Mr. Green was walking next to me, we were strolling through the narrow cobblestone alleyways of Europe. This felt familiar, there was a warmth in the air. I did not know where I was going, and neither did he.
“I want to tell you a story,” he said, fixing his gaze upon a single unoccupied bench facing the cathedral. We sat down and stared, not at each other, but at the marvel that was this monument, with its numerous peaks pointing upwards towards the blue ocean. “Imagine a world that is different from this one, can you do that? Can I ask you to trust me?” What a ridiculous question, I had no choice in the matter.
“Imagine a place, exactly like this one, but governed by different laws of physics. A place where people are not as free as they are here, a place where everyone lives under an oppressive maze of concrete pipes. These pipes, you see, are not used to transport water or oil. These pipes transport people. They connect everyone to everything, at all times. It’s the ultimate fantasy of availability. These pipes fly high into the sky and levitate over your head, defying gravity itself. They form an interconnected system so vast and complex, no one single human can grasp it, or govern it. It’s almost like they have taken on a life of their own, they are their own king. An autonomous system that multiplies infinitely, with its only purpose to connect point A to B. It’s a never ending nightmare, a world so appalling it makes no–”
His train of thought broke off, he turned his head upwards and as I followed his gaze, I saw a white whale flying through the sky above us. His shadow had covered the cathedral, slowly inching closer to our bench. Nobody else seemed to notice, these Europeans, going about their business as if the sky never belonged to them. We sat there, staring, mesmerized, as this majestic creature took up every last bit of blue. It gobbled up the sun and covered the earth in a twilight. I thought back to Mr. Green’s story, whatever he had wanted to say became unknowable as the fish in the sky sucked up the remains of a story that would remain forever untold.
—
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.
