Jack woke up and found himself sitting on a couch in a room with no furniture except for few pictures hang on the walls. A door oposite him with a sentence said “Welcome to Vertigo Zone”. He glared around, asking himself where the hell he was. The last thing Jack could remember was when he had some booze at the nightclub. Might be he was drunk to much. He wondered if he had done something crazy like flirted with girls on the bar. All of those chitchat if with no interfere can lead to the scene he wakes up at some hotel. But no, this room not looked like a place guys and girls could make love with each other. So he drived to another possibility that someone nice enough had picked him up, before he gone totally drunk and started done shit. He will say thank you. And if it ws a girl, he would kiss her passionately.
He opened the door with discomfort pushed. At the right moment he heard a sound “click” , Jack could sense a cold breeze flashed through him. The coldness soon to faded when the door is widely opened, replaced by the uttermost emptiness and hollow of the space outside. Before his eyes was a narrow street with the row of houses that glued next to each other. There were some lambposts on the pavement with weak light. No signs of inhabitant on those houses. Jack steped along the road, searching for help. But he was just absolute alone. Litteraly no one stayed here.
The street, which turned out had a lot of cross ways. All of them connected together to made a labyrinth-like map. The more he went, the more he felt lost. Jack took out a phone intended to call someone……. friends, partners, whoever was not important. Sadly, all of what he got was the long and sorrow sound with no sign of response. That moment he concioused of his helpless situation, got lost on the place he unfamiliar with no chance of escape.
He took the left at corner, walked for few more steps to found another crosses. Jack kept going and decided to turned right at the fourth intersection. He didn’t know why he had that choice, just done it without knowing what he doing. Only to found a hopeless answer with other directions. In despair he tried to ran through the street. All of the houses were like the same. Jack imagined himself struck on a special repetitive space, where he ran around and returned to the old spot.
For more than hour runed and breathed, he could sense the perspiration ran across his back. Not because of exhausted, but the hunch of lost had possessed him. “I will never get out of here”; “Everything is over”; All of negative thoughts circled around Jack, twisted his soul and body. He felt sore in both of the foot that had ran too much and of his gut. Fear and hopeless made him got pain. It made him remembered on a day when he just 8. He stayed in a kitchen with his mother. A phone rang and his mom ran out of room, only Jack and the boiling kettle left there. He busied with his puzzle game and paid no attention everything around. A sound of kettle when reached maximum of heat in the imagination of one kid could compare to the howl of agony spectre. It longed for more than 10 seconds. But that 10 seconds is like an infinite nightmare with 8 years old boy. When his mother came back, turned off the kitchen, sound of kettle was soon to faded. She saw Jack hided below the table, shaked to his core. His colorless face told it all.
“What happened, Jackie? What are you doing there?”
“Is it gone, mommy?” He asked.
“What’s gone, Jackie?”
“That monster, it there, right there on the kitchen. Can you see it mom? Can you see it ?” He said, pointe to the white vapor released from the hot kettle. The vapor started to faded to thin air.
It was a ridiculous childhood story. But with him it still remained somewhat terrifying. For the first time ever Jack understood what was fear meant. When the moment you couldn’t rely on anything. Because anything you knew, you acknowledged are meaningless. The fear and insecure were the things had stolen all of your confidence, your virtue of thinking. Make you felt lost and faded into the darkness. Yet the story was not over there.
Jack knew he needed to took a rest. That it! He needed to calmed himself down and found the way to got out of here. This was not the end of the world. He was not a 8 years old child to be feared by the boiling kettle. He now 25 and was having a life. All he had to do was relaxed and recovered himself. He went to the nearest house and tried to opened a door. It locked! So he tried another one. All of them is locked! There was no light inside. He sat on the road with his back against a concrete wall. Jack got thirsty but didn’t have anything to drank.
His mind was starting to gone dizzy and drove him to the memory of the night before. Why he drunk? That a funny question. The story was began when he got fire from his job for irresponsibility. The promised salary and bright future came to dead end with two words only “You fired!”. And Jack didn’t get any oral statement from his executive. Jack found a letter from his desk. The context was simple and short with extreme formality. Polited enough to gave him a word without showed face. What an asshole!
Negative thinking surely was not the thing he needed. Unfortunately, all of any idea that ran across his mind right now were absurd and desperate feeling. Jack was a kind like that, he was never good at enthusiasm. He kept staying on the spot and the surge of drowsy soon to invaded him. Too tired for all of this mess, he let it be. His mind went blank and slowly fell to the big sleep. Enjoyed a nap like the award. For whatever pleasure it gave.
The moment when Jack opened his eyes, he was sitting on the chair and surrounding were bunch of people in black. Jack himself was in black too. A funeral was attending, several men who lifted a coffin to the grave. The mourning and grieve filled out the atmosphere. People cried, sobbed, lamented for a dead person whose his or her life was gone forever. To a deepness of the grave, followed with the bleak of the soil. All the dead waited was the riot to the smallest ashes, to became one with earth. And just like that, nothing more was happened. There was no reincarnation, no afterlife. Just an end to nothingness.
At least the thing we could do for the dead was our last glance on their lifeless body. A hard goodbye with no hope for reunion. Because there is no paradise, no hell, just the end. Jack stepped beside the coffin. All he could see was the unemotional face of decreased. But the facial colorless of the dead couldn’t stop Jack to recognized who was staying in that coffin. This was his mother, who had passed away 4 years ago. So what the meaning for all of this? All he observing was illusion of what happened in the past. Just as he thought he could find a temporary peacefulness in the sleep, now he had to resaw one of the saddest moment in his life.
Did you know this story is from Royal Road? Read the official version for free and support the author.
The illusion of funeral, even for how real of visual aspect, gave no impression for Jack. He sensed the emptiness on the mourners existence. He knew this was not real cause he was just dreaming it. The apprehension was none to be found except the feeling of lost. Funny thing was, for all of his life, he never sure about literally anything. He gave doubt with every event and occurrence throwed at him. The emotion he know is the truest, always and always is the feeling of lost. He lived on it and believed himself couldn’t exist without it.
Turned back to reality where he was staying on the road with desire for a drink. This time he saw from medium distance a light of bulb neon. It read “Wandering Pub”. Before he gone to sleep there was no bar or even active building and he never saw the light from them. He counted it’s the proof he wasn’t totally insane. There must be someone here who could help him out of this place. He was about running to a destination with the quickest speed. Took advantage from all of the effort and remained strength. It right there and couldn’t escape from him. He mumbled to himself to took only 1 minute to got to the bub. And then 1…..2……5……. minutes had passed. Jack couldn’t reach the place in time. It was in front of him but he couldn’t get it. Something prevented him to got to the destination. He realized the more he ran forward, the more space between him and the pub. It was running from him, stopped him to got what he wanted. Even a little drink to met his deserted throat’s demand or the key ticket to got out of this madness world. Both of that thing he failed to possessed. The hope left him and gave him no mercy but a promise of the despair was going hammered him down to the bottom of his existential crisis. No lamentation had been spoken out or any scream in anger. He murmured “Why, why?” The words kept repeating itself without end.
“ ‘Why’ is useless question in this place, young man.” He heard a voice, and it wasn’t his unconsciousness speaking. Someone was here and talked with him.
Jack turned back and saw one middle aged gentleman in the dark blue coat with a hat. The man made Jack recollected to some fictional detective he had read when just a kid. The man was sitting on the coach, drinking some red liquor on the crystal bottle.
“Who are you?” Jack asked, his eyes stayed focus on the gentleman drink than the man himself.
“The question is who are you?” The gentleman said.
“I’m asking you.”
“So I asking you back.”
“Just answer me.”
“You do first.”
“I am not kidding.” Jack said, felt annoyed.
“Who said you have to?” The gentleman said and chuckled .
“All right, you win.” Jack said “I am Jack, and I am lost in….”
“Wrong!” The gentleman said.
“But you asked me my name.”
“No, I want to know who are you not your name. Name is for tombstone, young man.”
“I think I don’t like your manner.” Jack said
“Well, I don’t care.” The gentlemen said “What you think about me I give a shit, I only want to know who are you?”
“Anyone around here but you?”
“Nope. Just me, you and this bottle.” The gentleman said, shrugged the bottle in front of him. He knew Jack’s weakness so well.
“If I answer correctly, can you give me that bottle?” Jack asked, tried to hide his extensively desire.
“Speak.”
Jack though for few seconds to found a proper answer. He couldn’t believe had to playing this “ask and answer” game with a man he first met, and Jack quite sure this guy had some problem with sanity.
“I really don’t know who am I.” Jack said “I don’t even know what I’m doing either. For few hours earlier I stay in the bar and enjoy life and now find myself be struck in here.” Every word just came out of his mouth so naturally.
“I accept that answer.” The gentleman said.
“So now can you award me?” Jack said. He sticked his eyes on a bottle.
“Hold on, I want you to answer one more question.” The gentleman said. He stood up and stepped opposite to Jack “If you have to choose, you want to get out of here and come back to your society. Or you want to stay back forever in this Vertigo Zone?”
“Are you nut? Of course I want to get the hell out of here.” Jack said, he showed his anger on each word he said.
“Do you sure about that? To get out of here it means you have to return to your old life. Where you find nothing but despair and sadness. Think carefully, Jackie!”
“What do you know about my life, old man?” Jack said.
“Oh, of course I know. I know everything about you. Your mother, your job, your solitary status. Your view of this nonsense world. That not the reason you come here, to this Vertigo Zone?”
“Who are you really?”
“Just answer me, young man. And I will give you what you want.” The gentleman said, kept shaking the bottle as a temptation.
Is the life really worth to live? Or it just another hell for all of people live inside it day by day. Just like this Vertigo Zone. Like two side of the same coin. Whichever side you choose to live, you still have to suffer. And to live is always is to suffer.
“I want to live but also have to admit the absurd and meaningless of my life. It like an infinitive wheel which never be stopped. We can’t never be absolute happy.”
“I see you are arguing with yourself. You need to concentrate and observe deeper. Then you will find an answer.” The gentleman said.
Jack once again came back to his childhood. When he still an young boy and his mother was still around. On his birthday, his father had given him present a Lego model of military helicopter. It was a happy event of his life. For some reason when he grew up that memory had slipped out of his mind. He never mentioned or remembered it once again. Yet it still existed, at least in his imagination. That made him questioned for the events in his life, all of what he recollected were the bad ones. While the happy memories were stored in the dirty corners and shady shelf of his mind palace. He had chosen to hide it rather than to showed it.
The time was forwarding to when he was a teenager. He remembered this was time the time he decided to became a barista. That choice appeared on him while he saw a coffee maker at the café shop near his home. The skill, movement of a doer was so smooth and incredible. He had tried to became one. Unfortunately, it was just a temporary dream. He remembered he had dropped a “dream” when he couln’t make a successful Cappuccino at his 5th time of practiced. Of course then he kept continuing for his short time vows. And all of them ended up badly. The sad truth why he couldn’t become a barista was not because he couldn’t make a prober cup of Cappuccino. Cause he had decided to stopped trying. Everything is just work when we really put our hand on a job.
A next stop of memory trip when he was studying in university. He had attracted to a lovely classmate girl at this time. For few months of self nervous and doubtful, Jack never said frank to her his feeling. And the consequence? After graduation she engaged with a guy who was studying with her for 5 years. It made Jack wondered if he had confessed his affection for her, what an answer of future would be? Maybe she won’t marry him. Maybe she won’t become his girlfriend. At least he could make the girl became his friend, a part of his memory. But no, he decided to not trying. And his life became meaningless. All of this meaningless was because of him. It true that for how harder we tried, life was still hard and sometime it could blow straight in your face without warning. We had to kept trying. Because it the only way to lived in an absurd and meaningless life. To make the meaning for ourselves and living it. Life is never be easier, it just get better.
Once again, Jack found himself was standing before the gentleman, who awaiting for his answer of the riddle.
“Well, I believe you have found a proper answer for your destination?” The gentleman said.
“Yes, I know it now.” Jack said.
“Then speak! Where you want to stay?”
“For all what I have gone through. I know sometimes I will regret with my decision. But even if have to do it again I will still choose it. I want to come back!”
“That the final answer?”
“My final answer.”
“So, well, I guess I have to give you this.” The gentleman said, took from his breast pocket a tiny bottle and gave it to Jack.
“This is not your drink.”
“It for you, young man. Drink it and fulfill your thirsty.”
Jack gulfed the bottle within one second. He too thirsty to considered it taste. However, he soon to felt the bitter of a drink gave.
“It’s so bitter! What is it?”
“Ah, you never drink coffee before?”
“This is coffee?”
“Black one, sugar free.” The gentleman said and grinned with him.
“I never taste black coffee without sweeten.”
“You have to try it sometime. It bitter, but the same as life, huh?”
“I guess so.” Jack said.
“It’s time to go home, kid.” The gentleman said.
Jack got sleepy again. It so weird, people drank coffee to stayed awakened, he drank to got up to life.
“Could I meet you again?” Jack said.
“Of course, kid.” The gentleman said “Everytime you feel lonely and get lost in life, just turn left in the third intersection of your memory palace and you will arrive Vertigo Zone. It always welcomes you here. Just don’t come in too often.”
The drowsiness swarmed Jack and he fell to the nap. The time had stopped. Everything of Vertigo Zone soon to faded before him, also of the gentleman. Like everything he saw just a product of his mind. He woke up in the reality with the life upon him. To lived in life is to accepted sometime you got lost, but everyone did.
The End