Author: Domino Finn
Date: 2015-03-19 04:00:00+00:00
Keywords: Short Stories; Fiction
Description: The world has gone black. At least, you can't see anything. You can't move or scream either. You're trapped. This has to be a dream, yet... something tells you it's all too real. Not only do you not remember where you are, you don't remember who you are. With a poetic narrative that promises an existential read, Nothing but the Black searches for a light in the darkness of identity.
Publisher: Blood & Treasure
Rights: Copyright 2015 Domino Finn. All Rights Reserved.

NOTHING BUT THE BLACK

by Domino Finn

Copyright © 2015 by Domino Finn. All rights reserved.

Published by Blood & Treasure, Los Angeles

First Edition

This is a work of fiction. Any resemblance to reality is coincidental. This book represents the hard work of the author; please reproduce responsibly.

NOTHING BUT THE BLACK

LIGHT SHATTERED THE PEACE as if static entwined my soul. The bowels within which I rested heaved and drew me heavenward. In a moment I was nowhere, then everywhere, then the darkness returned—except an imprint of the flash was left in its wake. My thoughts struggled to stay ahead of the development, but it was difficult to parse beyond the fact that my environs were now different. The depths were less black.

Moments passed. I yearned to continue my slumber but a part of me rebelled against this unfamiliar state. The layer between clarity and coma is meant to be less obtrusive, a passing transition that allows the body to adjust. Very briefly was I in this limbo until the pleasure of the peace returned to me and my mind, too feeble to counter overwhelming forces, drifted back into laxity. Returning to calm was natural, and the world began to fall out of focus.

Another crisp flare overtook my senses. The blinding brilliance commanded my unhindered attention and neither sight nor sound could describe the core within which this touched. The sudden sensation was both uncomfortable and liberating. There was only minor physical pain, but if there was anything unwelcome, it was more attributable to the act of disturbance. It was as if the embrace of a warm blanket was ripped from me and I was forced to heed my bearings. Reason compelled me to acknowledge that this interruption was deliberate and had me ask the questions that would not allow me to return to rest.

Where was I? What was happening? I tried to shake myself out of sleep but felt captive in its clutches. I strained to open my eyes and saw nothing but the black. I wanted to move but felt the weight of an ocean above me. All at once I was claustrophobic and floating weightless in a vast expanse of space, rolling outward in a great explosion of awareness.

Whether fantasy or nightmare, this experience was unlike any in my life.

A realization came to me. I was lucid. I was alive. And as certain as any conviction I've attested to, I was reasoning with a degree of proficiency which would be impossible in a dream. But why couldn't I control my body?

I paused for some time. Like a compass settling on the poles, I waited for my mind to sharpen. If I was caught in a hidden web I dared not get tangled by struggle. Whatever void I found myself in had explanation. Endless questions streamed across my mind but I pushed them out, refusing speculation until I was ready. I was smart. I remembered that. But other things were less clear. A fog persisted about my memory.

There I was, helpless, bound to the darkness, and I thought about a great many things—a maternal embrace, the bond of trust, the satisfaction of accomplishment. These were more understandings than moments but I was sure they had occurred. These forces surely shaped my life, but the details were frustratingly beyond reach. However, despite the hollowness I conjured, I retained a strong sense of self. And even though I was awash in a sea of emptiness and confronted with quiet, I was somehow certain that I was not alone.

"Is anyone there?"

I didn't speak. I tried but, like everything else, I seemed unable. My reach threatened to collapse in and I started to panic at my helplessness.

Once again, a flash of white penetrated my very being. My soul was held in thrall for the faintest of moments. Then, just as quickly, it stopped.

I suspended my panic. I was not one to lose myself easily. Anxiety, no matter how appropriate, would not help this predicament. I needed to remain calm and think clearly. I needed to understand what was happening to me.

There was not a single sound, nor had there been since I awoke. There was nothing to smell or see. Besides the jolts of light, I couldn’t in fact be sure that I had truly sensed anything at all. But I was acutely aware of my consciousness, of my existence, and my ability to reason.

Why then was I stuck in this state of oblivion? Why was there nothing before me but an absence of the material? Maybe, if I did nothing, I would be safe; or perhaps the opposite was true. The serenity was a mystery in which I could no longer take comfort. No matter my thoughts, my caution could only be carried so far, and the peace was deafening.

Should I then react? Should I fight to free myself from this embrace? Were the sudden fits of light a hysterical response that I should court? I felt an underlying need to impose control over something, no matter the size or import, and I wondered exactly how much I was accountable for. I almost felt silly asking.

"Am I causing the flashes of light?"

Immediately, the bright shock returned. It encompassed me, rendered me captive, then disappeared. As I eased into the dark aftermath, it once again struck and tensed my mind as if to stress its importance. As always, it lasted only a moment and then left me alone.

My thoughts raced through the endless gloom. That was not a coincidence! That was intentional. Someone was out there somewhere and I needed to reach them. I made my best attempt at urgent communication.

"WHO ARE YOU?"

I braced for the jolt of static that I knew would come. It hit me quickly and I defiantly withstood its impact. As before, it stopped and restarted, only now it did the same an additional time. Agony. Exhilaration. I wanted to scream or cry because it was almost too much to bear. I yearned for the stillness and tensed until I found myself in complete solitude again. The strain had left me wired but I was free to slacken now, slowly.

Finally, I found myself in the quiet I so coveted. There was no pain, no sound; I was free with my thoughts. At first enjoyable, it quickly became a counter-productive respite. Relief is a strange aspiration—it is a welcome sensation but with it is inevitably paired the very object we desire to escape.

The jolts brought me pain and then relief, but on a deeper level they empowered me with perception. Without the flashes of light, I was nothing, nowhere, lost in the void of my mind. The impulses were my sole company in this desolate place and I needed them.

Enveloped in permanent night, I tried to make sense of it all. I was smart. I could unravel the circumstances. I was somehow trapped: blind, deaf, and mute. With the light as my only resource, I absolutely needed to utilize it. Relying on something I could not control would be difficult by any measure but it at least seemed to react to me. When I asked, it answered, and as I pondered the patterns, I came to realize that the light was much more than sense. It was communication.

"Is someone signaling me with the shocks?"

Predictably, an intense white fire came and went. This was a single quick response, and an idea began to formulate in my head. Twice I had received single jolt responses, to this latest question and when I had asked if someone was out there. A single trigger could be a "yes". I had also asked if I was the cause of the shocks and was signaled twice, meaning "no". This would suggest that I was not hallucinating and that I was communicating with somebody—both welcome data. This theory was simple and straightforward to test.

"One flash for 'yes', two for 'no'?"

A single wave of light encompassed me for a brief moment. The silence that followed suggested success. I had quickly figured out the code, admittedly simple, with the sole wrinkle being when I received three jolts. I had asked who was out there. Unsurprisingly, this could not be answered with a quick affirmative or negative. Perhaps then a triple signal represented a more complicated response?

"What do three shocks mean?"

Electricity coursed through my fibers. Once, twice, three times. The answer was jarring, then painful as it persisted. The static was invigorating yet seemed to sap my strength, requiring pause. It was a harsh method of interaction that I both demanded and shied from. Yet it didn't feel sustainable. It would be better to pace myself and think my situation through.

I could sense nothing else so there was no telling where I was or in what state I lay suspended. Perhaps I could not handle more intricate answers, or perhaps those I conversed with couldn't manage them. Without words, sight, how was I to really comprehend? But my language was already learned. A newly blinded man still understands the concept of color and still remembers the vividness of red. My information gathering was limited but my mind was not the bottleneck.

My practical nature found me. If I was to make do with "yes" and "no" queries, so be it. Fewer shocks were less painful and equal in illumination so I resigned myself to asking for simple affirmatives. With specific questions answered it shouldn't be a deal of trouble to narrow in on my problem. Only then could I help free myself.

So what was it I most wished to know?

Who was I talking to? What was I talking to? One moment I was performing a rational exercise and the next I was imagining wild scenarios of fiction. Was I trapped in a dream? Was I abducted by a foreign species? Was I communicating with my captors? These ideas of the weird were not within my usual vocabulary, but I conceded them given the current context. I had to approach this with an open and analytical mind.

"Are you human?"

A single burst of static came and went. Yes, I thought, again feeling silly for even the doubt. That was the reassurance I had craved. Demons, ghosts, aliens—all had been discounted. This was a scientific problem and my rational mind could remain in control while I deciphered this puzzle. Despite lacking knowledge of who they were or what they wanted, knowing that they were indeed people was a great comfort.

So why then could I not see or hear them? Why could I not move or feel? What caused the fog in my memory? Of course, I had memories. I could recall… fragments. But still just beyond my outstretched fingers was my identity. How could I really be me if I didn't remember myself? What did I do? What have I done? What was I?

"Am… am I human?"

The question burned through my soul as it hung in the ether. Although I had no real voice, or heard nothing at any rate, the thought echoed in the emptiness. Why was there no answer? I had asked what was perhaps another foolish question but every passing moment validated its credibility. I could remember—almost remember—my childhood. Flashes of competition and envy and happiness all raced through my mind. These were real images, actual experiences stored in my consciousness somewhere. I was a person. I had a name. I had—

Suddenly an impulse jutted through me and washed away my stream of thought. It dissipated and stood as a lone signal, a confirmation. Relief once again overtook me. I knew I was human.

My more fantastical thoughts gave way to the mundane. Whatever the scenario, the shock of the experience had caused me to panic. Perhaps I was drugged or hurt, certainly disoriented, but the simplest explanations had so far been true. It was encouraging to know that I had my wits about me, and I could only hope that time would restore my senses. For the moment, however, I would glean what I could from the electric shocks.

"Was I in some kind of accident?"

It was an obvious conclusion. I must have been lying in a bed somewhere, hooked up to machines, doctors hovering above. The signal, however, came as two sharp spikes of static. I was conflicted. While it greatly eased my mind to know that I was not hurt, the situation also befuddled me. I had thought I was on to something and now I had to rethink my course.

Here I was, clearly alive, yet entrapped in a cocoon I could not comprehend. I saw nothing but could remember the beauty of the great American plains. And guitar! I could recall rolling arpeggios with clarity. I think I had learned to play a bit. I also remembered long dinners, enjoying wine and savoring the spice of food on my tongue. But none of that seemed possible where I was. Something cut that from me. If I was not hurt then what would dull me so?

But injury, loss—neither of these cases were in my line of questioning. I had asked specifically about an accident. It was logically possible to be injured purposely, but in what case would that be practical?

I was smart. Solving this wasn't beyond my capabilities. If I was not involved in an accident of any sort then it would stand to reason that circumstances were proceeding by design. I surely hoped nothing had gone wrong, but that was little solace. Accidents were bad. Intentions were more mysterious.

"Am I here intentionally?"

The following flash came quick and stood alone. Yes, I was here by choice, but what did that mean? I pondered the possibilities. It would have been naive to assume that everything was fine. I couldn't see or hear, after all. But more likely than not I was in no immediate danger.

That didn't mean that I was in control.

"Can I stop now?"

I strained as the light surged once, twice, and my darkest fears took hold again. I wanted, needed, this to end. Why couldn't I get up out of this limbo? Why could I not open my eyes and see who was with me? Why could I only communicate through electricity?

I had to then consider that I was a prisoner, that I was being forced to stay. But how could that be if I was here by choice? Was I being deceived? If I could not trust those I communicated with then I had no basis for understanding this new world. What could I hope to learn by leaning on lies?

No, it seemed like the incorrect thread to pull. I had to convince myself that they were being truthful. It may have been foolish but it was all I had. At any rate, it was I who was getting information. This dialog did not appear to benefit any other.

So what was preventing me from returning to normal? Was I a captive of men or condition?

"Am I okay?"

I asked the question with a tinge of desperation. Energy coursed across my mind, paused, and again overtook my synapses. The sudden emptiness that trailed weighed heavily. From an analytical standpoint I needed the confirmation but I had already known the answer to that question before I asked. Deep down, I knew I was in trouble.

I wanted to ask so many things. Could I open my eyes and see? Could I move? If I wasn't speaking, how were we communicating? How long would this last? Every plausible scenario was fraught with terrifying possibilities and I struggled to set these questions aside. I was afraid of the answers but there was more to it than that. I also felt that those would not be the right answers, the ones I needed.

So I was hurt or somehow indisposed yet this wasn't an accident and I had volunteered to be here. I couldn't control myself or meaningfully act in any way except to ask questions of strange men to whose mercy I was subjected. My fate, then, was in the hands of others.

What does one do when one cannot take action? I didn't know if it was possible for me to save myself or even sure that I needed saving. The realization that I was helpless threatened to obliterate my will to fight. My impulse was to blindly seek protection as a child might during a storm. Trust was not easy in this environment but I needed the amenity.

"Do you have my best interests in mind?"

I worded the question broadly. It was a stripped down representation of all I really cared about at that moment. Lightning arced through me and stopped short. My heart smiled. The electricity, however, did not remain dormant. It returned with a strong impulse and my world started to darken. Sinister plots came to my brain as the shock faded away. The instant must have been a fraction of a second but the horrors of the world visited me in that span. Then, with great relief, a third jolt struck me.

Peace. The void was quiet and it relaxed my soul. I seemed to breathe away the tension that resided in me but, I think, it was a physical reaction. My mind surely was still spinning on the puzzling response.

I had asked a simple yes/no question. What did it mean to know that neither of those answers was fitting? What was I to these men? Shouldn't they be treating me? How could they be so cold?

"But aren't you doctors?"

My mind overflowed with luster as the answer beamed once, twice. The message was taxing but of more concern was the meaning. It was all wrong. If these men didn't wish to save me, what did they intend? From what I had gathered, unidentified persons with unclear intentions held me in an unknown state!

It was imperative that I relax. This was a convoluted enigma but surely it wasn't unmanageable. I would solve it. I was smart. I was pragmatic when it came to emotions. If only I could remember more about myself.

The key was that this was my choice. That had to be relevant. I've always had a logical mind and could think problems through. I was used to making decisions for myself—I could feel that much. But while I believed in and supported the scientific method, I didn't have any acute knowledge of a medical nature.

If I was truly here by choice, and I was under the care of men who had no special regard for whether I lived or died, then this position must have been to serve the pursuit of knowledge.

"If not doctors, are you then scientists?"

They weren't the same thing. Quite different, really. And a calling I could subscribe toward. A single pulse lashed out of the ether and left me in silence.

Success. This felt like a breakthrough, even though the full realization had not yet sunk in. I was a willing participant in scientific research. These strangers were not trying to cure me or fix me, necessarily, but working for the sake of knowledge.

With renewed curiosity I strained to look past the black void before me. Even someone holding their eyes shut tight should be able to detect the minutia of their lenses or eyelids. I eagerly searched for light, motion, or color. They each eluded me.

Sound too was completely and utterly absent. No rhythm of comfortable breathing in the background, no echoes from within my ear cavities as I tried to hum. I imagined I should at least hear a droning white noise somewhere out of reach, but I couldn't convince myself there was anything there.

Even worse, I lacked baser senses that are often taken for granted or forgotten. The tension around my eyes as I held them shut, the tightness in my throat when I swallowed, the soothing lightness of air as it moved through my sinuses. All of it, everything, was conspicuously, noticeably absent.

The scientists seemed to be giving me truthful answers. They told me I was here by choice but they were not necessarily looking after me. They also said I was not okay and that I could not end this trial. So I was an experiment of some sort, unable to sense anything—what did that infer about my condition? What was to be my ultimate fate? There were disastrous implications.

"Will I be able to see, hear, or do anything ever again?"

Thunderous rays came crashing into me, not one or two but three times, raking against my brain like waves full of gritty salt and sand. The shock, the horrifying helplessness, the dawning inevitability of truth all tangled into a wicked burden and it was all that I could take.

"Let me out!"

I screamed with as much indignation as my shattered confidence could muster. I tried to thrash against the nothingness and push away the men who held me. I wanted no part of this riddle. I had no desire to consider that I might never get well and this could be a permanent state. I shut out the thought that the only new thing left for me to experience was death.

"LET ME OUT!"

I had to take action. I had to fight. I had given the questions a fair try, but every breakthrough brought with it less reason for hope. I tried to attack my torturers, first by screaming; but I soon found myself taking wild swipes, kicking and clawing the ether. I had gotten in a fight before. I remembered then that my instincts took over, as they did again. Without thought or consideration I tried to lunge at imaginary assailants, feeling that I could get lucky or catch them by surprise.

But there was nothing. Nothing. Not only couldn't I see anyone before me but there was no answer to my demand. The force of my will was sucked into the black hole and left no remains. Nothing to show for my efforts. Nothing.

I was a shell of consciousness. Perhaps that is what all men are on a fundamental level, but isn't it the purpose of will that it be exercised? What is thought without action?

If I was in a sort of conscious coma, could I thrust my chains away and force myself to move? I pushed my body, focusing on my legs, endeavoring just to wiggle my toes. A start was all I needed. Some small twinkle of feeling, to prove that I was able, would be sufficient.

Just a speck of perception.

At that moment, I could perceive a very faint but positively aberrant sensation. I would suggest that the twinge felt as if it was outside my mind. Not that I was somewhere else or outside of myself, but rather I sensed an itch where there should have been none. But the impression quickly fizzled into the void and I could not return to it.

No matter. It became increasingly clear to me that escaping, sitting up, or even wiggling were all beyond my purview, and I resigned myself to the game once more.

"Can I move at all? Can I move my legs?"

I wasn't sure that I would get a response after my tantrum, and there did seem a hesitation, but a brilliant shine exploded over me twice. No, I was unable to move my legs, but there remained a nagging suspicion that I had fired slightly off target. Was simply locomotion my concern or was there more to my underlying conjecture?

"Do I have legs?"

The light captured me, lifted, and let go. Once, and again, and a part of me began to understand. I was not okay. I couldn't move my legs because I didn't even have them.

I remembered a distant time, wondering what it would be like to not have legs, speculating how I would cope with the condition. I recalled thinking the future would make that unlikely, that somehow technology would prevent such debilitating states or otherwise correct them. But optimism about the future is often unfounded.

I was smart. I was practical and logical and a firm believer in science. Was that devotion to be betrayed?

A long forgotten memory came back to me. I was a child, running through a store looking down, watching my feet bounce over the dirty tiles. It was an odd thing to remember, and not very significant in any context. But it was a memory. I think it was the produce section of an old grocery store because I was holding an apple with an oval sticker on it. Sometimes it is funny how the human mind works.

But I could not move. I could not run again. I could not hold things again. Could I? I had to settle for some good.

"Do I still have my arms?"

I didn't know what I expected. A powerful radiance buffeted my mind twice in what I considered to be a tragic comedy. As the light disappeared into the black I wondered what further purpose my questions could serve. I was an invalid. What more did anything matter?

Forgotten memories. That was what I had. But why could I not recollect how I got here? Why was it so hard to remember my life?

No. That wasn't the pressing matter. Perhaps it was relevant but I needed to know what had happened to my body. I needed to know what fate I was to look forward to. I started broadly.

"Do I have a body?"

Two flashes returned mercilessly.

This couldn't be. There was some misunderstanding. They told me I was human—a body of some sort is required. No arms and legs would explain my inability to move or touch, but how could I not have a body?

I had to be lying in a bed with scientists standing over me. They had to be communicating with me through electricity because of my condition. I wasn't able to stand or shake their hands or behave like a normal human but I definitely was one.

But I could also not use my eyes. My ears weren't working. Why couldn't I smell or taste or speak?

"Do I have a face?"

Electricity battered my being. A quick pause and a second shock followed, and a consummate horror overcame me. I had thought I was injured, but I was nothing.

My eyes weren't blinded. My eardrums weren't blown out. My legs and arms weren't amputated. My face wasn't burned. None of these things were possible because I had no physical body. I was nothing, in a sea of nothing.

The darkness sprawling before me was not an obstacle. It wasn't a foreign element—it was my home. I was in a state of being that others could only try to imagine, restrained by their earthly binding. I wasn't trapped but free to stretch myself through the firmament. My will was my only constraint, I thought.

But if that was true, why was I powerless?

I was smart. I was pragmatic. I remembered those things. I also remembered bits of my life: being embarrassed in class, or the kiss with my eyes closed. It was impossible for me to be physical and then immaterial. Science could explain this.

To say I didn't have a body could mean many things, but it couldn't be that I no longer had any physical presence. I remembered holding an apple once. An ember of the actual must have remained.

So if I was alive, what was left of me besides my consciousness? What was the minimum of my being? What was absolutely essential to my ability, as a human, to survive?

"Do I have a heart?"

An emanation of light collided into my consciousness. No, my question was wrong. The flash faded and returned as the familiar rhythm of a negative response. A heart was not what I needed.

"A brain?"

The impact was so quick it was startling. A brightness flooded me deeply and lingered as it departed. The solace that followed finally signaled a success. I knew it. I had a brain.

Quietness and clarity pervaded.

"Do I have anything else?"

Static entwined my soul and heaved once, twice, then released me. For the first time, I truly understood. I was still myself but that was a different person. I no longer possessed a body or was able to move. No more did I have need of nutrition or a beating heart. The entirety of my cognizance was solely contained in what must have been sitting on a counter in a jar: my brain, likely hooked up to machines, communicating to scientists through electrical impulses and neurons.

The vastness of my world seemed so much smaller in that context. I had so many questions. How did I get here? What did I look like? What did my future hold?

Mostly, however, I wondered how this was possible. What manner of technology could create this circumstance? This was apparently a hardship I had brought upon myself, yet I couldn't conceive how it had been achieved. I thought I had a cursory interest in speculative science, but something like this was not yet within grasp. Science was surely not this advanced.

Unless… It was possible that developments had occurred while I was asleep. How long had I been in slumber?

"What year is it?"

Time had not been a variable I had considered. It opened the door for many interpretations. Many years could justify the science, explain my memory loss, and rationalize the fact that this situation was intentional. I considered the facts with such focus that the lack of a response went unnoticed.

How much time had passed? How did those years treat my body? I had not been in an accident per se but maybe I was living beyond conventional means. Oh God.

The thought came to me in an epiphany.

"Did I die?"

I waited in complete silence for the blinding light to reply. I hung in the air of oblivion for long moments, staring into the space that only I could see. Death was inconceivable, I thought, but how could I discount anything anymore? After this uncanny experience, I could no longer presume what was possible.

The electric flashes did not come so I repeated the question with urgency.

"Yes or no; did I die?"

The emptiness before me sat inert and left me in a troubling bath of tranquility. I waited at the ready but it was futile—I was not getting a reply. The light had left me.

The scientists had told me they didn't know if I would be able to see or speak again, but they didn't say no. Whatever I was, I was surely an experiment, but that didn't speak to what I would become. If this was the leading edge of science then perhaps I could accomplish a bit of discovery myself. I had perceived a sensation before, something besides the light, and plausibly something within my power. It was conceivable that there was something there to explore.

But those concerns aside, every indication was that, if I possessed anything valuable, it was time. The black was ever present, suspending me, and I was but a child awakening.

I relaxed and settled into the eternity. I could figure this out. I was smart. I remembered that.

-Finn

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