The lightning strobed across the
endless blackness.
I was sitting at a table. It was small,
wooden, round. The chairs were plain and matched the dull, cheap look
of the table. I was wearing the same clothes I'd had on just moments
before. The table was illuminated by a light source that seemed to
come from nowhere, above our heads in some impossible place. It's
light carried no farther than a few feet from where we all sat.
Beyond that lay an inky void.
The lightning strobed across the
endless blackness.
There were four men at the table with
me. Three to my left, one to my right. The three men to the left were
nearly identical. Aging, thinning hair, narrow faces. All wearing ill
fitting black suits with white shirts. Their neck waddle hung loosely
in their collars.The only way to tell them apart was that they sat in descending order of height from right to left, each a half a foot shorter than the last.
To my right was Paint Shaker. He was
shirtless and hairless. His skin was a mottled gray. Over his eyes
and mouth, heavy iron plates had been riveted. I called him Paint
Shaker because every few seconds, his head would shake inhumanely
fast, vibrating until it became a blur.
The lightning strobed across the
endless blackness.
The tallest of the three men had dealt
a hand of poker and I realized that I was in. All four of my
opponents looked at me expectantly, waiting for me to pick up my cards. Paint Shaker's head shook violently.
I reached down and picked up what I'd been dealt.
But when I saw what was on the flip side of the red Bicycle backs, I
knew I was doomed. They were all coupons. Just coupons. Not even able
to beat a simple pair. I considered throwing my hand to the table.
The lightning strobed across the
endless blackness.
There was a ringing. A second ring. It
was a telephone. A man approached in a suit. He had a fish head and
was dripping wet. His suit was soaked. He held the telephone in hands
that were human, but covered in scales. He reeked like a pier. The
telephone was an old corded rotary number. A faded pea green, its
cord trailing off into the dark infinity.
Fish Head ignored the ever growing
noise from my opponents who seemed annoyed at my delay. Fish Head
brought the telephone to me, its receiver still in the cradle, it's
body still ringing loudly. I picked it up and put it to my ear.
The lightning strobed across the
endless blackness.
“Hey. Are you okay?” It was Harry.
I glanced around and looked to Paint Shaker. Was I okay? Harry
repeated his question. “You alright?”
The lightning strobed across the
endless blackness.
I opened my eyes. “Yeah, I'm okay.”
I was in the passenger seat. Harry was driving. Matt was in back. We
were heading out to the theater. Tom Cruise in Mission: Impossible.
The above story is true. Sort of. I'd written a version of this quite awhile back and it got lost so I thought I'd give it a go again in honor of my being a bit loopy from my current bout of insomnia.
The reason I say that it's sort of true is that it's my memory, in exact detail, of what happened to me over the course of a few seconds of being unconscious. I sometimes have a vasovagal response to drugs or needles ( the reaction forces blood toward the center of the body, away from the brain, sometimes causing the person to pass out). I don't consistently have the response and have learned to control it a bit as I've gotten older. In this case, I was trying a particular recreational drug for the first time. Based on my response, I never did the drug again. However, I'm the only person I know who has ever reported vivid memories during unconscious periods. This is not my only memory of this sort, but it was certainly the most extraordinary.
