a bright white sphere, and knew it to be alive, thinking, and capable of communication. What questions I asked it, I can’t remember, but it notably responded to all in the negative. If my recollection serves, my last query related to me entering it, as I had entered the black orb before.

Despite its rather flat protest, I moved closer, and then inside. I can’t accurately put to words what I saw next, but I’ll do my best. See, by now I was in a third person perspective, and it was as if that sphere and I were two-dimensional objects, with an outline denoting the boundary that still existed between me and it. But, within me, there was also it, and me within it, and it within me, ad infinitum. The pattern that zooming in to that sort of fractal made was fairly pretty. A dot within a dot.

Regardless, whatever thoughtstuff held this all together would eventually deposit me back at the park bench, still alone.

II. Thoughts⌗

Over the past year or so, I’ve realized that I have a fear of putting distance between myself and home in pursuit of some unknown. The fear, I think, originates from the sense that with every step I take forward, I add to the amount of time that it will take me to get home, which is not necessarily a trip I am prepared for. And, being in these cases that the destination may or may not be real, there really isn’t any valid way to prepare. I suppose this means that I am averse to needing to decide when to call it quits, versus when it is okay to exhaust supplies for a return trip to extend a search. This is probably what is being illustrated here, although I have to say that I felt much less anxious during all of this than I have in other, similar scenarios.