Transcendence

NUMBNESS. That was all he had been experiencing for the last few days, thought it could have been weeks. There was little that bound him to the notion of time here, for each moment seemed not to flow to the next, but kept jumping erratically between different points in time. Even the notion of points in time seemed almost comical, implying that it had some semblance of a linear, sequential structure here. Here. How did he even end up in this... place? Space seemed to be an intrinsic lie, constantly forms were popping out of creases that unmade the seams of reality, only to fold back in on themselves, as if their own natures turned against them to rectify the perverted natural order of this un-place. He looked to what seemed to be down, hoping this time to see his body. But instead of a torso, arms and legs, there was what seemed like a ballroom of figures caught in the never-ending shape dance. He felt that the numbness was telling him a truth, that he had no body anymore. Still the lingering sense, that innate primal awareness of ourselves, told him that something was there. 

The numbness was a strange sensation. He could no longer tell if it was due to overexposure to extreme cold that robbed even the subatomic scale of the measure to do the merest action, or heat akin to the heart of a sun; searing his nerve endings faster than they could even send a pulse to his brain. Or was it the ultimate absence of sensation, the anathema of experience that gave shape to this utter deadness in his body? While physically he was a desiccated desert; on an emotional level he was a howling tempest. Each shape blooming before him gave rise to some emotion, like a esoteric bubble rising to the surface on a frothing witch's cauldron. Euphoria. Rage. Lust. Frustration. He felt each emotion with experience beyond description, his physical intangibility amplifying his psychic sensations, to the point that he almost felt them manifest in the next unfolding form. Just as each sensation grew with the bloom, reaching a incorporeal crescendo, it withered and dissipated from his consciousness, mixing back into the ethereal broth of the inactive mind. Each shape made a different sound, some like wind chimes clinging on a summer breeze and others more depressing, the song of a heart broken soul. Each one mixed with the next, creating a cacophonous harmony, both beautiful and horrible as well as too loud and too soft. He tried to listen to the sounds, but he just couldn't focus...

Focus. He had to focus. The endless spiral of one emotion to the next was taking him further from having a sound mind, almost as if the innate chaos of this place was beckoning him. "Chaosss..." The words crept with a wet slither into his mind. He looked around, but saw no solid presence around him. "I...like the word..." Once again the discarnate words simply came into his mind, as if they were merely another one of the emotions popping into existence. However, it left a lasting impression. An eerily warm spoor on his psyche, the mental equivalent of someone breathing down your neck. Who is there? he thought, though the act seemed foolish. Then again, nothing else here seemed to be anything but foolish, so acting like one might for once get what he needed. He waited for a response, but got nothing except for the unyielding primordial creation and destruction taking place around him. Was his sanity finally unraveling? He let out the mental substitution of a sigh, not having noticed his own unease and anxiety at the situation. He simply wanted to go home. Home. Finally, a tangible memory came to him and he felt relief. But just as the memory was starting to unwrap like a welcoming present, it started to fade, floating away from him on some wild aetheric tide. He screamed out in frustration, trying to will it back into his mind. He only managed to push it away farther, out of his reach completely. He felt anger coming up in his mind, and the cauldron started to blister and boil with this new overwhelming rage. As he started lashing out, new shapes formed and dissipated, giving shape to his unbound rage. Vibrant and rueful reds flashed from them, creating a heat haze around each shape in what seemed to be mockery of the normal laws of physical reality. As his rage started giving way, the reds turned to a more pacified purple, until settling on a somber blueish-gray. He now felt utterly numb, both physically and emotionally. Why was this place tormenting him so? Was there no escape from the endless change it rough? Change... The word seemed to echo in his mind, almost lingering... "Change... It is the way of this place..." Once again the words seemed to form in his mind from nothing, sourceless and sickeningly slimy, as if they clung to whichever thought they could. Who are you? What is this place? There was only the dreadful silence brought on by his outburst, the sounds and shapes vanished like frightened children. Is this some Hell or Purgatory in which I am to be forever? he sent out with his thoughts, hoping he fared better this time. "You are in no unfamiliar place, you are where you have always been. You are only finally aware of it." He felt the first physical sensation in a long time, and it utterly horrified him. What he first felt was the thawing of his body from the icy deadness that held it and then suddenly a cold shiver up his spine, as if some frozen reptilian had darted along it, seeking heat to warm itself by. "As for who I am, I cannot answer. I am beyond one form, beyond being encapsulated by one term. Naming me is about as useful as catching wind and still thinking it would howl when you released it..." He was frantically looking for the source of the words, seeking some formless maw in the void that might be spewing them. "But... There is one word that might work. I have gone beyond form and shape, for I am both the shifting sands in the hourglass and glazed grains that make the glass. I am... Transcendence."

To be continued...