by Jeff Pollard
Solipsis
Escape
from
the
Comatorium
Jeff Pollard
Solipsis: Escape from the Comatorium
A Novel
Copyright 2012, Jeffrey Scott Pollard.
All Rights Reserved.
ISBN-13: 978-1477611470
www.JeffPollard.webs.com
www.amazon.com/author/JeffPollard
Cover art by:
Laura Freeman PhD MRes Bsc
Author of "How to Juggleglass"
www.JuggleGlass.com
Table of Contents
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Chapter 37
Chapter 38
Chapter 39
Chapter 40
Chapter 41
Chapter 42
Chapter 43
Chapter 44
Chapter 45
Chapter 46
Chapter 47
Chapter 48
Chapter 49
Chapter 50
Chapter 51
Chapter 52
Chapter 53
Chapter 54
We were born too soon to explore the cosmos and too late to explore the Earth.
Our frontier is the human mind.
1
We're born knowing that we're going to die.
For as long as I can remember, I've always awoken in a panicked state of fear, dripping with sweat, ready to fight or flee. As soon as I realize I'm safely in my bed, I feel intensely relieved. But relief from what?
I'll try to go back to sleep, but my body is wide-awake. It's as if I'm two different people, one who lives in the waking world, and one who lives in dreams. What kind of trouble is dream-Renee getting into?
The amount of relief I feel once the darkness clears and I find that I'm in my bedroom is what really scares me. In waking life, I never feel that much relief about anything. For a weight that heavy to be lifted from my heart, I fear that I would have to wrongly think my mother had died, and then be relieved when I discovered the mistake. So does that mean that I'm spending my nights going through all kinds of hell, thinking it's real? Just because I can't remember it when I wake up, doesn't mean I didn't live through it. Those experiences have to leave a scar on your psyche.
The earliest memory I have is of jerking awake, screaming as hard as I could. I'm surprised I didn't shatter any glass with that scream. I couldn't have been more than four years old. My bed was soaked with sweat. I didn't know that much sweat could come from a human body. I laid back down, with my back to the door.
What was I so scared of? My vocal cords hurt. Then I felt like I was being watched. Actually, I didn't feel, I knew I was being watched. You know how when you try not to think about something, it's all you can think about? My mind instantly supplied me with mental images of all kinds, murderers, demons, monsters, lurking in my room, staring at the back of my neck.
I wanted to turn over and see that it was all in my head, but it was hard to work up the courage. I finally convinced my muscles to move, turning over quickly and finding there was a silhouette in the door.
I must have gasped or made some frightened noise because the figure immediately moved towards me.
“It's okay, it's me,” my dad said. I hugged him with all of my might. “What was your nightmare about?”
It took bravery just to get words to come out of my mouth. “Hell,” I whispered. I don't remember the nightmare, I just remember what I said. But I will never forget what my dad said.
“There's no such thing as hell,” he said. He gently rocked me, holding me tight.
I looked up at him and asked, “There's no hell?”
“No honey, bad people made it up a long time ago.” He tucked me back into bed, then kissed me on the forehead and started to leave.
“Why?”
He stopped in the doorway and said, “They wanted to scare people into being good.”
“Did it work?”
“Not really,” he said, turning the light out. “Good night, Renee.”
“Dad,” I said, “What happens when we die?”
“We don't.”
I remember every bit of that more clearly than I can remember what I did yesterday. I guess it's burned in my memory with such clarity because it's the moment I discovered that I was immortal. I didn't know how or why it worked.
A lot of people have vivid memories of witnessing death and destruction. I think that's because most people live in a delusional cloud of immortality. They go on thinking that nothing bad will happen to them. Then when they are face-to-face with sudden tragedy, their way of thinking changes. For me it wasn't witnessing the truly terrible and unconcerned reality of the world, it was discovering that I couldn't die. I suppose that means that I instinctively thought that I would die one day. We must be born knowing we're mortal. It makes sense; anyone born thinking they can't die is not too likely to live long enough to procreate.
If you watch a real video of a child-soldier getting shot in the head, seeing him go instantly from a scared, brave boy to a lifeless hunk of flesh, it alters how you understand the world. We remember the moments that don't go along with the way we understand the world and our place in it. We instantly forget the minutae of our lives, but we remember vividly the moments that don't belong. It must be a way for our minds to collect data. Outliers are the key to understanding. Witnessing something that goes against your worldview changes the way you think. That alteration of your consciousness leaves a physical scar on your brain, which we call a memory.
I have a lot of memories.
2
A monkey's severed head floats in a viscous solution. Dozens of wires, emanating from the skull, climb the walls of a glass vat. Milky, decaying eyes stare straight forward.
A pale, sickly woman in her thirties watches readouts on three monitors intently. The roots of her red hair are fading into gray and falling out in clumps. She tweaks several digital knobs marked “Feedback Impulse,” then presses “Apply and Restart.” She looks to the monkey's face. Its eyes begin blinking rapidly. She spins in her chair, facing a glass enclosure.
A four-foot robotic skeleton sits against the white wall of the test chamber. Its head hangs down, unconscious. The woman takes a drink of coffee and watches the figure closely, waiting. The robot seems to wake up, raising its head. Two small cameras nested in its skull flicker back and forth, controlled by several small motors. The robotic figure stands up shakily. She approaches the thick glass wall. The robot looks at her with its glass eyes. She sips her coffee and stares into the ghost in the machine.
She opens a slot embedded in the glass, pulls an apple from her lab-coat, and drops it into the slot. The apple comes to rest in a plastic receptacle on the inside of th
e glass.
She looks back to the robotic figure. It stands, though not straight up, its eyes stay on her. She bends down, tapping her finger to the glass next to the apple. The robot approaches the glass, staring right through her.
“Come on, pick up the apple.”
The robot extends its metal right hand slowly toward the glass, toward the woman.
“Not me, pick up the apple,” she taps near the receptacle. The robot slides the metal fingertips across the glass. The bewildered robot examines its hands, touching them to each other, awed by the strange sensations. The robot sits down with its back to the glass.
“Come on...”
“Having trouble Nellie?” a male technician asks from the doorway.
“I'm trying to calibrate the mouth,” Nellie replies without looking away from the robot. “The teeth show a lot of grinding, like the pressure sensors aren't reporting high enough, or the muscles are turned up too much...or both. But I'm having trouble testing it, since we don't have calibrators for this kind of thing and he never seems to want to eat. You got any ideas?”
He approaches, standing next to Nellie, looking over the shoulder of the robot. “Have you tried turning up the hunger value?”
Nellie rushes back to the display and sifts through hundreds of controls, finding hunger. She presses the bar and slides it across, drastically increasing the hunger sensor. She quickly returns to the glass. “That's why I keep you around, Peter.”
“Really? Are you feeling alright?” Peter asks. He's tall and skinny. He's shy, speaking very softly.
“I'm fine,” Nellie responds.
“Just seems like an obvious fix,” Peter replies. Nellie throws him a dirty look as she picks up her paper cup of coffee. There are about a dozen empty cups strewn around her workstation. “Maybe you're working too hard, you could use some rest.”
“Sometimes I forget about all the things I can control,” Nellie replies, “I'm fine.”
Peter examines her sickly face. “Did you make him hungry?”
“Yeah,” Nellie replies.
“Why isn't he eating?”
“There's a delay,” Nellie replies.
“Why? The system works instantly.”
“Yeah, but the sensation of hunger isn't directly linked to consciousness,” Nellie replies.
“Oh right,” Peter says, “there would be a delay before the feeling is passed all the way to consciousness.”
The robot-monkey stares at his own hands, jaw agape. He claps his metal hands together repeatedly, awed by the sensation. The robot turns to the receptacle and reaches for the apple.
“Oh, here we go,” Nellie says excitedly. It quickly takes a bite with its metal teeth. The chewed up pieces of apple simply fall out the bottom of its metal jaw.
3
A six-year-old girl's little feet dangle off the side of her bed. Renee has short, straight red hair. She's sleeping sideways, across the bed, tossing and turning. A furry figure sits down on the bed next to her. She rolls over and is delighted to see an eight-foot-tall brown bear. “Medved! Can you snuggle with me?”
“It's time to get up Renee,” Medved messes up her hair with his furry paw. Renee nestles against his soft chest. He is a real flesh and blood bear but with a humanized face.
“Please snuggle with me,” she looks up at him and flutters her eyelids exaggeratedly. Medved can't resist her charms.
In the kitchen, a small touch-screen shows a PSA warning of the dangers of "Xenon Shocks.” A stern narrator warns, “Don't take a chance. If you feel a blast of Xenon, you may have only minutes to live. Act quickly or that rush of Xenon to the head may be the last thing you feel.”
A hand taps the display and the PSA is instantly replaced by a Breakfast Menu. The hand makes selections then hits "Cook" and the flat screen disappears. This is Gwen, a thin blonde woman in her twenties. She is unquestionably beautiful, flawless, with a glow around the edges as though she were an airbrushed picture come to life. Renee's father, Percival, smokes a pipe and reads a newspaper. He's in his forties, his hair is just sprinkled with gray. He's tall, muscular.
“Is she still having nightmares?” Gwen asks as she takes a seat. Percival simply acknowledges her with a worried look. Medved enters, tugging Renee along behind him.
“Speak of the devil,” Percival says.
“What's for breakfast,” Renee asks, rubbing her sleepy eyes. Renee walks to the oven, peers into the glass and watches their breakfast materializes onto plates.
“Renee, come here I've got something for you,” Percival says. He hands Renee a small book.
She's dismayed to find the pages blank. “What is it?”
“It's a journal. Every morning when you wake up, I want you to write down any dreams you can remember,” Percival says to his daughter.
“What for?” she asks.
“Well, you know how I study brains? Well I'm studying why people have nightmares and dreams.”
“Well duh, because we're tired!” Renee blurts out.
“But why?” Percival asks profoundly. Renee shakes her head in disbelief; what a silly question. “Go ahead, write down your dream.”
Renee sits down at the end of the table. She pulls the pen from the binding of the journal. She scrawls out a picture of a hellish landscape. Gwen pulls the plates from the oven; each one has a perfect breakfast on it. Renee puts her demonic drawing down and tears into a stack of strawberry pancakes. “Daddy, what's your job?”
“You know Daddy studies brains,” Gwen says.
“So you're a doctor?” Renee asks.
“Kind of,” he tries to play it off, focusing on his biscuits and gravy.
“Can I come to your work?” Renee asks.
“No, honey. Daddy's work is important, he saves lives. They just can't let kids run around.” Gwen says. Renee frowns, knowing she's hit a dead-end.
After eating, the family dressed for a day out on a beautiful Saturday. “Are you ready?” Medved asks Renee.
“Yep,” she replies, running her fingers across the bottom of her yellow summer dress. Next to the front door of the house is a box that looks like a phone-booth with no windows. Percival enters it, closing the door behind him. The door opens back up and he has vanished.
“Remember,” Gwen cautions her daughter, “don't ever get in a televator with-”
“Strangers, I know, I know,” Renee interrupts, having been told this too many times to count. Medved and Renee, holding hands enter the small device. Medved shuts the thin metal door behind them.
“Destination?” the televator asks in a soothing feminine voice.
“Solipsis, Lake, previous saved destination,” Medved says carefully.
“You have arrived,” the televator replies almost instantly. Medved slides the folding door open, revealing a lush green landscape. Renee and Medved walk out, hand in hand, heading toward a pristine lake, under a perfect blue sky. Across the lake is a string of mountains, exceedingly steep and snow capped. There's a dock with several small boats quietly knocking around in the water. Percival is just ahead of them, walking across a dock extending into the still lake.
Renee lays inches above rushing water, sprayed by the mist coming off of the bow of this small, very light, fiberglass sail boat. Renee rides gleefully and looks back as the family handles the sails. A gust of air catches her attention, she looks to the mountain and sees an avalanche heading down the slopes for the lake. They are thrust sideways by the frigid gust of air. Renee clings to the boat for dear life, feeling the fiberglass structure twist and strain. They turn sharply away from the wind, but this takes them heading toward land at high speed. Then they try to steer back away from land, but over-correct, sending the boat into a tumble.
The boat violently crashes. Renee flutters through the air in slow motion, then skips across the water like a stone. She comes to her senses sitting in the mud at the bottom of the lake. She fights to free herself, but finds her legs trapped by a piece of the boat. Renee struggles aga
inst this object anchoring her to the bottom. She's sinking into the mud. She screams, inhaling water. She scratches and claws against the mud, trying desperately to get out. She inhales more water, choking. This is it. She gasps for air, getting only more water. There's seemingly no air left in her at all.
“I'm going to drown. I'm dead,” she thinks. Time seems to stand still. It all becomes very calm. The undulating surface of the lake, five meters above, refracts rays of light over her. Renee's arms slowly fall to her sides. “Well, this is it. I'll be dead in a second or two,” she thinks. The thought is so crystal clear, so matter-of-fact, so calm, like she's already accepted it, it all somehow seems okay, and she's absolutely stunned by this realization.
But then she's still on the bottom. Still conscious. Not breathing. Her lungs are burning, she feels the rush of adrenaline, but the danger is gone. The whole world around her seems to glow, it feels almost like a dream or remembering back on a fond memory.
Medved's furry arms swoop in. Even he can't get her out; unable to get any leverage as his buoyancy tries to pull him back to the surface. He fights his buoyancy and sticks his paws in the mud. He finally gets leverage and raises the debris. Renee tugs on her foot, but can't quite get out. Medved's arm suddenly snaps, the cracking of the arm echoes dully through the water. Renee just barely gets her foot out before the death trap comes crashing back down. Her lungs are filled with water, she has the buoyancy of a rock. She tries to fight up to the glimmering surface, but fails. She falls back to the muddy floor. She crawls along the muddy bottom as it rises slowly to the shoreline.
Renee coughs out water as she sprawls out on the muddy shore. She doesn't know how to make sense of what just happened. Medved gets out and walks past her, shaking water off, spraying her with a mist. He lumbers toward a televator on the hill. Renee watches him walk away, his broken arm flops around at his side. He gets in the televator, closes the door, then steps out with his arm back to normal. Renee rushes to him in amazement.
