Journey Into Comatosis

“What was the most magical night in your life?” I ask her.  Her big, green eyes look down
and around.  Nervousness fills me.  We’ve been apart for so long.  What could she be
thinking?  I’m wanting to touch her hair.  I’m wanting her to say, “When we danced under
the stars”
	Her eyes look around.  Her big, green eyes look up at me.  “I don’t know,” she
says in a way that doesn’t make me lose hope.  “What was yours?”
	“Tonight’s not over. . .”  This could be the best night of my life.  If we could just
talk all night like we did back then.  That was so long ago, and as I’m thinking that and
looking at her standing there, she drizzles away.  She falls apart like she was never even
there.
	I decide to walk down the stairs of my school, and I look around.  I'm alone.  I see
a couple at the bottom of the stairs, and I'm feeling more alone than I ever have before.  I
think of how the bacon is gone now.  I walk on, each step I take I feel taller, though I'm
moving down.  Still alone, my mind wonders.  I stand still, for the stairs have become an
escalator and I ride down.  Things keep getting darker.  I hear nothing.  After what feels
like years, I am disappointed to find at the bottom there is nothing but a box of candy.  I
look over the strawberry licorice wanna-be's, and I realize I have no idea where I'm at and
I know I'll be late for class again.
	I'm now running down the long hall looking for my class.  There are chains and
padlocks on all the doors.  A large clock hangs on the right side of the wall.  The many
large hands tick out of since.  I feel very small.  I run through a class full of students,
mindless zombies, and out a small door in the back of the class.  I'm in a different hall
now, but at the end is a large red door.  That is my class.  I sit down in my seat and the
teacher is calling role.  Her list drags the ground.  When she gets to the end of the list, I
realize I'm in the right class at the wrong time.  I am so late.  I walk out of the class and
shut the door.  I lean against the wall and become lost in my thoughts.
	Deeper and deeper I go into a green land.  It’s filled with hills and trees and blue
skies.  I walk around for a while, and I soon convince myself that this is the real world and
the other place was just a dream.  It surprises me that being alone in this world is perfect
peace, but in the other world, I was terrified of being alone.  Loneliness was misery.  I
walk up to a white car.  I get inside and start it up.  Brown smoke pours out the back
-turning this perfect world black and stinking.  The car is out of my control and goes faster
and faster.  The steering wheel turns itself. I am thrown out of the car and out of this now
black, mucky world.
	I wake up on the ceiling.  I fall quickly and hit the floor before I have time to brace
myself.  I walk through the red door, but nothing is the same.  And there I was, my
brother, alone in a dark, dark world full of nothingness.  It made me felt quiet tiny, it did. 
But then, at times, all the larger.  It was full of gray, and there were eyes that kept peering
and disappearing.  It made one feel quite alone.  
        So, as I like stood there, all at once I started to feel all sea-sick right in my
stomach. It was as if I were on a boat rocking, you know, and all alone in the dark.  The eyes,
they got fuzzier and fuzzier until they were nothing at all.  They were like the trail left by a
fallen star, and they were all wavy just like I felt in my stomach.  They stretched from here
all the way to there, just waving like a flag in the wind, and every once in a while I thought
that they were maybe a different color than the one they were before.  It started out quiet
simple, but over the endless ages of my rocking around those eyes were blowing my mind
with there ever changing patterns, until it was so complex it was more like chaos than any
sort of pattern, my brother.  But it was beautiful, it surely was.
	Somehow, I hadn't noticed that the black, dark sky had grown not so black and not
so dark.  By now it was a pale shade of a yellow, and that was all.  There was not a sign of
a sign, or a sign of a moon, sun, or street lamp.  The eyes just fizzled out right there in the
pale sky like so many fireworks, and all of the sudden, my brother, I was falling.
	Friends, there I was.  Scared to my wits’ end until somehow the falling turned into
music.  Don't ask me how, but that falling feeling turned into a long tone, and it sounded
all the louder until it was followed by scores of other tones.  One after another they
sounded, and you could tell that over all it was a happy piece.  So happy, my friends, that
it was scary.  To be in a blank yellow nothingness with nothing but happy music is quiet a
horror.  I was trying to keep my heavy eyes open, watching for those peering little
creatures to come back.  The music kept getting softer and softer.  Trying to lull me to
sleep.  I give in and close my eyes when I feel soft fur upon my face.  It is a cat; a little
red kitten.
	"How do you do?"  Asks the kitten.
	"I don't know... Say, where am I?" I ask.
	"Why, you’re right here, of course.  As am I."
	"But where, Mr. .."
	"The name's Munkenflesh."
	"But where, Mr. Munkenflesh, would that be?"
	"All you need to know, my friend, is that you are all the places you're not, and
besides, you'll never be here again."
	"I beg your pardon?"
	"You see, child, we are traveling through space and time.  We're in an
ever-expanding universe, you know, so we'll never be here again."
	"What is the name of this place, sir?"
	"I call it Strewbarry Fedils."
	"How, Mr. Munkenflesh, did you ever get to know so much?"
	"That's a question for the rain, but I must be going."
	"Where would you be going, kitty?"
	"Why, to every other place, boy."  And with that the red kitten left as soon as it
had arrived, and I started to feel like yesterday was a thousand years ago.  I decide to walk
on, but I have no place to go and everything looks the same in all directions. It is pretty
depressing.  I decide just to walk left.  After miles of walking through desert, ocean, and
forests of flowers, I come upon a group of small pebbles.  I hear them buzzing like bees,
but I have no idea what they are saying.  One of the big red flowers that forms the forest
bends down and whispers to me, "Take one of these." 
	With her leaf-like hand, she hands me little white pill with a red heart colored on it. 
I might as well take it.  Suddenly, the rocks are growing.  They are the size of cars.  But
when I look to the sky, I realize that I have shrunk about four zillion times.  The rocks say
in their scruff voice, "Let's get 'em, boys!"  And armies of rocks chase me and want to step
on me as I have done many times to them.  I am running, and running out of breath.  I see
a worm hole, and, grinning a grin, dive into for safety.
	Now the danger is gone, or is it?  I fall farther and farther down into the deep
cavern.  When I finally hit with a "plop,”  I don't know where to go.  The worm hole
breaks off into several different tunnels.  There is a red tunnel to the right, a green one in
front of me, a black one to the left, and behind me, a white tunnel.  Above the white tunnel
is a small wooden plaque that says simply, "COMA."
	I’m now inside the tunnel.  This whole place seems to have been designed to
resemble a prison, because the walls are dull and seem to be made of cold concrete, as do
the floor and ceiling.  The farther I walk in, the darker it becomes.  I can barely see at all,
but I can make out what seems to be a match.  I get closer and realize that a match it is, so
I pick it up and strike it on the cold, hostile wall.  The flame it gives off is brilliant, and 
the heat nearly cooks my hand.  I throw down the match, and it lands against the wall.  As it
burns, the white walls become a reddish-pink.  You can feel the warmth circulating
throughout this tunnel.  Where I am no longer resembles a prison but some sort of human
organ. Not any specific organ, but it somehow seems alive.  As the light flickers out, the
tunnel loses its color and goes back to the white, dingy walls.
	"Hello?"  My voice echoes through the tunnels.  No one answers me.  I decide to
go into the white tunnel, because curiosity has gotten the better of me.
	"Hullo.  Say there, how long do you thinks it will take to climb yonder mountain,
anyway?"
	He was a tall, lanky boy of about seventeen.  Pale was his skin, and his hair was a
dull brown.  In the distance, a mountain took shape, or yet, it was a whole range of
mountains.  They were of the bluest tint.  All the membraned walls that once enveloped
me now faded into white, with only the blue silhouette of the mountains in the far distance.
	"Years," I heard myself say.  
	We started walking without saying anymore.  At first we walked over nothing but
pure whiteness, and then, without my noticing at first, the whiteness turned more and
more into like sand.  And the sand, my friends, did sink down very mushy like and all up
between your toes.  
	I started thinking.  Its funny in a place like this, you know.  Things seem to happen
and unhappen without your much noticing or caring at first.  You kind of go on
automatic-like, and then you start to think, "When did this happen?"  
	We were now kneeling down by a large blue puddle.  (I think you can agree that
after all that endless walking we deserved a little drink.)  My throat was hot and dry, and
my sides ached with every breath.  We drank of the water until we almost thought that we
would very much throw up.
	As I walk along I can here the water swish around in my stomach.  I don't know
were my friend has gone.  I can hardly remember being with him.  Did I even catch his
name?  I guess I am supposed to meet him at that mountain.  Why are we even going
there?
	The mountain is nowhere in sight.  This is just great.  I feel that panic down in the
very pit of my stomach as I look around for something familiar.  There are just a whole lot
of numbers and writings.  Though they all should make sense, I can’t read.  I think it is all
written backwards.  Every time I almost figure out what it says, it drifts away.  If I only
had a few more minutes maybe I could figure this out . . .
	Now there is a loud buzz.  Now the letters and numbers scroll down faster until
they're a blur.  Now the green screen those characters were on is flashing red.  Panic is
now racing through the very being that is me.
	"Well, old friend.  Look's like you've really done it now, eh?"  The lanky boy has
sneaked up behind me once again, and I know I've that I met him before the whole
mountain thing came up.  If nothing else, I will find out who he is without his knowing
that I don't remember him like I should.
	"You hit that button, didn't you?"  I look down to see buttons before me that I
know never existed before.  "You hit all the wrong keys; well, we had better get out of
here before the guards get a snatch at us."
	We run through the halls.  Halls they are not, they are corridors, because they are
much lower and grayer than halls.  An alarm is still flashing.  A tone is sounding.  My
friend is only a few steps ahead of me when I am grabbed from behind.
	Nothing comes out.  I try again, but my voice doesn't work.  Cold tears streak
down my red cheeks, but my cry for help still only comes out as a strained whisper.  I'm
afraid of what is going to happen.  Why me?   How do I always get myself into these
messes?  What am I going to do?
	“What’s so freaking’ decadent about scampi?”  a man keeps repeating.  The room
is full of people -hot, sweaty people that are all dressed nicely.  I walk between the tables,
listening to parts of conversations and trying to pick up some kind of clues.
	“Yes, they will,” a thin boy with messy blond hair tells a dark-haired girl across the
table.
	“No, they can’t!”
	“I’m sure they will.  I mean, look at how technology is improving.”
	“There is a big difference in a magazine cover and feature-length movie.”
	“I’m not saying it would be a feature-length  movie.  I’m just saying, some day
they will be able to take all these little movie clips.  The clips will combine to make a big
picture.  It would be like a video collage.”
	“Well, I don’t think they’ll ever be able to do it.  It wouldn’t look right.”
	“You know how those old movies have little like flecks of dust or whatever in
them?  It might be like that, at least at first.  Maybe there would be some slight
discoloration, but I think they could do it.”
	The boy and girl are smiling, obviously it really doesn’t matter if we’ll be able to
make video collages in the future, so I walk around some more.
	“You see, first they gorge out the eyes.  Then, they chip away. . .”  There are two
guys and three girls sitting around a table, all of them in their early twenties. 
	“No, ice isn’t violent.  Ice wouldn’t gorge out their eyes even if they could,” one
girl says.
	“It’s just sick,”  I don’t want to hear any of it,” the second girl looks around
nervously.  
	“No, seriously, they are in this room somewhere.  It’s the revenge of the ice.  They
have been made into ice sculptures too long.  Now, they’re making sculptures out of some
unfortunate guests here.”
	“How do they do it?  What can you sculpt a person into?  A swan?”
	“Well, first they gorge out the eyes. . .”
	I stop listening because of what I’ve just seen.  Those green eyes are across the
room.  Those big, green eyes are looking across the big, white room in her little smiling
face and I catch them.  It is she, and she is here, and that is all that matters now.  Swishing
sounds come from her long, flowing white dress.  The dress matches her white teeth as
she walks toward me, smiling.  What an angel!  I hope against hope that she won’t drizzle away
this time.