He awoke in a bed positioned with its headstock along the middle of a wall. The room was not really a cube, however each of the walls, roof and floor where of completely equal area and shape. Squared with rounded corners and edges, so that no single wall, roof or floor could be told apart were one to flip the room on its side – or that would be the case if not for the few pieces of furniture, and a rectangular door in a dark burgundy colour with a silver-coloured steel handle which presented itself as a lifeline among the otherwise painfully rounded interior. To the left of the bed, seen from the perspective of a person laying in it staring at the roof, there was a tabletop shaped somewhat like a cloud resting on a base that looked like an oblong rock positioned on its side, all in a light blue colour. The table stood on the floor which, along with the walls and roof, looked like the inside of a birch log. He got the sneaking feeling that this was a home and that he was in it. Close to what couldn’t really be considered a left corner of the room, seen from the perspective of a person standing at the foot end of the bed with his back turned to said bed, was an egg-shaped cupboard, same colour as the table with a copper coloured handle, though the cupboard had no discernible crack for him to see how it would open were he to pull said handle any which way. There was no other furniture, and he found he really only held interest in the door, placed near what couldn’t really be considered a left corner seen from the perspective of a person who has placed his feet on the right side of the bed and stood up, seen from the perspective of a person laying in the bed staring at the roof. He realised there was no efficient way of orienting himself in the room, so he hurled himself towards the door the same way a person would bend over the toilet to relieve himself of sickness. He grabbed the handle and flung the door forwards to open.
He found himself in a hallway, in front of him was a window through which he could see three layers of blue mountains on the other side of what could either be a very large lake, or part of the ocean. Along the shore on his side ran a seemingly old, rusted, train track. From the window all the way to the train track there was green slightly yellowed cut grass with what looked like oak forest on both the left and right side, like walls delimiting a grand walkway for some mythical giant he half expected to leap from behind one of the mountain layers, he estimated the lawn to be 200 meters across, and 400 meters from the window to the train tracks. Almost perfectly in the middle of the otherwise plain lawn, he saw a single bench with what appeared to be a black metallic frame supporting oak-coloured planks. It was difficult to separate from the colour of the yellowed grass. The back of the bench was turned to him, and he knew he needed to sit there – it was the only thing he felt certain of.
He decided to turn left in the hallway, walking towards a staircase leading down to what he assumed would be an entrance hall. He passed doors that all appeared older than everything else, as if the whole building had been reworked, and the doors where somehow spared. He also realised that they were the only construct in sight to have clear straight angles. Even the staircase had rounded corners and edges – it felt like he could fall anywhere and be completely fine, as if the potential for pain had vanished from his surroundings. He felt coddled by the interior. He was now facing what seemed a somewhat ordinary reception area.
There was a man sitting behind a glass-pane on the right side, he seemed strangely unapproachable for a receptionist. To the right was a sofa group inhabited by a woman reading what looked like a magazine for potted plants. He wanted to approach her to get his bearings before confronting the silent receptionist. However, while observing all this, he had failed to consider himself – struck by this sudden realisation he placed his palm on his face and proceeded to slowly let it run from the bottom of his chin over his forehead, all the way to the back of his neck. As his hand travelled, he realised that his hair was partially shaved to make way for a scar running roughly 5 centimetres across from forehead towards his right ear. On each side of the scar, he could feel his skin tapering down into it, forming an ever so slight ravine. He thought little of it. He also realised he was wearing a single kirtle-like garment, with white fabric, covered in little light-blue rubber dots, evenly spaced apart, making the whole garment appear slightly blue. He was still in the room, though his mind had floated out, searching for some sort of answer to exactly what was going on.
Before his mind could return, the woman looked up at him and said rather casually:
“I see you’ve woken up?” She seemed disinterested. His mind snapped back – his appearance could impossibly provoke such a lack of interest he thought to himself.
“Yes” he muttered, avoiding further epistemological wonderments as to what being awake really means. He felt frustration boiling inside him, seeing as he barely knew anything about himself or his surroundings, yet he was suddenly beholden to this woman’s potential inquisition into his being. “So”, he retorted, “may I ask your name?” This conversation felt unnatural.
“Meta, what’s yours?” she held complete power over reality and was mercilessly seeking out any information he could give, offering little of value in return. He knew his name was
“Edvin.”
I looked down at my hands as I said it, it felt as if I had dropped something. As if I had shared something which never should have been shared. The word had got out, and I now held complete responsibility for it. I felt blood rushing to my face, pumping one-second-intervals of pain into my scar. My back, underarm and neck felt like needles, as if I was supposed to sweat but lacked the water to donate even a drop of release.
“You wouldn’t happen to know what time it is?” I said in an attempt to quell the silence that had followed my name.
“Ten – oh – oh” she appeared satisfied simply from the level of precision. I had nothing which could verify whether she was telling the truth. However, I wanted to know more about time. I neither knew when this was happening or where I was.
“And date?” She twisted her whole body towards me, as if I had finally caught her interest.
“Around here we consider it to be the 20th of summer” she spouted authoritatively, as if waiting for me to utter some kind of protest.
“And year?” I muttered, feeling like I’d somehow gone too far. She sat quiet and I could see her face attempting to find an expression somewhere between offense, fear, and surprise.
“What do you mean?” her voice was sharp.
“Eh-no,” I blurted, “I’m just struggling to remember.” She was studying my face intently before answering.
“Given that I just told you that I consider it to be the 20th of summer you already know where I stand,” she started, “However since you keep pestering me with these questions of time I can only assume you’ve either completely lost your head, or are seeking for some kind of disagreement about reality,” she continued. “I consider the most reasonable time to be Ten – oh – one, the 20th of summer, year 87” she finished, turning to the side and burrowing her nose into the magazine with such force that she almost fell out of the sofa. This conversation is over, I thought, casting another glance across the room towards the man behind the glass wall.
I walked across the floor towards the man, who now held his glance fixed on my collarbones, as if I was a plant he had just accidentally laid his eyes on while his thoughts drifted. He glanced at my face as if it was an afterthought.
“Yes?” he said, his blank expression now infecting me with his indifference.
“I just came from my room” I said, in an attempt to seem learned in the ways of this place.
“Yes, I suppose that would be an apt description, your room,” His whole expression changed as he nearly interrupted me “however I must say that I’m not used to you people ascribing anything to be in possession.” His gaze was now ransacking my being for answers to the conundrum he had drummed up for himself. I wanted to protest that I in no way felt a part of a people at present, however I was tired of divulging information. However, this man seemed particularly talkative, something in which I wanted to exploit.
“Well, you see I wanted to know how I could get to the park,” I said.
“Oh, now that’s more like a Tertiary,” he smiled and practically sang on “always in search of freedom” as if he was attempting to conjure up some sort of long-lost romantic ballad for a mystical group of folk heroes. I felt further disenfranchised by this, given that my current appearance in no way would corroborate my being a part of such a group.
“If you say so,” I muttered, “but where should I go?”
“Out the door, naturally” he quipped, “then take to the right and follow the path going along the building until you reach the park” he sang on, before pausing. “Oh, I suppose you want your clothes” he said, humouring himself. “You can view the selection in the wardrobe” he pointed towards an oval door to the left of the glass wall. Another soft shape, making me somewhat nauseous, however I decided that going in and equipping myself with respectable clothes would be better than staying here. I decided I’d never return to what I had now concluded was some sort of hotel.
In the wardrobe there where two long rows of coat hangers, they seemed unorganised and randomly placed. If one were to direct ones gaze towards a section along a row, one would for example find the sequence: sock, jacket, underpants, jacket, coat, sock, sock, a pair of socks of different size, pants, sweater, sock, T-shirt, a pair of angel wings, and a pretied tie. I needn’t go in detail; however, the colour-scheme was unexpected. Someone had taken great care to make this wardrobe inconvenient. I finally found a pair of dark blue socks, red underpants, dark grey pants, a light blue T-shirt, a grey button-up-shirt in cotton, and a pair of navy-blue sneakers, got dressed and jogged out the door to the sound of a cheerful
“Goodbye!”
Staten Morbid 