Spirals

tea party

~~~

It has been some time between the last spiral and the one that I have just recovered from. Thankfully, this one was not as nightmarish, albeit confusing.

I awoke nauseous and disoriented, surrounded by wooden shards and washed up on a grassy hill by what appeared to be a sea of sand. I stood halfway, holding my knees in my sickness, and observed my minimal surroundings. Behind me lay an endless sea of fine sand, flattened, blending into the dark horizon. Ahead of me were dozens and dozens of rolling green hills, with shortened grass as far as the eye could see. The sky was murky and stuffed with thin clouds. A strong, cold wind shook the grass and evoked a shiver from me.

I was alone.

For a moment, I stood, clueless as to how I should escape this spiral, and slightly tired from the feeling of absolute solitude. Then, in wary remembrance, I looked at my upper arm, and stared at the cavities that the being gave me. They were still filled with the black matter. They were still cold to the touch. The skin around them felt numb now, and, upon noticing this, I also began to feel numb, as if the gaping wounds controlled me. I felt numb, yes, and I felt empty, more or less, but somewhere in my throat I felt a faint—very faint—inkling of hunger.

The feeling was foreign. I didn't want food.

The wind picked up again and beat against my back, tipping me forward. I shook my head in a vain attempt to clear it and began to ascend the hill ahead of me.

The hill was much taller than I anticipated. I do not consider myself a physically weak person, yet multiple times I had to rest. The top of the hill only inched closer as the bottom faded out of sight, and I lost track of time under the unchanging sky. Even though the world around me lay open and untamed, the utter isolation combined with the wind's unforgiving chill made the environment feel like a punishment, or a state of limbo at best.

Eventually, however, I arrived, and I got a perfect view of the endless rolling hills and the sea of fine sand. Even so, the view meant nothing to me; I already knew what I was going to see, and it did not change the fact that, ultimately, I was stuck.

I sat.

And then the hill began to vibrate.

I felt a sinking feeling in my stomach, and the ground in the distance slowly grew closer. Oddly, the hill began to lose its elevation, gradually flattening until it was level with the ground, yet sinking further and further, shaking me the entire way, until the top of the hill that I had sat on was now the lowest point of a deep, grassy crater, where the ground had risen moderately on every side of me.

The wind could not reach me here.

In an instant, the sky cleared and brightened, and a thick, patchwork quilt appeared beneath me. Somewhere far away, a drifty voice called out, and, in the distance, I saw a figure running down the inverted hill. They made it halfway before losing their balance, and I watched in dazed amusement as they tumbled the rest of the way, all the way to the quilt.

The figure was a little girl. She wore a puffy, ruffled pink dress and a fancy, rounded blue hat adorned with white ribbons and yellow flowers. Despite her awkward trip down the hill, she straightened herself with such dignity that I felt both impressed with her manners and insufficient with my own.

HELLO! she said. A teapot appeared between us, surrounded by eloquent little teacups on vintage saucers. She gracefully poured herself a cup and held it still beneath her lips.

HELP YOURSELF! HOW ARE YOU? She took a sip, watching me.

"I'm... okay." I suddenly felt out of place, unaware, firstly, of the manners expected in drinking tea, but moreover uncomfortable at the prospect of smalltalk and formalities in such a lawless dimension.