Eternity 2

The stone is moulded just right to fit my backside. It is smooth and comfortable. I spend my time watching the shifting worlds before me, as scenario upon scenario are enacted upon my screen – understandable constructs and narratives. A man on a cool day in a light trench coat sits on a solid bench to rest his tired legs. He eats an apple to satisfy his hunger. He is cold. I forget about the unfathomable options behind me – the swirling masses of ideas and theories, of utopias tightly winding themselves around dystopias. They don’t need me and I can quite easily forget them. I am merely a selector or possibilities.

When I turn around, my eyes are very nearly overcome by the sheer complexity of the shifting, coiling, spreading potential to be found. Beyond the lip of earth-stained rock, the possibilities are endless. I have never dared venture beyond this threshold; the mixture of fear and complacency in me is strong enough to counteract my curiousity.

On my right, suspended by beige nylon elastic straps, hangs a large, complicated mechanical device. It is suspended from the ceiling by 3 straps, and tethered to the ground by another three and is thus prevented from swaying. It resembles an optometrist’s lens-selector, the big black-and-chrome machines they would press up against your face when you would sit in that comfortable chair. I am still working out the details of operating this device. It is exceedingly complicated! There are all kinds of different lenses to choose from – a cornucopia of colours and shapes.

I’m figuring it out slowly. The basic principle is that this device allows me to select which of the swirling collection of ideas and principles behind me, many of which are blatantly contradictory, I wish to admit into my enclosure. By fiddling with these lenses I can filter in certain possibilities . . . and fortunately keep others out! I can choose my own projections, thus, and when I get bored, by flicking a few switches, rotating a few lenses, or twirling a few dials, I can totally alter my projected reality – add new character types, say, shift values, flip meanings. Eternity, this way, is endlessly entertaining, even in the relative darkness of this enclosure.

- edited on Sunday, January 14th, 2007