Time has a funny way of needling people, especially in Andrew’s case. Whenever he wants time to move fast, it moves slowly. But when he wants it to slow down, it speeds up. What he can’t decide is where he is on this spectrum while waiting in his hospital gown for the doctors to wheel him off for surgery. This is it, the big day.
His father, James, nudges him lightly. “You’ll be fine.”
“Yeah, I know…” whispers the young patient, wanting to be sure, though his feet wiggling under his sheets tell otherwise. “I just hate that I’ve been visiting hospitals so frequently now. It’s fucking ridiculous,” he adds while trying to control his nervous tick.
“Language.”
“Dad, I’m nineteen.”
“And still living under my roof.” The old man smirks at his own comeback.
Andrew just pouts, as if to pretend he isn’t rattled by that fact, until their attention is diverted by the timely arrival of Dr. Friedman. “Good morning, Mr. Coffey.”
“Morning,” both say in unison.
“How are you feeling?” he asks the boy directly.
“Terrified,” he answers bluntly. “Can we get this over with?”
The doctor pauses, tapping his pen on his clipboard before sighing. “Actually, Andrew… I’m here with some good news and bad news.”
Andrew blinks to an almost excessive degree. “What’s the bad news?”
“The bad news is that we’ll have to delay your surgery again.”
His mouth hangs loosely open, unsure yet of what to feel about this. “And the good news?” he quickly follows up, minding the presence of his dad.
“The good news… is that we don’t have to wait until tomorrow nor another week, just until late afternoon.”
A wave of relief washes over James. “So, what’s going on?” he questions with a mixture of curiosity and concern. “Nothing too serious, I hope.”
“It sort of is,” Friedman responds while flipping through his documents to show the man, “but it’s a good thing we discovered this before the surgery. Basically, we can still go through with it… it just won’t be with the LASIK procedure anymore.”
Andrew’s face drops as he shudders, realizing what this means.
“The reason being that his cataracts are affecting the lens deep inside his eyes now, making laser surgery on his cornea pointless.” The doctor concludes his statement by fixing his glasses. “We just need a few hours to prepare. Are you up for that, Andrew?”
For a moment, this peculiar patient bites his lip as he faces away from the older men, meditating on his options—there should be no reason for him to refuse… right? “Let’s do it,” he finally declares, albeit rather forcibly.
“Excellent.” With a light bow, Dr. Friedman proceeds out of the room. “Until we come back to get you, just make sure you’re well fed and rested. See you later.”
Once they’re alone again, James arches a concerned eyebrow at his son, noting his awkward demeanour. “Are you sure you want to go through with this?”
“Yes,” he answers automatically, but with a sliver of shakiness too. “I just want— need this chapter to be over with.” He keeps his head averted, not wanting his face to be read or dissected—the last thing he wants is a rerun of yesterday’s conversation.
Understanding his boy, James backs off with a simple… “Okay.”
And so… the hours lapse, neither too fast nor too slow, just at a steady, neutral pace until the nurses arrive to supply Andrew with the anaesthesia before taking him away to have his sight restored once and for all.
His eyelids droop as he slips into unconsciousness, the sedative taking full effect…
… embers glint in the abyss…
… swirling like dust…
… weightless, like being underwater…
… glowing blue rather than orange…
… how?
What is life or death…
… without a beginning or end?
What is a purpose…
… without a reason?
What is a mind…
… without any thoughts?
What are words…
… without a mouth?
And what is an identity…
… without a name to remember?
This being, once upon a time known as Andrew, drifts in space inanimately—whichever kind of space, there are no eyes for him to see with, no mind to wonder, nor a heart to care… because it simply is. To him—to ‘It’ —there is no such thing as a past nor a future, only the present.
All It knows is a pulse…
… a pulse of energy encased and waiting to be thawed out.
Through this vast creation, It searches without reason. All It needs is a flame to follow, a lure that can satisfy Its own instinct. Who cares what might lurk on the other end? Without bravery… what is even fear?
There at last, after a millennium—or however long—something calls to It, triggering something that hasn’t been felt for an eternity…
… a curiosity… filled with longing?
It can’t be… yet it is.
A close presence… but through distance, absent.
Whatever this is…
… It must go to it…
… It must find it…
… and It must have it.
And so begins Its odyssey, having awakened from Its limbo—without wings or thrusters, It somehow just moves… the pull of a magnetic force that knows no urgency.
This constant, unchanging path carries on for perhaps another millennium or so… until finally… at long last… It cruises within reach of a peculiar system, oblivious to the dotting stars and neighbouring moons of each planet orbiting within this canvas.
The source of this other energy… it expands with increasing proximity, beckoning louder, as if to say, ‘Come on… we’re all waiting…’ in an almost sultry manner.
Without a mind to think with, the floating obelisk embraces the trap before ts magnetic force sizzles into a gravitational, inescapable vacuum… about the size of an inhabitable world, the atmosphere enveloping Its shape in an icy, tapering ball of fire.
During Its descent, the air transforms into an aberrant mixture...
… suddenly, there is wind…
… suddenly, there is moisture…
… suddenly, there is temperature…
… suddenly, there is sound…
… but more than that, there are signs of life here.
Any second now, which the obelisk cannot measure, It will meet the bottom with a resounding… CRASH! This hard ground, made of earthly, vegetative soil, stops Its plunge that should have otherwise obliterated It…
… yet It stands perfectly upright, unable to progress further, as it pulsates a heavenly glow from Its core the same way one would breathe.
But as the obelisk sits here in the middle of a clearing, known but hidden, the pounding of Its light persists, even as the ambiguous sky cycles from night to day, then back to night eventually… almost like It’s doing this in a desperate bid to be discovered.
It waits just like It did in space, except it’s much different now…
… because now, It meditates with underlying impatience—but this could simply be the dreamer’s perspective for all It knows not.
During all this, all sorts of unknown creatures pass by, either to inspect this unorthodox cuboid or to coincidentally mind their own business—occasionally, however, an entity whose size could be compared to a leviathan also circles It from a fair distance, then disappears too… nothing more.
But in due course, something—or someone —does turn up to properly approach It. This someone wades through the surrounding water of the obelisk’s dew while speaking in a tongue that It can’t understand. But more than that, the voice of this someone carries a tone laden with urgency…
… a sentiment shared by Itself.
Suddenly, the obelisk—or whatever sentience is inside this monolith—wants to reach out… for whatever contact It can make…
… and there does appear to be a connection between It and this someone, at least momentarily…
… until that same someone begins to pull away as well.
‘No… don’t go!’ a mute voice—not of the obelisk, but that of the dreamer’s—cries out. ‘Don’t leave me here… please!’
It’s Andrew’s again.
Without a voice…
… he can’t scream.
Without hands…
… he can’t hammer against the ice-like barrier.
And without any real agency…
… he is as helpless as he was in the Black Forest…
… but he tries regardless.
Meanwhile, something extrinsic swells from within him—it’s either cosmic or spiritual. Could this be… an extension of his protest? Are these thoughts even his own?
Whatever he—or this obelisk —is containing, it’s trying to break free now. He—along with It —can feel himself threatening to explode, tearing atom from atom…
… and just like that, a blinding light strobes…
… screams can be heard, but not just of his own…
… and then there is nothing…
… absolutely nothing now.
As soon as Andrew awakens, the first thing he does is stretch his eyes wide open before blinking repeatedly to see if there is anything he can make out…
… but nothing.
Of course, the young man shouldn’t expect results right away. With this physical body, he can feel the mattress compressing under his weight, the bedsheet draped over him, which means he is clearly out of surgery now…
… or so he thought.
The next thing he does, while sitting up groggily, is brush a finger over his eyelashes—shouldn’t there be a bandage wrapped here? Or was the surgery that easy?
No… something clearly went wrong—he can feel it in his gut.
And that dream too… what was that?
It couldn’t just—
“… complications? What kind of complications?”
Hearing the alarmed voice of his dad again, Andrew listens through the closed door of his room to the outside where he and whoever he is talking to are positioned.
“I don’t know how to describe this…” speaks the voice of Dr. Friedman, “… but we were forced to stop the surgery. Your son isn’t normal.”
Andrew frowns lopsidedly— what the hell does he mean by that?
“Before we could even begin…” he whispers now, “… there was a flashing light that came straight from his eyes.”
Oh, shit…
“It was so blinding that—one of the nurses who were present is currently under treatment for epilepsy.” The doctor pauses, then continues. “The surgeon, however… he’s blind in one eye, and we don’t yet know the extent of the damage.”
Right then, the boy’s heart sinks— I really did that?? But how…?
But James, being the protective man he is, struggles to play dumb. “No, y-you… you must be delusional.” But he stops short, audibly stressed—that’s all he can say.
“Everyone in that operating room saw what happened, Mr. Coffey.”
There is a huge sigh before James puts his weight against the wall near the door. He falls silent, probably staring into space about now.
“Listen…” Friedman inches towards him, dread creeping in, “… whatever your son has, it’s far beyond our capabilities.”
“So what do we do, then??”
“I wish I had an answer for you. My advice would simply be to watch him closely.”
James can then be heard shrugging. “And then what? Just give up??”
Dr. Friedman answers with ambiguous silence before adding as a form of compensation, “Just be assured that whatever happened here will stay in here.”
“For how long?” questions the father.
Once again, there is silence, longer than the last, as this doctor, who was once confident about their results, walks off in shame. “I am truly sorry…”
After a ruminating minute, James Coffey pushes through the door with great reluctance, his head hanging low as he prepares to break the bad news to Andrew…
… only to be met with plumb dejection from the boy.
Neither he nor the doctor realized that their patient had already been awake, and from his knowing glance, there is nothing that needs to be said to him.
“It’s okay, dad…” Andrew forces a smile, but it comes off crooked, much like his voice as he tries to stay positive. “It’s… o-ok-kay.” But it clearly isn’t working.
Against his permission, tears spill out as he scrambles to rub them away.
His father, as always, wastes no time as he holds the boy while caressing his head. “I’m so sorry, son,” he says, knowing how hollow those words are.
Despite what Andrew suggested yesterday, he truly wanted his life back…
… and now it’s gone for good.
“I h-hate my life…” he chokes out before burying his face completely.
His father doesn’t bother to respond as he continues rocking him gently.
Andrew’s overwrought mind believes that he should have seen this coming…
… he should have known that this was too good to be true.
And of course, the main question lingers…
… now what?
