An ocean of black-coated boulders stretched out into infinity and then came rolling back in slow, gentle waves. Warm hardness caressed his cheek, comforting and calming like a mother's hand. He liked it down here, cuddled to the plastic tarmac; down here it was safe, away from the panic and the fear. As he focused on the coagulated boulders in front of his face and stared into the weird twisted gaps between them, he thought of melting into liquid and seeping down into the vast network of caverns beneath the surface of the road, of spending eternity as a thousand subterranean rivulets tricking deeper and deeper into the hard flesh of the earth.
There was a blurred movement at the edge of his vision and he refocused. A creature was approaching, clambering over the sea of boulders. Clearly intent on matters of vital importance it moved quickly, following some invisible path across the featureless if uneven plain of the road. It got closer and closer until – as big as a rhinoceros – it paused under the jutting overhang of his nose, sensing his presence with bobbing antennae. Then, with quiet deliberation, it turned and hurried away, going up past his eyebrows and out of sight beyond the top of his head.
After the ant had gone, he lay watching the waves lumbering towards him across the tarmac. The slow rolling gradually seeped into him and his thoughts rocked gently in time with the waves. The boulders melted into each other and a heavy curtain of darkness began its inexorable descent.
But he didn't want to sleep, he had only just woken up.
Suddenly galvanised, he scrambled to his feet, shaking his head to dissipate the heaviness. But as soon as he was up, it started again; the trees and the sky hurled themselves in at him, before veering away with dizzy insanity. The snake of fear was quickly awake, slithering up his throat. Now, however, he sensed something inside, a tiny pebble of hardness that the fear couldn't touch. And so this time he caught the snake, seizing its scaly neck. It twisted, trying to bite him – a slab of sky crashed down – but he held it. Then, with teeth-gritting effort, he forced it back down into its slimy cave; the oscillations slowed, and stopped.
He relaxed and for a moment all was stable. Then – suddenly – the trees crushed in, swerving giddily up to his face. Again the fear rose, but again – and with less difficulty – he forced it down, restoring equilibrium. A butterfly of lightness fluttered across his chest and he breathed deeply, savouring the viscous air; he had won, and having won once he knew he could win again.
The One Who Is Two (Book 1 of White Rabbit) Page 9
