The Intrusion

Thirty-Four

(Thursday, March 22, 2018)

[Andy]

I think I'm having a moment of clarity.

It's like when you've been underwater and can almost see but not quite. Everything is shapes and colors refracted in different directions. But then, you rise above the surface and blink. You can finally see.

That's what this feels like.

It's 11am, and I have the worst hangover of my life.

Maybe, this whole time, I've been looking at all this the wrong way. I've been asking myself how? How is it possible? How did this happen? I've been spending so much time thinking about that, but I'm not sure if there is an answer to that question, or at least not an answer I'm ever going to find.

Maybe, the more important question is "why."

Why is this happening to me. Why is it happening to us.

There's got to be a reason for it. There are no such thing as coincidences, and nothing is random. Everything has a purpose. Everything has a reason.

I've been wondering about the state of the Universe. I've been wondering if everything is all predetermined, ever since the origin of the world. If everything influences everything else and it's all cause and effect, is everything already decided at the moment of inception? We're all just watching it play out.

We think we are making choices, but all these choices are predetermined by the factors that go into them. Every decision  is based off of two things:

1. Our past experiences

2. The nature of who we are

If you were to deconstruct the whole problem it would look like one of those giant math equations on a chalkboard of an advanced calculus course at some University in the movies. It's complex, but there is an answer, and if you look at the problem in the right light, you can see it.

I just need to find the right light.

To be honest, I don't think I agree with that. It's an over simplification. I've got to think that we have at least some power in all of this.

What this keeps bringing me back to is the fact that I have a decision to make, and I don't know what I'm going to do.

The more I think about it, the more I am thinking that there has to be a reason for all this happening. If this has always been what's meant to happen, then where does that leave me? 

That still doesn't tell me what I'm supposed to do about all this, all it tells me is I am supposed to do something.

I'm scared of what that something might be.

I've got to stop all this thinking.

My mind is floating, like it is miles above my head. I stretch my arms out and try to reach my thoughts, but they keep escaping. I'm covered in a heavy, slick of cooking oil and melted wax, but I kind of like it. It's thrilling, like an out-of-body experience.

Speaking of out-of-body experiences, I don't think Jordan slept last night.

You want to know why I think that?

I had the strangest dream last night.

In my dream (although to be honest, at this point I'm pretty sure it wasn't really a dream) I became the spirit walker. I left my apartment and went down the stairs to the lobby just like before, but this time when I finally got to the bottom and hit the call button on Jordan's elevator, the elevator never came.

I waited and waited. I kept pushing the button, but still nothing happened.

So I left the building.

I walked through the city. All the buildings around me were filled with light and colors. They glowed and glistened like I imagine the northern lights would.

In front of me, I saw a girl, frozen in place.

Paralyzed.

Even though she couldn't move, I could tell she could see me. Her face was a shadow, but somehow I still knew who she was, and I knew that her eyes were locked with mine.

I walked towards her. As I got closer, everything around me accelerated until it was like I was moving as quickly as a train. The ground moved beneath me, but it didn't propel me forward. Instead, everything pulled away. The buildings flew by like streaks of light and color. Right as I was about to reach the girl, she evaporated into nothing.

I'm going through a tunnel.

When I emerged from that tunnel made by the buildings, and the road, and the sky and all the light in the world, I was in a forest—a ravine. A ravine so deep I couldn't see my way out. It stretched on and on until my vision gave out in grayness, like throwing a stone up and it reaching the arc where gravity pulls it back down. The planet I stood on had grown and grown and grown, expanding until its gravity became so great that not even light could escape.

A black hole.

I was in a black hole.

Leaves crinkled under my feet as I walked. The ground had finally stopped moving and everything was still. The moment was frozen in time. I was in a photo—a paused movie. Maybe everything was too scared to move because if it moved, the equilibrium would be broken and the entire planet would collapse in on itself because of the extreme gravity of it all.

Eventually, I reached a tree. Steps lead up its trunk, so I knew I had to climb it.

I climbed, and I climbed and I climbed. Below me, the ground stretched further and further away. I had to be getting closer to the top, but I still couldn't see it. I knew what I would find there anyway, so it didn't matter. I knew what would be waiting for me.

I kept climbing anyway.

Finally, I did reach the top—the treehouse.

It was ancient, damp and decaying like it had been there for ten-thousand years, but I think longer than that really, because it had always been there—forever.

Sitting in the treehouse was a doll.

I picked her up.

And then I dropped her.

And then I woke up.