The Realm of Subconsious Illusions

A Guy finds himself in a peculiar place

What is worse than being alone? Deprived of the luxury to share with other people. When loneliness wrapped around you like a ferocious serpent trying to suffocate its prey into submission, eventually everything else around you seems irrelevant. To be without people is sad and hard to deal with. You’ll started to lose hope and when it happens, then you’ve already lost everything regardless of what you have and who you may know, when you have lost hope, you lost yourself as a person. 

That is what I’m feeling right now. Kneeling down on the ground, not knowing what to do or where to go. I’ve lost hope, and eventually my sanity. I woke up in a familiar place that I can say for sure was my hometown, Landon Riverside. Like the name implies it’s situated near the river where I used to catch some fish as a kid with my father. But then again, how did I get here? I don’t remember exactly how long, but I’m sure I haven’t been here for a while. But here I am, lying face down on the street. There’s something peculiar about this place. There was a total silence to the point I can hear the faint sound of my own heartbeat. Normally, I could hear Mrs. Copper’s dog barking threateningly to some cats, an eerie tune that came out of Mr. William’s ice cream truck, the sound of children playing football in the nearby clearing, in short there were sounds of life. 

The sky is a total blank. No stars to garnish the night sky, no moon to shower the ground with its graceful light, nothing. It’s like I’m trapped in a nonexistent dimension outside the time and space. Or I’m simply having a nightmare that eventually will wake up from. I don’t know how long I’ve been wondering this deserted place, I’ve lost a sense of time and direction. I don’t know where I am or where I’ve been. It all looks the same, lines of derelict houses devoid of color. Black and grey, and nothing else. What am I supposed to do now?

Surprisingly enough, I’m not even winded. I can walk and walk for all eternity without getting tired and still found nothing. I’ve lost the will to go on, I let my legs gave up on me and knelled to the ground. I closed my eyes surrendering myself to whatever it is that has the higher power. If I wake up from this nightmare, thanks. If I’m not, do whatever you want with me. I don’t care. I’m at my wits end when I heard a familiar voice calling my name. Sweet, soothing voices that only can be belongs to my mother. I opened up my eyes, and realize that I’m on a whole different place. A backyard that belongs on my childhood house, a house that my parents still living in. Right before me, is a figure that I’ve known too well is my mother. Something’s not right about her. She appears to be some sort of a projection, something that usually seen on Science fiction movies. One thing that bugs me the most is. . .She looks young. Her appearance looks like when she was in her late 20’s. I’ve never seen her youth with my own eyes, but I did look at the old photograph. Wait, the photograph I was talking about was the one from...

“Mommy’s calling. It means lunch’s ready!” A gentle voice of a man that belongs to my father appears from behind me. I turned around and there he is, a younger and projected version of himself in the same manner as my mother. Cradling on his hand is a baby, who’s not more than a year. He’s awake, sucking peacefully at a pacifier. That baby was me. 

Dad walked towards my mother while having a family small talk and they got into the house, closing the glass slide door behind them and leaving me outside. The scene became distorted in a disturbing manner and shifting into something new. This time, I stood by the side of the river, the one where I used to go fishing with my dad when I was a kid. Speak of the devil, there I am sitting with my father in a wooden walkway. My legs hanging out above the water and swing around playfully. We were having a small talk about school that day, I was still 6. Another projection that can only be explained as memories of my past life. But what does it trying to tell?

Again, the image is shifting, this time it’s showing dad scolding me for fighting at school. I remember I was bullied in middle school long enough that I finally decide to stood up and fight back. It was the best and only fight I’ve ever had. The image shifts, showing me packing my things up, about to move to college dorm. Mom was crying and dad trying his best to console her. Shifts yet again, my graduation ceremony, talking pictures with my parents and Diana, my high school sweetheart and my wife. Shifting, my first day on a job at a prestigious corporation. Shifting, my wedding day. Shifting, the day my first son was born. The images were shifting at a higher pace, it’s starting to makes me feel sick. But not the final shift, it took longer and it brought me to some kind of a hospital room.

All I see is a group of people standing encircling a hospital bed. Looking at them closely, I recognize them as my own family. There are my parents, now looking as I knew them, old and tired. Across from them on the other side of the bed, is my wife. Between the bed and a TV sitting atop a cabinet, are two teenagers. They are my son and daughter, Jack and Maxine. Their faces are looking gloomy, as if they’re preparing to deal with something inevitable. A pang of fear struck my chest like a bolt of arrow. Somehow I knew what happened, I knew where I am and what those image projections is all about. I need to see it for myself, I need to know if I’m right.

I walk closer to the bed, only to see my own body lying weakly in a coma. Besides the bed is a machine that pumps yellow chemical liquid into my body through a hose that looks like a thick human vein. My head is bare, no signs of even a strand of hair left on it. I’ve been fighting cancer for a year now. I guess I’m getting ready to tap out in a moment. My family has been taken care of me all these times, especially when I started to become too weak to do anything myself. Now they’re all here, accompanying me until my eventual departure. You know what they said, your life will flash before your eyes before you died. That’s what all those projections are, it shows me that I am not alone, that I lead a good life surrounded by a loving family. I am not alone. 

What’s worse than being alone then? Being in a vegetative state, where you felt weak and useless. You know what’s going to happen next, there’s no way around it. But despite all that, your family will still do their best to take care of you. They have to feed you, bathed you, cleaning after you, they tirelessly taking care of you. You have no power to tell them to stop, to tell them to just pull the plug and let you drift away. You have no other choice than to let them see you in so much pain and suffering. The thought of it is just unbearable, sometimes I wish I am alone in my final hours, so nobody will shed their tears for me. 

I’m tired. I need to get some sleep.

Author's Note

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