Mind and Flesh Read online

  She waits a few seconds.

  Reincarnation.

  She quickly adds that I must think she is stupid.

  I reassure her that this belief is as valid as any.

  I ask her why.

  She answers that it would be great to have different lives under different forms.

  That it is an interesting experience.

  And that this way, she wouldn’t really die and disappear.

  I find her point of view quite interesting.

  Although she won’t convert me.

  I get back to sleep.

  I am lying down in a box.

  It is dark.

  I remove the top part.

  Light shines in.

  I get out.

  It was a coffin.

  There is a field of grass around.

  I seem to be in a green room.

  Not a room, no.

  There is no ceiling, I see the sky.

  And the walls are some sort of bushes.

  The clouds are a bit strange.

  They seem to be shaking.

  Going in a direction back and forth.

  Then abruptly moving somewhere else.

  I look back at the walls around me.

  On a corner, there is a darker spot.

  An exit of the room.

  I walk there.

  A corridor with plant walls.

  An intersection. Other corridors.

  I choose randomly one of the corridors and keep walking.

  I see a lot of light coming from a room I pass upon.

  I step back and enter the room.

  Glass on all the walls, in the middle of the room.

  Mirrors.

  Mirrors everywhere.

  I see myself reflected dozens of times.

  But they don’t all show the same reflection.

  I look at the mirror closest to me.

  My reflection has an arm missing.

  I walk back.

  Another reflection.

  Overgrown eyes. A bit creepy.

  I look at another one.

  I see myself as a kid. Carrying a bunny.

  I didn’t even have a bunny as a kid.

  Onto the next mirror.

  Skull open. I see the brain.

  This is gross.

  Moving on to the next reflection.

  I see my wife.

  Ah. Maybe I can reach her.

  I move my hand toward the surface of the mirror.

  My fingers gently touch it.

  A huge crack instantly forms.

  I quickly leap back.

  All the glass shatters and explodes in my direction.

  Where once was the mirror is now an entrance to a different place.

  I can’t quite see what lies ahead, it doesn’t seem well lit.

  I get inside.

  There seems to be a path.

  It is made of cables.

  I walk on them.

  Floating around and high over me, gigantic structures.

  Mostly man-made, as they have very angular shapes.

  Their shapes are very basic though.

  The structures are intersected with cables from all directions.

  A vast network of machinery.

  The cables I am following split into different paths and enter different structures.

  I choose one and follow it.

  It leads me to a structure slightly above me, pacing up and down gently.

  As I get closer, I hear a soft tone.

  There is an open entrance.

  I enter a room with a weak yellow light.

  There are small kids in a baby park, and their mother is singing them a lullaby.

  One of the kids climbs on top of the barrier.

  He makes one step in my direction, hands raised, happy smile on his face.

  The mother catches him and forcefully puts him back in the baby park.

  She glances at me.

  She asks me to go away.

  There is another opening in this structure, so I move along.

  Another path of cables.

  I follow them until they once again branch in different directions.

  I choose another direction than the one I took last time.

  Not that it will make a difference I guess.

  This leads to a circular structure a bit under the path.

  I step on its top.

  There is a hatch in the center.

  I open it.

  A ladder.

  I get down the ladder.

  The room is circular, as the structure was.

  The walls are covered in… lockers.

  They are all closed.

  And all in different sizes.

  I hear a rumbling sound.

  I can’t quite distinguish it clearly, but it sounds like a voice.

  I focus on the sound.

  Where is it.

  Where is it.

  Where is it.

  These words are said on a loop.

  Where is what exactly?

  Oh, perhaps the locker I can open with my key?

  I get my key out of my pocket.

  Well, now I have to figure out which locker to open.

  Where is it.

  Yes, where is it indeed.

  It should not be one of the small ones at least.

  This one could have a fitting size….

  I get closer with the key, to try it on.

  Hey wait a minute.

  I don’t want to open my secrets.

  No fucking way.

  I put the key back in my pocket.

  I climb back up the ladder.

  Ah it seems there was only one cable path leading here.

  I will go back that cable to find the junction again.

  At the junction, I look around to determine where I want to go.

  The floating structures are filling the space as far as my eyes can see.

  Except on one side, I think that I can see a wall behind them.

  A huge black wall.

  And by focusing my eyes on the places where I can see it, I notice…

  A plug.

  I am certain that plug powers the entire machinery and floating structures.

  I want to go unplug it.

  So I watch the path of cables that will get me closer, and design my route.

  Several floating structures will have to be crossed.

  I sigh, and then get on my way.

  Before I reach there, I can contemplate the next structure I will have to cross.

  It is shaped like square.

  From the top leaves the next cable I will have to take.

  On the sides are huge built-in fans, blowing at high speed.

  The cable I am currently following leads to below the center of the square.

  It would be impossible to reach the top part from the outside, so I will have to go through.

  And there indeed seems to be an opening in the bottom surface.

  There is no ladder.

  Nor is there light inside, so I can’t see if I can grab anything to pull myself in.

  But there must be, so I put my arms in the dark entrance and use my fingers to scan the surfaces.

  The metal feels very cold outside, but warmer as I move my hands in.

  The shapes I feel are placed irregularly, and to my touch they feel a lot like heavy ribbed cables.

  I grab them and pull my body higher.

  My trunk gets to elbow level and prevents me from pulling higher. I still have my butt and legs out.

  But the shapes around me are so irregular, and the hole being a bit tight, I can contort myself into holding in place while sequentially grabbing higher places with my hands.

  I pull again.

  Now I am all the way in, including my feet.

  It is a bit easier to hold still while I reach for a higher place.

  There is no light.

  I feel really oppressed.

  But I must keep going.

  Af
ter a few minutes, I start to realize that I wouldn’t be able to go back.

  The feeling sinks in me.

  Distresses me.

  I want to focus on going up, but knowing that I can’t go back is starting to block me.

  Prevents me from moving at all.

  I can’t stand being stuck.

  I can’t bear failing.

  The fears are griping me so hard, I am afraid to move forward again.

  I am starting to get shivers.

  My whole body is shaking.

  Tears are flowing.

  My twitching hands are getting hurt on the cables.

  Yes!

  I need to concentrate on the pain.

  I cut my hands and arms on the surfaces around me.

  I focus on the pain to distract my mind from panicking.

  I slow down my breathing.

  The torrent of tears wears down.

  I get the control of my body back.

  And the climbing resumes.

  A few more minutes.

  I can finally see a faint red glowing up ahead.

  This is a welcome boost to my motivation, I double the efforts.

  Until my hands don’t feel restrained anymore.

  There is free space up here.

  I pull myself out of the hole and stay lying on the floor of the new area to recover.

  My body feels bloody and bruised; I can see darker shapes of red on my skin amidst the reddish color everything is plunged in.

  The glow seems fickle, as a crackling fire.

  Actually the sound is close to a crackling fire too.

  But the volume seems a lot more.

  A lot of cricketing noises.

  All around me are huge, striated cables.

  They are on the floor, on the ceiling, hanging, everywhere.

  The red glow seems to come from thousands of very small dots, moving around.

  I sense a tickling on my arm and shake it.

  More tickling. Arms and legs.

  I look at them and…

  The red dots are moving on me.

  I get my arm closer to my face to look at them.

  And shake my arm!

  Insects. They look like insects.

  I shake all my limbs to get them off.

  I. Fucking. Hate. Insects.

  I go in a frenzy and crush them under my feet, making some red glow disappear.

  It is actually quite satisfying.

  They are not disgustingly squishy and slimy, instead they crack and break.

  More like…

  I look down and get a closer look.

  They are chips.

  Moving on their pins as legs.

  They have a red LED build-in.

  I keep crushing them.

  Until suddenly, something grabs my neck and pulls me up.

  Prevents me from breathing.

  Hurts.

  I squint my eyes and look.

  A cable.

  I desperately try to remove it from my neck but other cables quickly grab my arms and restrain them behind my back.

  Others grab my legs and pull me in the air, head down.

  I try to pull off. Struggle. Escape.

  I… can’t move.

  I hear more cricketing noises.

  Red dots moving on the cables and converging in my direction.

  They reach my fingers.

  Painfully insert my nails.

  I scream.

  More keep coming.

  Inserting under my skin.

  My eyelids.

  I scream. And scream.

  A cable enters my mouth.

  It rips my tongue as it enters my throat.

  Soaring pain.

  But another sudden pain surprises me so much I stop trying to scream altogether.

  A cable entered my ass.

  I feel torn in half.

  Chips keep inserting under my skin.

  When they reach my testicles, the pain makes me doze off.

  I don’t know how much time has passed, but I open my eyes.

  All my eyes.

  I can see everything.

  The whole place enclosing the structures.

  Each structure.

  Inside the structures, even though a lot are in the dark.

  And I can see everything at the same time.

  I see kids beating each other up with nail bats. Their flesh is ripped on multiple places. Noses torn off. Unrecognizable faces. Hair sticking to the blood between nails. Some of them are on the ground, skull open, not moving anymore.

  A dog eating its own tail. Running in circles. It seems enraged and moves its head left to right to rip the tail off. Around the dog, at a safe distance of one or two meters, crows are watching. They seem excited, sometimes flapping their wings.

  A naked couple fucking in a room with walls plastered with skin. A wet substance is coming off the walls, and the couple is glistening as they roll in the substance.

  A mother hiding kids in her belly. She puts he hand through her vagina, gets a kid out, breast-feeds it, then puts it back in her womb before taking another kid to feed.

  A little boy with no teeth diving in a pool of teeth. He smiles happily as he climbs back to the top on a ladder, then dives again. The teeth are all human. Some are white, some are yellow.

  Rabbits banging their heads against glass. They are in small glass cages and keep banging to get out. Their fur and the glass are stained with blood, but they keep at it.

  A room full of pocket tissues. Piles, perfectly aligned. There are dispensers on the walls.

  A small woman skipping rope, with dozens of penis hanging on walls like trophies. They are dangling and swinging flabbily at the rhythm of the rope.

  Skinny people standing next to each other while holding each other’s sexual attributes. They are not smiling, just groping at each other as if in need for a connection, but the rest of their bodies offer no comfort.

  An old man trying to match a light while being covered in oil. He has a big cigar in his mouth.

  A grizzly fucking a little girl from behind. She is enjoying it immensely. She is not worried about damages to her body from the huge penis, she just concentrates on the pleasure it induces.

  A room full of people shaking hands while their necks are hanging on a rope. They are standing on chairs. They know that once the signal has been given, the chairs will drop and it will have been their last goodbye. Until then, they keep shaking hands with their neighbors.

  Goats eating human fingers and entrails. They spit back when they have nothing but bones to chew.

  A room full of television sets, each displaying something different.

  Trains moving on walls and ceilings at high speed, telescoping each other, building back from the debris as if new, and resuming their wild course again. They don’t need tracks nor the correct gravity, all that matters is the thrill of the ride.

  Trees with see-saw branches trying to break the walls around them. They try to push, they try to cut. But there is no freedom for them, they are powerless.

  Insects being born by imploding from other insects, and entering other insects to lay eggs in them. A yellow goo pours out of the bodies. The larvae are hungry, they devour then increase pressure as many of them are growing up.

  A printer filling a whole room with blank paper. Some of the paper invades back the tray, in an endless cycle. The printer is proud, it doesn’t stall, it doesn’t require ink, it prints and prints and prints.

  A girl in bondage, unable to move as a man penetrates her vulva repeatedly with a knife. She is crying, and unable to scream because her mouth is gagged.

  A teenager being driven by a car. The car is on the back of the teenager, using its wheels to push limbs forward.

  All of this is part of me now.

  My organism.

  I am a god.

  I am everywhere.

  I am everything.

  I remember what I wanted to do before coming to that position.
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br />   I wanted to unplug the whole machinery.

  Do I have that power?

  I concentrate and the girl and the grizzly because they make me uneasy.

  I focus and am able to remove the cables leading to the round structure containing them.

  The round structure then falls in the bottomless pit under.

  Before they are out of my reach, I can see them plastered on the ceiling.

  The grizzly panicked and shred the little girl’s frail body with its claws.

  He still seems inside her, though.

  But it won’t matter soon, the structure will fall into oblivion.

  It feels good to be able to decide other’s fate.

  I want to do that again.

  I could unplug the whole machinery as I initially wanted, though.

  But… no.

  Now that I am in this position, I have no intention to go back.

  I have the power, and it is very enjoyable.

  Which structure will I mess with next…

  As a review them, I get a better look at the ones in the dark.

  And suddenly something that I didn’t notice earlier strikes me.

  There are a lot of these structures in the dark. But they are not empty.

  I see a lot of standing shapes in them.

  Can I turn on the lights to see better?

  I focus a bit, and yes I can.

  I am immediately panicked by what I see.

  Them.

  Dressed in black, wearing black masks, armed with assault rifles and guns.

  They are still after me.

  There is something they want from me.

  And as I turned on the lights, they start to move and become restless.

  They are exiting their structures and pursuing on the cables around them.

  I come to my senses.

  I need to fucking do something about them.

  Like… unplug their structures.

  I make them fall. As many as I can.

  All those I can think of.

  But even though everything is at my sight, I can’t think of it all at the same time.

  I need to individually visualize them in my mind to make them drop.

  And I need to notice and uncover new ones as well.

  As a result, they still manage to pour en masse.

  From everywhere.

  I am unable to keep up with the sheer amount of them.

  And then it strikes me.

  Where is my body.

  I need to protect my body.

  Ok, here, I see it.

  Hanging in the room, penetrated by the cables.

  My eyes are closed.

  I am so tiny in comparison to what I feel like I am right now.

  And so vulnerable.

  How can I protect myself? I see the black figures closing in.

  I drop more structures into the abyss below.