What was the first thing your eyes see when you opened them? I saw darkness everywhere, surrounding me from all directions. In the first moments of my awareness of the sense of vision, my heart sank in terror – the darkness that enveloped me reinforced my thought that I had become blind. I began to believe the endless blackness would be the only thing I would see all my life. I soon discovered the rest of my senses:
I heard the dead silence, I smelled the void, my fingers tickled by the touch of my soft skin. All these meant to ease the burn of my existential questions.
After I was clear above any shadow of a doubt that I truly... was, I began to scan the environment in my eyes. To my great surprise, somewhere in the darkness, almost invisible, a small orange light burst. I strained to focus on this light, but it was too far away. I wondered if I could get there somehow, and looked down to see if existence had provided me with appropriate equipment to accomplish the task. Nothing – my body seemed to have been cut under my navel, and my split body seemed to float by itself. Anger filled my body with an inner warmth. The dim light was there only to tease me! Is this why I appeared here? To float forever in nothing, unable to move, while watching a light I could never reach?
Suddenly, the orange light, which was so far away from me, was right in front of me. The thought and strong desire to approach the light fulfilled themselves as magic. The light came from small gray stones in a heap, surrounded by an orange halo. These embers, like myself, were floating in the air, with nothing beneath to hold it. A dying fire rose from the embers, dancing and spreading moderate heat in her plea to live. I looked at the fire with curiosity as millions of questions were crossing my mind.
I craved for answers, but there was no one around to supply them.
For the first time since I appeared here, I was introduced to being alone.
Maybe I should communicate with the environment, show my presence...
"Hey!" I screamed full throttle into the darkness. The scream died away as fast as it came.
"I am!" I tried again.
This time an answer came. On the other side of the fire, right in front of me, silvery smoke exploded in silence and faded into the darkness.
A baby revealed beyond the smoke, his upper half floats on its own.
His eyes were closed and his hands crossed over his chest. I watched breathlessly in the weak light of the fire between us flickering on his face. I was excited by the fact that something like me had come here. I was no longer alone.
The baby opened his eyes slowly, his pupils focusing directly at mine, piercing them. I could feel him groping in the fog of existence, as I had until recently. He discovered his senses and, like myself, made sure he is there. I opened my mouth to speak once he finished his self-tests, but could not. Another silvery smoke exploded, popping another baby into this place. And another one, and again. The rate increased rapidly, until dozens of confused babies surrounded the small fire. Murmurs began to stir in the confused crowd of babies. Every baby looked at his sides, searching for answers in the eyes of his neighbors.
"What is this place?" one of the babies asked in a soft voice.
"Are we real?" another baby, female, asked from the other side of the fire.
The noise around the fire increased. Conversations mingled, and the noise grew louder with every discussion. Every question was worthy of being heard, and the interlocutors believed that speaking loudly and shouting would sum up the other noises and turn the crowd's attention to them.
"Quiet!!!" I finally shouted, irritated by the deafening volume.
The noises and yells died quickly as everyone looked for the one who dared to silence them with his impertinence. I tried to use the same magic that had summoned me to the fire – I imagined myself in the center of the circle, and a moment later, dozens pairs of eyes were staring at me as I floated above the scorched embers.
