Former Researcher Rowan Raster tried unsuccessfully, again, to close his eyes.
He was walking through a webwork of fibers now, as the landscape saw fit, and the light that filtered through beamed on a body that wasn't there. His form was weak here, existing only moment to moment and losing parts when it did, but the spirit inside kept moving, radiant with dreamlike warmth. The fibers parted like curtains and Rowan, again in one piece, looked out over the color-scorched plain.
The grass is textured more like wool floor carpet than actual grass. Trees are lit from all angels, the bark displaying patterns unlike any he had ever seen felt. Clouds are fluffy like cotton candy, and Rowan swears he can recognize more shapes than normal. A herd of deer dashes past him, and Rowan can name off the emotions they were feeling based off their facial expressions.
Rowan walks delicately, as if he were a fragile vase, to wherever the land will take him next.
He's at a ridge walking across the purple, puffy dirt as it exudes an odor like an ice cream stand. He wanted to taste it, but it didn't feel like the right time. He was unsure why he felt that way, though. The wind was breezing through him at this point, and Rowan held his feet down in fear he would be blown away. Luckily, his body was still tethered from the warmth inside.
He looks up at the watercolor sky. Several human-shaped figures constructed out of Play-Doh are floating upwards into the sky, and it is obvious to Rowan that they are having a good day.
They float into crayon wormholes.
Crayon shaped wormholes or wormhole shaped crayons?
Eyes too unfocused to figure out the question.
The garden was a fascinating sight. Plants were where they should, and could, and would, and stood. The overgrowth was patterned like a wallpaper that he could zoom his eyes into. The Gardeners were looking through the windows and Rowan looked back and smiled. Rowan opened his mouth to speak to them, until he remembered that his voice was still stuck inside his tongue. Rowan closes his mouth.
A pink, bulbous lump in the corner of the garden bursts out several bubbles that began to bounce around the walls like ping pong balls. Heavenly bubbles with spongy Pepto Bismol colored fetuses inside. Rowan decided it was time to leave, he wasn't really in the mood for playing with toys, he had somewhere important to be. He had somewhere important to be?
We're almost there.
“We’re getting there”, he tells himself. “We’re close, I can feel it. I don’t know where we’re close. I know we’re close though. That’s all that matters.”
He’s traversing through a sprawling playground, the grass replaced with cutesy cartoon carpet depicting roads and cities. Several part of the playground equipment were wrapped and tangled around in white, doughy limbs covered in pastel polka dots. Jovial laughter can be heard throughout the monkey bars and twisting slides. It’s ridiculous, he should be willing to share with the others, who claw and scratch at his flesh, waiting for their turn.
But it doesn’t matter, what matters is where he’s going. And as Rowan walks up to a peculiarly coal black slide, untouched by the limbs, leading down into soft concrete, he climbs up the ladder and
We’re here.
Rowan’s eyes glazed over as he stared at that familiar logo. He remembered the studio. “They were like me.” He thought. “It almost called us to it. We were weird, all of us.”
Rowan considered the odds of it, to have so many people similar to him in one room. In all his years he hadn’t met or even seen someone who compared to him, whether that he looks or the way he thought. But there, at Sputnik, they all were like him.
He remembered the long blue carpeted hallways, the countless scrapped storyboards, the sounds of stifled, gurgling laughter he’d always here near that one pink hatch door he refused to enter, the posters with the eyes that would follow him, office rumors of an often unethical nature, and the CEO.
That damn CEO.
But that didn’t matter. He wasn’t here to reminisce about the past. He was here because something wanted him to be here, and he was. Rowan took a deep breath, and as he exhaled, a singular red spark shoots out from his mouth. Rowan pretends not to notice it, and opens the door.
As he did, Rowan heard the sounds of scuttling, shuffling, and footsteps that quickly moved away from him. He definitely wasn’t alone. The air was cold, the room vast and dark. All he could see was the beautiful ocean sunlight shining from outside the door illuminating the blue carpet floor, littered with sticky notes, storyboards, and syrupy office supplies.
He walks into the void, but he knows it isn’t devoid. This is usually where it ends. This is usually where he gets grabbed or tackled by something he can’t see because he’s already closed his eyes in fear.
Rowan shuts his eyes and prepares for the worst…
…but instead of the familiar feeling of an unwanted hands grip, he hears the lights flicker on, confetti flowing through the wind as thousands of voices (none quite the same) joyously yell one singular phrase.
Surprise!
It certainly was a surprise. It took a while for Rowan’s eyes to adjust to the bright light and the plethora of confetti hitting his face, and even when his eyes did adjust, Rowan still wasn’t sure if they actually did.
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