The Dark Side Of The Wall

From a far off distance, a band of travelers slowly materialized in the shimmering desert air. I couldn't tell who they were, but the sight tapped something deep within my brain, taking me back to my childhood. I was feeling like I was five years old again, and things were very confusing and complicated. It was like I was floating in this little five year old bubble that had yet been penetrated by the sharp realities of the real world. I was floating in a little plastic bubble of air in the deep black sea, just flowing in the current of the ocean, little pieces of plankton and the occasional fish just swimming by. So much was outside of my bubble, the rest of the deep, blue, mysterious sea; all the way down were the darkest depths of the earth, all of God's secrets, all of the spare parts from the construction of the Universe hidden there. When I was five, all that there were was rabbits and running around in circles. Childhood was a beautiful, wonderful thing. When I finally came to, I found myself strapped down onto a cold grey marble slab of a table, somewhere in a deep underground chamber, surrounded by many high-tech sophisticated machinery. I knew it was underground because it was dark, and this was the only way such dimness could be achieved this far out into the desert. I was on a surgeon's table in some makeshift hospital in the cool dirt-packed bowels of the earth. I tried to make my escape but realized that my wrists and ankles had been strapped down by leather belts on the marble slab. The machinery was hooked up to my brain, I suddenly realized. The moment I noticed this however, a deep, searing pain went bursting through my head, splitting my mind open and allowing thoughts and memories to just drift up out of the chasm like an ethereal ghost, echoing away with evil, maniacal laughter. I was lost on an empty, lonely highway in a thunderstorm, with no cars in sight. My shoes echoed dully on the asphalt of the road. I was dripping, sopping wet. And then a bell rang from far away and I suddenly awoke, in my bed. It had all been a crazy dream. I could hear my watch ticking now. Everything was back to normal. But I still felt a bit creeped out, like everything that had happened had been just a little bit too real for comfort. But time appeared to be continuing to go forward, so I went with it. I wasn't in the desert anymore, not in an underground chamber, not anywhere less normal than my very own bed in my very own house in San Bernardino, California. I got up and stumbled slowly into the bathroom to pee. It felt good; it felt like I had been holding that one for a while. I washed my hands carefully with soap, and then made my way into the kitchen to cook something absolutely plain and boring and mundane, like eggs and toast and a glass of orange juice, which I had just woken up craving rather badly. Time continued to pass as usual. The eggs were sizzling on the pan. I turned on the television. This was such a normal morning. It was... too normal. After the eggs popped and crackled for a while, I scooped them onto a plate with my toast, and poured myself a glass of orange juice. I took a seat on the couch in the front of the TV. I liked sandwiching the eggs inside the pieces of toast, like an egg sandwich, but this morning I thought I'd go with fork. Honestly, how normal could this morning have been? I wasn't even reading the newspaper, that would have been a little too 1950's. No, I was watching TV, so normal, in such a normal kitchen, such a normal breakfast. I was the epitome of the American Dream. What was I doing dreaming of the desert like that, with assassins on camels? And then I felt it. It was ever so slight, but I felt it jerk at me just a little. Time had slown down just a tiny bit. They couldn't hide that one from me. I was way too sensitive to not have felt that. I felt that sudden change in acceleration. I felt time slow down for that instant. I felt the jerk. It was impossible to prove now, of course, since all of time had slown down, all of our abilities and instruments to measure time would have slowed down too. So I could never prove it. But I knew it happened. I knew they were there, behind the green curtain, controlling everything. I knew and I had to find a way to get out, to fight them to the death, to release us from this brain-warping time trap. I resolved quietly to myself in the kitchen that I would become the hero. I would save the world if it meant the tragic loss of my own life. I would be that kind of hero if I had to be. Of course, I'd prefer to be the kind that survives and has a charming smile and gets to go on the Rosie O'Donnell show, before it got cancelled because she's a lesbian. I could see my glory now, shining up from magazine cover to magazine cover. Time, Newsweek, People: they were all in the fold, trying to make money off of my brilliant domination of life. I would be an inspiration for the way I just took life and made it my own, just dominated it in every aspect. They knew this idea would appeal well to the American psyche, and they knew they could make a lot of money off of this brilliant idea. Everybody would be all about the money. That was the drawback to being a hero today in this kitchen, I decided. I didn't want to get all entangled in that world of big deals, negotiations, spying, espionage, black mail, black market, secret gifts, secret enemies, Swiss bank accounts, and other bullshit. That was so Hollywood, man. That was so the people that actually decided to make a Blade III movie. Somebody actually got paid to write that piece of horseshit? That's really hard to believe, and even harder to accept. This was a world full of glitz and glamor, but with nothing else underneath to show for it. I couldn't deal with a materialistic, money-driven world like that. John Lennon is an inspiration. W.W.J.L.D.? He would not let corporations take over the world, destroying nations, destroying people. I resolved now in that kitchen, instead, to fight the big evil corporations. I'd be Ralph Nader with an attitude. I would be the famouse whistle-blower who improved the state of our society was a whole. I'd find the moral blind spots in our generation and point them out. Money is such a crime. American society is so incredibly selfish. I can't take it. So I sat there in my kitchen vowing to destroy capitalism and the evil corporations, to abolish money and property and power. It was time for a better time. I would be the champion. I'd be Marx, Lenin, LBJ. The world would be glorious, and there wouldn't be dumb voices insisting on talking anymore. I got into my car and decided to stop by church that morning. I hadn't been in a while. The cathedral was beautiful. It felt a little eerie to back here after not having been back for so long. I felt out of place in my own home. I relaxed as much as I could. It wasn't so much about us and them inside the beautiful shelter and quiet sanctity of the church. We were all just ordinary men. Ordinary men. I couldn't get over the fact that an hour ago I had been determined to become a hero, even if it made me a martyr. The power of it all hit me like a crashing wave, loud in my ears and intense in my face. We were all ordinary men with our own little busy lives, scurrying around like so many clueless ants under the great big star-studded black sky, under all of outer space, under the entire Universe, up and down, everywhere. People don't realize there isn't a start and a finish, no beginning and end, there is only round and round and round and round. That's all there is to the life of an ordinary man. But in it itself is also a certain glory, the glory of the ant, the glory of steadfast purpose in a confusing, sometimes meaningful, sometimes ludicrous world. We could handle it. We knew what we had to do. We had our tasks and we lived peacefully and simply, as much as Thoreau would have wanted. To be an ordinary man is to be blessed. I could feel how thirsty I was all of a sudden. I got up from my desk at the cubicle and walked over to the water cooler. There was nobody there to have a water cooler conversation with. I liked talking with people at the water cooler. It was fun. All the rebellious workers all hung out there together, silently complaining about how boring the job was. The water cooler was truly a refreshing experience in more ways thatn one everytime I walked over to it. This time, however, nobody was at the water cooler. I was all alone in my purposeful shirking of responsibility. It seemed like everyone else was keeping busy. That was when time suddenly jerked again. I felt it again, the same as before. Things were definitely slowing down. Who was behind this? Was this aliens? The people behind the Matrix? God? What exactly was I facing here? And how was it so omnipotent that it could even control time for me and all the rest of humanity? Was time really just an invention? Was there really no such thing as 3-dimensional space moving linearly through time? Was it all just all there at once, all of time, from beginning of existence to the end of all ends, all wrapped around itself in a closed bubble, was that all there was to it, everything, everywhere, that ever happend and ever will, and us just stuck in the constantly rolling and changing middle? Time was an invention indeed. It was a conveyor belt, a spinning hamster wheel we kept running over and over in, thinking we were making new ground when in fact we weren't moving anywhere. Because it was all already there and will always already be there all at once all the time, forever. I began to slowly accept this theory. I stopped worrying about time. Time was an invention of our feeble minds, which were unable to grasp the implications of a fourth dimension physically expanding outward into the past and future forever and ever, curling and rolling into and unto itself like a Mobius strip. Such was the nature of infinity, of eternity. I closed my eyes and stopped within time to simply enjoy this realization. I raised my arms up into an embrace, and enveloped time into my arms, like a giant puffy cloud. I could hear good-natured laughter echoing in the background. I had taken a plot of time like it was so much cotton candy, and eaten it, asking for more from the unceasing cotton candy machine. I could do it now. I could explore all of time everywhere. I was master of it. I was master of this invention. I was master of my own mind. I could see through everything. The reason they kept jerking around with time was because they wanted to. And they could. As easy as moving an ashtray across a coffee table. Maybe they were just trying to conserve some time somewhere else for something else. There was nothing else to say at this point. I had solved all of life's mysteries. What else was left for more? I had solved time, my heroism, my martyrdom. I had solved all that I had ever encountered ever, by marginalizing it into the context of the flatness and immutability of time as a plane, not a line. Things were great. I finally went back to sleep and had the dream about the travelers on the desert horizon. They were bandits. They were coming for me. They were getting closer, and closer, and closer. I could see their dark faces descend over mine, casting my figure in shadow. They edged closer and closer, enveloping me in their black cloaks. I disappeared into the air with them, without even a flutter. And so lay a patch of empty desert ground.