Chapter Two

The slightest quarter of an inch, that is all I could manage. Babies in their mother's wombs are looking at me in shame. Kicking their way around they are laughing at me, with the luxurious freedom they have to swim around, in their palatial accommodations. Able to hear their parents' voices and see the slightest bit of light, through the skin and placenta, they can interact with the world more than I can at this point. But that quarter of an inch will hopefully be what saves my sanity. As the nightmare ball of darkness finally closed around me, I hated ever liking that show as a child. They make it all seem so sweet and wholesome, as a kid and his best friend go around finding other friends, and battling to become more powerful. Who wouldn't want that life, a dream that sold billions. Well, being stuck on the other side of that equation now, I completely understood why that quisling little, yellow rat would be happy to beat up other ‘friends’, to capture them for his evil master. Already I was shouting in my mind the names of others I would be willing to help capture and swap places with. With the walls hitting the ground I was cut off from my last major sensation, worse than any sensory chamber I had ever tried. There was absolutely no sensation anywhere… except the very tip of my left index finger. That small quarter of an inch of movement is all that is keeping me sane, as all other signs of existence disappeared. Still, Hope, the most powerful of all evils, unleashed on the world by pandora, continued to beat in my heart. Another Imaginary Breath and I leaned into that feeling. Desperately trying to seek out that energy sensation anywhere else on my body, so that I might know that I am still real. Screaming wordlessly, into the void that I had been encased in. I took another Breath in my mind and tried to bring back the calm that I had been seeking, when I embarked on this vacation, turned nightmare.

Breathe, in and out.

Calm your mind, quiet down the little hamster running on his wheel at warp speed, spinning out nightmarish thoughts, about what was soon to come. You still have a touchstone to reach and know you are not dead. You are still real. Thought after thought went flying through my brain at the speed of light. This is it, the end… No wait, this isn't the end, you actually never were. What are you? Are you your memories, or instead were they just made up ones and zeros on a computer. Were you ever real? Are you just being deleted from the world like a computer virus…

In and out.

In and out.

In and out…

Breathe…

My actual lungs still refused to work, and without even being able to feel my own heartbeat, I had no frame of reference for anything that was happening. Time became meaningless quickly or slowly, with no frame of reference, it was impossible to know. All I had was a small feeling in my index fingertip. The smallest of touchstones letting me know I am still real. Screw Descartes and his “I think therefore I am”. Clearly he had never been locked in a deathball before, with no input from the outside world, outside of the top of one of his smallest digits. No, that idiot has obviously been deluding the world for centuries, with his ‘profound’ quote. Doubtless a line he merely threw out once to pick up some girl, the ridiculous french bastard. The one phrase he is most known for with his pretended brilliance. I too, had once been taken in by his sham thoughts, no more. Removed from every sensation, and left alone with nothing but my mind. A mind that was more and more rapidly turning its wheels, like a demented hamster on meth. Only having the slightest sensation, on the tip of my finger, to let me know I am still here. Clearly, it is the outside world acting on us that tells us we are real, for without that world to push against and make our mark upon, we are just an illusion of sparks in the aether. Touch, that small quarter of an inch, is all that is holding me together.

Breath, in and out.

In and out… over and over again, imaginary breaths with make-believe lungs. Slowly center yourself, try to meditate. What should ironically be the perfect conditions for finding one's true self, is instead a nightmarish hell, when entered involuntarily. No feedback, but the slight feeling of energy surrounding the tip of my finger. No feedback at all, how long has it been, a millisecond, a minute, an hour, a day, years… centuries…an eternity. Even with the sensation around my finger still telling me I'm real. Yet that touch is still providing none of the other contexts that humans need to stay sane, and my mind is starting to lose it. What possible way could I have prepared for this? The brain can only ever help you against events you can envision. Sure I've seen the trope before time and time again in books. Such an obvious thing to take seriously, I should have prepared for this eventuality. But no… Like an idiot I had to worry about stupid, ridiculous things happening. Like banks collapsing, world war three and the U.S. losing its hyper dominance. The world being bombed into oblivion, by everyone who was angry at not getting a bigger slice of a new pie. Years of prepping, rotating out supplies; always having a go bag and a map with backwoods trails on it, to hike to my hunting spots in northern Cali. Instead, I get hit with nothingness. It's always the bat you don't see coming, that puts you in the ground, and I was finding this one to be a doozy. Even just an hour ago, if asked for what disasters I had higher than this on my list that I thought I would be able to get through. I would have replied with sharknado and alien invasion, as much more likely, than trapped in the black emptiness of a nightmare ball, from the late nineties. Kicking my nonexistent butt, I started trying to relive my past and think about what I could have done to fix this, definitely getting that membership at the sensory deprivation therapy office was one thing...

No…

STOP…

FOCUS…

IN and OUT…

BREATHE…

Stop letting the hamster win… Regrets are anchors holding you back, focus on the here and now. Coulda, woulda, shoulda never solved any equation in real time. Focus first on bringing some sanity back into this dearth of feeling. Think about your kids, they have always been what has pulled you through the bad times before. Losing a job, changing careers, the jump in your heart when you see them doing something that can go horribly wrong. Now, switch to the good times, the birthdays, the camping trips, each of them catching their first fish, having kids is the greatest grounding point a person can have. Everything you do, you have to keep them at the forefront of your thoughts. So, remember your daughter, sixteen and ready to take on the world. Think about your son, fourteen and starting to prepare for the adventure that is highschool. Feel the warmth as you hold them tight; duck their swings, as they try to get you to go away so they can sleep just a little longer. Go back further to the beginning and remember the way they felt the first time you picked them up when they were born. So fragile and helpless, small and pink, barely larger than the palm of your hand. Focus on them growing up, how quickly it happens. First one day they are mewling for their bottle, even their loudest cries for help still like the nicest lullaby compared to what is to come later. Next they start rolling, shaking their hands and looking around… remember the first time you looked into their eyes and could tell that they could actually see you. That look in their eyes as they understand you are theirs, someone who will be there for them, someone they could trust. The person who will comfort them, the person who will make them giggle, the person who will help feed them when they are hungry, burp them when they are restless, change them when they are soiled, and most importantly hold them and let them know they are safe, so safe they will fall asleep in your arms.

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Okay, now switch, those memories only prove to yourself that you did exist, that you once mattered to someone, now focus on the feeling in the tip of your finger, it is not in your imagination.

YOU ARE NOT YET DEAD!!!

This is not a trip to the underworld, there is no ferryman here, slowly bringing you down the river Styx. To be dropped off into Lethe to forget your previous life and children.

I DO NOT ACCEPT THAT!!!

Whatever is happening with this journey I am embarking on, this is not the end for me. Whatever it takes, I will get through this! I will make it back to my kids… I will be there for them as they continue to grow older and enter adulthood. I will be there for them as they go through the trials of parenthood themselves. I will help raise my grandkids, unlike my father before me.

I STILL EXIST!!!

I can feel the sensation of energy, and if I can feel it pulsing there, then I can feel its pressure. Trying to move against it is hard, it takes effort, but it is not in my imagination. There is a pulse to the barrier that the rest of your body just can not feel yet. You have made a connection to it, you are real, and it is real. Focus on the here and now, focus on growing that connection and interacting with it. This is your world now, the world you have to conquer to get back to the world of your children. Stay sane! Your world may have shrunk to the size of a baseball stadium, your town the size of your body. Your commute to work is now a quarter of an inch, forward and backward that is your route. How long is it, this drive you are taking twice a day, back and forth… seconds, minutes, hours…? How long have you been working there? How long are you there before you can build up the energy to come back home? This is your world for now.

Accept this!

Accepting this is your reality, isn't abandoning your old world! This is adapting to overcome this new one, so you can return. The universe is always changing, and you need to do what you must to get through this experience. Become Serene in this… what your world has shrunk too.

This is your existence!

But it won't always be this, you will escape this hell hole and see your kids again. Keep your love for them in the back of your mind for now.

Have Courage!

The Courage to go another day without them… to keep on making this ‘commute’. That is what you can change, you don't have the power to escape this ball, don't focus on that. You need to have courage, focus on what you can change. Focus on your commute and what you can do differently. Think smaller, your courage can't affect the outside world yet, so ignore it, and focus on the miniature. That is your path back to them. Search for Wisdom. It is said that it would take one hundred and eighty-four doublings of a sheet of paper to stretch it wide enough to cover the known universe. Yet it would take over two hundred and twenty-four halfings, of that same sheet of paper, to reach down to where that smallest half would cover a planck length. Our current smallest known unit of measurement. The building block of everything. Which means that we have more to discover in the sands of knowledge, by going smaller rather than larger.

Calm your mind.

BREATHE your imagingery breaths, center yourself and focus your mind on going smaller. Have the Courage to affect what you can… no your world isn't the size of a stadium, that is outside your control. Reduce it down by half and yet half again. Going smaller and smaller every time. You can not affect that… let it go. Your world is now your body. Do what you have to to survive. Any path back to your family, lies first in your surviving this ordeal. Accept that! Deal with your fear.

“I must not fear.

Fear is the mindkiller.

“Fear is the little-death that brings total obliteration.”

Remember reading the series as a teen for the first time. How profoundly those stanza's of Frank Herbert changed you.

“We stand on the shoulders of Giants…” Sir Issac Newton. You are not alone in this abyss, you have many great works to lean on to get you through this. Humanity has laid the foundation for you to survive. You have to choose to! Courage is not the absence of fear, Courage is instead taking another step when all of reality is telling you to lay down and huddle in a ball. To give up and let outside forces dictate what happens to you. Courage is making the choice, deciding to continue to struggle. Your steps lay in that quarter inch. Focus down smaller and smaller into the parts of the universe where you are free to move around again.

“I will face my fear.

I will permit it to pass over and through me.”

Face your fears. You know what they are… Your kids are tapped in these nightmare fueled balls too. They either are or they aren't, you can not affect that. Face that fear and let it pass through you. You don't know what happened, maybe they are in one and then you have to trust that you taught them enough to survive it. Maybe they aren't, Maybe this is the only one, and they are blissfully unaware of what you are going through. You don't know what caused this event and you can not affect it. Let it pass through you, become Serene in this. Have the Courage to continue on, in spite of your fears that bad things are happening to your children right now. Those are your only two choices. Face your Fear and continue down smaller, or give into the little death. Ignore that quarter inch, and give into the insanity of torturing yourself with visions of what could be. Let the hamster run wild in your mind, spinning out webs of endless possibilities. You can lose yourself in the endless what if's, like a teen endlessly scrolling away on their phone, flicking from video to video. Or, you can force yourself to act like the adult you are, set down the proverbial phone, and escape this madness. Have Courage to affect the things you can control. You know your fear… this ball is taking you away from them… you will never see them again… that is your little death!

“And when it has gone past, I will turn the inner eye to see its path.

Where the fear has gone there will be nothing.

Only I will Remain.”

You know your options.

You only have two.

You can give up. You can spend this time remembering your children, and just live in your memories. It's easy, you can make yourself feel better and just let go. Dream about the past and think about what you did great, tell yourself what could have done better. Spend this eternity of darkness reliving your time with your kids. Maybe this will be a reincarnation story, and the constant reliving of your previous life will be a benefit. Be passive and live in your memories. It is a valid choice. No one will ever know. You are the only one that will ever know how you spend this eternity. Or, Two you can choose to ignore them. Bundle all of those memories up into a ball, and tuck it away. Hide the ball deep in your mind, and forget about your children while this is going on. Focus only on this reality, and give it your all, just trusting that when this hell ends, you will still have those memories on the other side.

You know your fear and it is legitimate!

When you focus on something to the point you cut everything out, there is a chance it never comes back. You have no idea how long you will be stuck here. If it is subjectively centuries, will your Forty-Five actual years have any context when you get out of here? You understand what you are asking of yourself. Now move past it. Fear is ignorance. Trust in yourself and your love for your children. Trust yourself, and know that nothing can ever make you forget them. You did not choose to enter this ball! You were taken. This was done to you and you can not control that. Focus on what you can control, you can control yourself and your fears, that is all. You have no control over anything else that happens to you. You know your fear. You’ve seen its path inside of you. Your fear is that letting go of them even the smallest bit will make you a bad father. Your fear is that focusing on a job, instead of thinking about them, is the easier thing to do. Your fear is that if you are doing the easier task, then you are taking the easy way out.Stop thinking like that.

Let your fear pass through you.

There are no easy paths.

There are many paths up to the top of the steepest mountain. They cannot all be hard all of the time.

You cannot know how all of these paths will end up, what is easy now might be hard later. What is hard in the beginning might be easy later. You do not know what is coming!

Stop being indecisive.

You will never have enough knowledge.

You must make an imperfect choice!

Choose!

Lay down with your memories, travel through this hell, arm in arm with your kids. You can stay static, and focus on your memories, secure in the knowledge that when this hell ends, you will have the memories of your children with you.

Or, Instead focus on the quarter inch. Trust that you can bundle your memories up, and tuck them into the farthest reaches of your mind. Trust that your mind will protect them, and keep them safe, no matter how long this takes. Trust that whatever new memories you build, in this timeless abyss, will not overwrite your children.

Courage or Fear…

Choose one to live with, and know that until this ball opens, you will not know if you made the correct choice. That is Wisdom

MAKE

YOUR

CHOICE!