Andre in Wonderland 03

To start from the beginning and see all chapters, click here.

I tried to look into the darkness, and even though I really concentrated I couldn’t see anything but black. It wasn’t like when you close your eyes and you can make yourself believe you can see things, I just couldn’t see anything. I couldn’t even make believe an image out there. So I just kept up my weightless walking.

At some point I had a thought. I came to the conclusion that since there had been something that I had to do, to get me out of the world I was living. Since I had to get my mind in a particular state to escape, perhaps I had to get my mind into a new state to find a different world. I just hoped I was going to find my wife and daughter there waiting for me. It suddenly seemed to me all I had done in effect was enough to escape the present. I needed to do something more if I was to continue this journey. I needed to think it through, think out this new reality.

It felt quite a responsibility. Where exactly would I like to go. What kind of new reality am I looking for? Have I left everything and everyone I knew behind forever? That was a thought that scared me. It was the first moment I understood the fear in this situqation since getting out. And here was the crux, that previous existence, had it all been in my head or had it been  interwoven with other people’s existences? Was there a way of interlocking everyone, yet keeping their relativity unique? Of course, it is an obvious question. A question that I couldn’t answer.

I was genuinely scared of having to think up a completely new existence. So I started running.

The impulse to run came and I just started doing it. I still couldn’t feel anything beneath my feet, but I could sense my arms and legs moving fast. I was running, I was sprinting, then I slowed a little and finally settled into a surprisingly fast jogging pace. I hadn’t run any distance since high school, but no matter, this was effortless. I could see an athlete in my mind gliding across a track, and it felt like that for me.

Then the blackness around me actually started to change.