I heard music, horns, strings and then, a melody, single keys that knew their way into my heart. It’s a composition I have heard before. I know what it wants to say and how it wants to say it. There is an elusive sense of meaning that grows and grows with the reverberating sounds of the orchestra. I used to be here every week, maybe even every day, always sitting in the second seat from the left, in the fifth row. I belonged in between the suits. I was one of them. We all look the same, we embody a collective sense of elegance, our gaze fixed upon the stage where a single man vehemently guides a blob of performers with his gestures. It’s magic, I swear.
I fly along with every swing of the strings. Every nuance, every change in rhythm and harmony is appreciated. Time becomes a perceptible factor, a concept that transcends any text-book explanation. Minutes, seconds, fly off the face of the clocks. How did I get here? To this building of times long past. Who build it? The Romans? Probably. These are not the ramblings of a mad man, these are the musings of an inspired soul who sees clearly, perhaps for the first and last time in his life. Mr. Green is nowhere to be found, he probably never was. All the things I have seen and felt, I can flip through them like a stack of postcards. I live here and I am alive. I have a home and a wife. My thoughts feel sharp, there’s a contour to them that I can see. My emotions spiral upwards, always in tandem with the orchestral crescendo. At last, things become things.
It stops, suddenly, but with great determination and impact. Everything comes to a halt. There is a second of stillness where not a single soul on this earth dares to let out a sigh or otherwise. And then, the great curtain falls, with such weight, its redness covers my vision. It feels suffocating. The suits rise, clap and whistle, but for what? I can hear the echo of the music fade, slowly. And with it, everything that I have rediscovered. How can something so beautiful fade so quickly. My world falls into a deep slumber, things return to their shapeless form, coated in a film of darkness. A sliver of light shines through the edges, but it too fades. I do believe my search is over. Everyone takes it for granted. The meaning of a thing. You see a chair, I see pieces of wood strapped together in the most awkward way imaginable, on a good day. What can I expect from a life drowning in this unfathomable confusion? Nothing. The beauty is in the music, it will take me where I need to go. I understand that now. It is the sounds of the strings that will keep me alive forever.
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You are currently traversing the limitless expanses of Visual Fiction. Each narrative fragment in this collection unravels a memory of a man drawn into an alternate reality. With every piece, he steps deeper into the unknown, attempting to describe the indescribable, to paint the unseen, and to make sense of the senseless. These tales offer glimpses into bizarre worlds that can at times feel both intimately familiar and strangely threatening.
