Suddenly I awoke, the screens had gone blank. I turn on the oscilloscope and reattach the electrodes. A short woman stood in the centre of the crowded lecture hall and paused her speech in such a way that the dialogue became somehow ethereal. That's what woke me up, now I've come to rest on this plane of existence. Waves of sadness become an ocean of numbness, only the mechanical sounds of electro interject with the occasional crackle of vinyl. “Hold your hand over the fire for as long as you can”, it seemed like a good idea at the time. An old VHS tape is playing, a timer on the screen is counting down. Surrounded by digital information, I can never stop, trapped in an ice field on some distant planet server. At the end of the corridor a room with a small safety glass window stands with sophisticated looking locks, in the centre of the room is a human brain connected to thousands of tiny wires, on the side of it's case is an on/off switch. I can't get in but I want to switch it off desperately, so much that I hurt my hands trying to break the door. The minimal beat loops round in the background with scientific rigidity, I am no longer sure if the corridor is real. Outside the world crumbles into dust. Struck by pain in my side I try and return to my previous life, I sat passing out in the back as the blood drips down onto the steps. The lecture continues: “The metaphysical unit becomes... engrained in the submatrix as you can see in this diagram. A change in ideology allows the life force to shift in and out of temporal fields. If you-”. Suddenly one of the audience bolted upright and shouted “I AM A PURE ENTITY, AND I WON'T BE COERCED INTO THIS MADNESS” and promptly ran for the exit.
|