I had reverted to my former frame of around seven years old. I was tightly clasping at a pencil case and some of my rolled up artwork under my left arm. The location was a labyrinth of sorts; dark towering corridors of damp, rusting metals. There were pipes and ducts weaving along the dingy walls and ceilings. Although unafraid in any real sense of terror, I knew I was lost and alone in the endless darkness of this place. I’d been wandering through these corridors for a while, discovering nothing much other than dead-ends and empty rooms. Somewhere in this repetition of movement, I discovered a corroding ladder leading up a tight dark shaft to a circular portal. I was faced with a difficult decision, the ladder was the only thing I’d found that suggested any variation in the endless monotony of darkened corridors. It was around twenty feet tall and presented a challenge for a boy like me with one arm resigned to carrying the tools of an artist. My dilemma was further compounded by the knowledge that somewhere near the whole above my head, on the other side, was another being. If I were to ascend the ladder, I would be making a commitment, no turning back. If the being on the other side represented a genuine danger, I would not be in any position to reverse my decision; I could die! Making this matter infinitely worse, I’d seen a glimpse of the ‘other’ being and it was distinctly ‘alien’…In the H.R Giger sense of the word.
If you were me, what would you have done? Continue to stumble around in perpetual darkness or climb towards potential doom? I began to climb carefully, I had no desire to drop my drawings or pencil case down the one-way shaft. The being on the other side of the aperture above my head continued to make its presence felt by occasionally shifting its posture so that the subtle sounds of flesh against cold metal could be heard in the otherwise eerie silence of this dreadful place. All the while I climbed nearer to it and the unknown. Whatever form I find myself in, I am rarely susceptible to feelings of fear or worry, it’s just the way I’m wired and consider it a matter of personal choice. I suppose that some may consider this attitude foolish or arrogant but I find it serves me well; it is always better to confront ones fears than spend life running away from things.
I finally reached the hole at the top of the painfully long ladder and calmly pulled myself through into the uncertainty that was the other side. I had arrived in a great chamber of sorts, it may have had a ceiling but it was so high that it was virtually black. The floor was a continuation of the slightly corroded grey metal that I’d become accustomed to. All around me stretching into the darkened distance were rows of gigantic, stacked steel pipes, wide enough drive a car through them. In many respects, now I reflect upon details of this episode, I had replaced one kind of maze with another. The light of no fixed abode was still dingy, the walls had become giant tubes and the aisles of tubing appeared to stretch on indefinitely. Had the journey really been worth it? Then there was the matter of the ‘Alien’…
The creature was definitely from the Giger school of genetics; long phallic head, bio-mechanoid decals all over its feminine, shiny black and brown, leathery skin. It was good fortune on my part that the being was also benign. We shared a telepathic conversation and the creature’s attention became drawn to the rolled up image I’d been cradling under my arm. I unrolled the paper to discover with some surprise, that my drawing of the Psychohedron* had been my underarm companion throughout this dimly lit escapade!
The pen lines and cross-hatching in the drawing slowly rippled at uncomfortable angles as both the Alien and I watched. The Alien tilted its head towards me and we silently agreed that my piece of artwork was far from being complete. I’d hardly had a moment to contemplate the implications of this revelation, when my attention was suddenly drawn to a clang of bone against metal. Behind the Alien and I was a Golden retriever that rapidly transformed into my old housemate Kid Carpet! He was writhing on the floor in a disturbing manner with his limbs knotted at generally impossible angles for the human physique. I remember his head was facing the wrong way as well. It was clear in the distorted logic of the moment that he was suffering great discomfort. His impotent limbs seemed to flap around as if to try to disentangle, but this only achieved a painful sounding series of cracking noises. I knelt beside him and whispered the most comforting words I could think of “ Ease up Ed, stop struggling with yourself, just breathe…that’s it…just…breathe…”
*Psychohedron: An image representative of everything that ever was, is and shall be. A hyper-dimensional intelligence. Name derives from Latin ‘Psyche’ (Mind) and ‘Hedron’(Shape). First encountered in a visionary state of consciousness. Image can be found by ‘Googling’
If you were me, what would you have done? Continue to stumble around in perpetual darkness or climb towards potential doom? I began to climb carefully, I had no desire to drop my drawings or pencil case down the one-way shaft. The being on the other side of the aperture above my head continued to make its presence felt by occasionally shifting its posture so that the subtle sounds of flesh against cold metal could be heard in the otherwise eerie silence of this dreadful place. All the while I climbed nearer to it and the unknown. Whatever form I find myself in, I am rarely susceptible to feelings of fear or worry, it’s just the way I’m wired and consider it a matter of personal choice. I suppose that some may consider this attitude foolish or arrogant but I find it serves me well; it is always better to confront ones fears than spend life running away from things.
I finally reached the hole at the top of the painfully long ladder and calmly pulled myself through into the uncertainty that was the other side. I had arrived in a great chamber of sorts, it may have had a ceiling but it was so high that it was virtually black. The floor was a continuation of the slightly corroded grey metal that I’d become accustomed to. All around me stretching into the darkened distance were rows of gigantic, stacked steel pipes, wide enough drive a car through them. In many respects, now I reflect upon details of this episode, I had replaced one kind of maze with another. The light of no fixed abode was still dingy, the walls had become giant tubes and the aisles of tubing appeared to stretch on indefinitely. Had the journey really been worth it? Then there was the matter of the ‘Alien’…
The creature was definitely from the Giger school of genetics; long phallic head, bio-mechanoid decals all over its feminine, shiny black and brown, leathery skin. It was good fortune on my part that the being was also benign. We shared a telepathic conversation and the creature’s attention became drawn to the rolled up image I’d been cradling under my arm. I unrolled the paper to discover with some surprise, that my drawing of the Psychohedron* had been my underarm companion throughout this dimly lit escapade!
The pen lines and cross-hatching in the drawing slowly rippled at uncomfortable angles as both the Alien and I watched. The Alien tilted its head towards me and we silently agreed that my piece of artwork was far from being complete. I’d hardly had a moment to contemplate the implications of this revelation, when my attention was suddenly drawn to a clang of bone against metal. Behind the Alien and I was a Golden retriever that rapidly transformed into my old housemate Kid Carpet! He was writhing on the floor in a disturbing manner with his limbs knotted at generally impossible angles for the human physique. I remember his head was facing the wrong way as well. It was clear in the distorted logic of the moment that he was suffering great discomfort. His impotent limbs seemed to flap around as if to try to disentangle, but this only achieved a painful sounding series of cracking noises. I knelt beside him and whispered the most comforting words I could think of “ Ease up Ed, stop struggling with yourself, just breathe…that’s it…just…breathe…”
*Psychohedron: An image representative of everything that ever was, is and shall be. A hyper-dimensional intelligence. Name derives from Latin ‘Psyche’ (Mind) and ‘Hedron’(Shape). First encountered in a visionary state of consciousness. Image can be found by ‘Googling’
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