So he walked up to the first cone and got into the middle of it and looked straight up. All he saw was a featureless circle of yellowish light.
He acted as if what fell from the hole above him was a shower of water rather than a shower of light. He put his hands up, palms outward, and turned slowly around. While he did that, he heard something making a scraping and then a rushing sound and wondered what that was. He looked in that direction and saw that the door behind him had closed.
He ran back to the door that had just closed and saw that it was now completely closed—the right edge of the door had slid into the recess built into the wall on the right. There was no longer any way to get a handhold. And, since he didn’t think his crowbar would work to pry the door open, he wondered if there might be something else around there he might be able to use as a tool to pry the door open or break it down. But there were only the walls and ceilings, the holes in the row of blocks, and the light streaming down in the shape of cones.
He leaned against the door and pushed backwards with all his might, but it would not give. It was very solid. He banged on it with his fists turned sideways. He yelled, “Sylvia Ridgeway, are you there?” When he got no answer, he yelled, “Is anybody there?” But no one answered.
Then he sank down on his knees and down further on his hands and knees and pounded with the side of his clenched fists on the stone blocks of the floor. He was hoping that there might be another passageway down there and someone in it. But there was no response. He only succeeded in bruising his hands and knuckles.
He stopped banging on the floor. He sat back on his haunches and felt despair come upon him. Though this was not the first time he felt a sense of despair first surround and then enter into him, it was perhaps the first time the feeling came on him so suddenly and with such power. He dealt with it by sitting back, closing his eyes, and letting time pass. Eventually, the feeling subsided. When it did, he was able to get up and walk on.
He could not quite figure out how far this corridor extended. He put one hand over his eyes in order to reduce the glare coming from the overhead lights, but that did no good.
He still could not see to the end of the corridor that stretched ahead of him. The pools of light stretching away into the distance combined with the darkness that lay around the pools of light made it impossible for him to see very far.
He decided he’d have to walk down there and keep walking for as long as it took. He figured this corridor would have to end eventually, and he’d have to just find out by walking.
He went carefully. He wasn’t sure if the black that surrounded the pools was a floor after all. There might be round blocks of stone that were the tops of cylinders of stone that extended so far down as to make them stepping stones across an unfathomably deep abyss. He began to worry that, if he stepped over the edge of any of those pools of light, he might fall down for hours through that abyss.
So he walked very carefully, his eyes downcast. He wanted to make sure that his feet never landed on the darkness. He jumped into the first pool, made one normal step, then took tiny steps to the edge, and then jumped again. He did this for as long as there were pools of light which, for all he knew, would be forever.
He strode from circle of light to circle of light. He began thinking of each as an island. He imagined the collection of the spheres of light as some sort of archipelago of light. And he began thinking of the darkness as a sea that washed up around the islands that made up the archipelago. He imagined that a storm was brewing. He worried that the darkness would rise up over the archipelago and drown him.
He imagined a safe harbor somewhere being somewhere on the other side of the archipelago of light which he had to hurry to get to before the storm got worse. Perhaps, he thought, a boat is docked there that he could jump into and by means of which he could sail away.
So he hurried but also moved carefully from circle to circle. While he wanted to reach the end, he wanted also and just as much not to sink down into the spaces in between any of the circles.
He did eventually come to what amounted to the very last of the circles of light. He got to the middle of it and then tiptoed to the edge. He scooted over to the very edge of it and leaned forward and peered outward into the darkness, hoping to catch even a point of reflected light. But he was still not able to distinguish any objects in the darkness or even see any highlights or even see any points of reflected light. He was tempted to dive into the darkness—to put an end to it all.
He was standing tottering on the edge of what he imagined might be an abyss when he heard a whirring sound. The sound was something like the sound a poorly lubricated motor might make.
The whirring sound came out of the air in front of him. The whirring was accompanied by a scraping and then squeaking sound. A little light crept out of a narrow space directly in front of him and grew wider and wider.
There was a crack in the wall in front of him. The blocks that made up that wall met at a line in the center of the wall. Now the blocks above rose up in one unit and the blocks below the line descended in another unit. Out of the opening, some light came.
The sounds of that movement lasted only a little while. When they stopped, he saw a shelf in front of him underneath an overhang out of which, somehow, light drifted downward. He saw also that instead of a corridor coming from behind and going straight forward there was a new corridor going from right to left with this shelf and overhang at its center—directly in front of him.
On the shelf was a bowl filled with something hot and savory. He could see steam rising and, inhaling, smelled something delicious. Beside the bowl on one side was a shiny spoon the color of silver. Beside it on the other side was a white plate on which four thick pieces of bread had been piled.
Putting his fear of abysses behind him, he stepped out of the last circle of light and up to the counter. It was soup. He decided to taste it. It was delicious soup. It felt smooth and yet thick in his mouth. It was a puree of pea soup or at least it tasted like pea soup. It was neither too hot nor too cold and satisfied him much more than what he had in his knapsack.
He tasted the bread. The bread too was fresh and warm. He devoured it all and appreciated the fact that something nice had been given him. Though he had supposed from the start that he was being monitored, he now wondered if perhaps he was being monitored by someone who cared for his well-being and, if so, he supposed Sylvia Ridgeway was also being monitored and taken care of. The thought comforted him.
When he finished eating, he peeked into the space up above the bowl and platter but saw only a strip of light. Nevertheless, he called up there, “Hello. Is anyone up there? Hey. Are you listening to me? Hey. I have to admit that soup was pretty good. I have to say I would not mind getting a little more. Is that possible?” When nothing happened, he said, “Oh, well. What you gave me was great. Thank you.”
He looked around, hoping to see a little light that might be an electric eye or a speaker through which words might come. He did not see either one however and did not hear a thing. Nevertheless, on the assumption that someone was watching him, he asked, “Why are you confining me to this place and making me find my way without so much as a word of advice from you?” He waited for an answer. Then he said, “I’ve come here to find an astronaut by the name of Sylvia Ridgeway. Can you bring me to her or bring her to me? I am pretty sure that the two of us would feel a lot better navigating this maze together rather than separately and alone.” He cupped his hand to his ear.
He said: “Speak up. I can’t hear you. Please, a little louder.” When the silence continued, he said nothing more. He was so tired of the silence that always followed his shouts and pleas. He hated it. It was a partner to the despair. He sank back while despair engulfed him. He waited for it to go away. The thought occurred to him that there might be something else he could say that would elicit an answer but, so filled with despair was he that he could not think of anything more to ask or to say.
Then he stepp
ed away from the ledge and, with the aid of the little bit of light that leaked out of the ledge overhead, he detected two pitch black openings, one on either side of him. He turned around and saw behind him the line of circles of light which he knew dead-ended at the door he had used to reach this place but now was closed.
Chapter 10: A Choice to Make
He had a choice to make. He needed help making it. He wished astronaut Ridgeway was with him and that she had been with him long enough for him to know her well enough to trust and like her. But she was not there now and had never been with him. And he dared not indulge any longer in wishing for what did not exist and never had existed.
He leaned back against the ledge, put his elbows on it, and pondered his situation. When the whirring and scraping sound started up again, he jumped away and watched while the upper section of stone dropped and the lower section rose. Like the upper and lower teeth of a giant’s mouth, they slowly closed. And, when they closed, the light behind that lay in that direction went away with it. Then, behind him, the cones of light also went out. They went out one after another, starting with the one farthest from him and continuing until the light closest to him went out. He was standing in total darkness. Somewhere in the backpack that sat at his side was a light but he decided at this point not to go to the trouble of opening the backpack, fiddling through it, and finding the light.
Here were his choices. He could try to feel his way back in the direction from which he came. He could go to his right. He could go to his left. Or he could stay where he was. That made four choices.
He didn’t know what to do. He doubted if anything he did mattered. He knew that he had some coins stored away in his backpack in a little pouch and considered finding the pouch, pulling out one of the coins, and flipping it as a way of reaching a decision. He figured that, if he did that, he’d make the first and second choices “heads” and the third and fourth “tails” and flip the coin and then, by the process of elimination, flip it once more and have his decision made for him.
But then he wondered how he could find the coin in this darkness once he flipped it in the air. And, even if he did find it, how could he tell on which side it landed? Would he be able to figure out which side of the coin was which by feel? And, in considering the problem of figuring out by feel which side of the coin was heads and which side was tails, the thought occurred to him that the coin he chose might be too worn to make possible feeling which side was which.
Also, there was the matter of tall cylinders being stepping stones through an abyss. What if the coin he flipped fell off an island and dived down into the abyss. What would he do then? All in all, it was a risky and ridiculous business flipping coins, he decided. So much for the flipping of coins, he thought, I’ll have to come up with a better idea.
It seemed to him a lot of time was passing and, while that time was passing, he might be losing out on a lot of options that might exist for him somewhere down the line. Of course, others might materialize.
He ended up thinking this way: I am left handed so I’ll just go to the left and see what happens. He had to do something and had no other criteria by which to base a decision so he found some arbitrary reason to choose and figured that was better than just standing there until the cobwebs grew.
He turned left. When he did so, he heard a sound behind him. It was a clanging sound. It might have been a bell. It might have been any piece of metal striking any other. He wondered if he should turn around and investigate it. He wondered if it might be the sound a door made out of glass made when it opened.
In the end, he decided to ignore it. He imagined himself turning around and going that way and then hearing a sound in this direction and turning around and hearing another sound behind him and just turning around and turning around and going nowhere. He’d just be letting whoever it was that was in control of this place drive him even more crazy than he was already.
So he felt along one wall of the opening he originally decided to enter and walked very slowly, feeling with that one hand all the time. Every once in a while, he reached out with his other hand, thinking that, if the corridor was narrow enough, he could use both hands but it turned out to be too wide for that.
He went very slowly, worrying that he might fall through a hole or hit his head on the ceiling or run into a hungry bear or reach a dead end. As it turned out, the last of the possibilities is what he confronted. He reached a dead end. Or perhaps it wasn’t a dead end. Once before, after all, when he reached what he thought was a dead end, he discovered that the dead end was not a dead end after all.
He felt all over the surface he encountered and found that this was made of wood or some material very much like wood and not stone or concrete. There were six panels surrounded by an upraised molding on three sides. The panels were separated from each other by about two feet. On the right side of each one and about waist high was a round metallic knob. On the left side, he felt a pair of hinges, one about six feet high and the other about two feet high.
He decided these had to be doors and wondered if turning a knob would open the door to which it was attached. He chose the first door on his left. He held his breath and slowly turned the knob, first to the right and, when that didn’t accomplish anything, to the right. He heard a clicking sound. He pulled, rather than pushed, on the door. It opened and, surprisingly, opened smoothly and noiselessly.
Chapter 11: Fluctuating Winds
Light streamed in through the opening. He backed up and opened the door all the way. He was momentarily blinded by the light. After being confined to utter darkness for so long, it was hard to make out anything at all once space blazed with light.
He backed up into the space he just left and pulled the door closed. Standing behind it, he rubbed his eyes.
When the door was open, he felt himself pushed backward by a strong wind. That was another reason he went backwards—he was blown backwards. And, when he pulled the door closed, it was hard at first to get it to close against the wind. Then, after he got the doorknob rotated at a certain angle, the wind just took it out of his hands and slammed the door shut. And, even after the door slammed shut, he could feel the wind pulling and pushing on it and slipping through some cracks on the door, most powerfully through the crack that existed between the bottom of the door and the floor of the corridor.
After a while, the wind subsided and, as it subsided, he became acutely aware of a great silence. He rubbed his eyes and, feeling he was ready to enter the new space, he pushed the door open again. And now another wind, a warm wind arose, coming from the opposite direction. The new wind came from behind him—from where he had been.
It blew softly at first and then harder and harder. It threatened to push the door wide open and keep it open. But, with difficulty, he managed to cross the threshold into a new place and close the door behind him. And, when he did that, the wind that had come from behind him ceased.
He was now in the new space and somewhat better adjusted to the blinding light. He could see a shiny wall, blazing floors, and an illuminated ceiling.
He was about to step away from the door into the new space when the cold air blew again from somewhere in front of him. It forced him backwards and made the door clatter against the wall of which it was a part.
He leaned forward into this wind and walked forwards. It was hard walking in this very strong wind. Whatever leg he raised acted somewhat like a sail and, though he tried to push a leg forward, it hung suspended in midair and sometimes ended up landing in the same exact spot where it was when he lifted it.
But he made a little progress and finally got a few feet past the doorway through which he had come. Then the wind grew stronger. It grew so strong he was not sure he could stay upright. Trying to get out of its way, he got up against the lighted wall on his left and turned sideways and pressed against the wall while leaning into the wind. But at some point he might have leaned too far forward because, when the wind wavered, he started to fall. Then the wind pi
cked up again and his feet began to slide backwards.
He was afraid the wind would pick him up and blow him back and into the door through which he had just come. He pictured himself hitting it and crumpling to the floor. Then the wind began tapering off. After a while, he was able to walk in a relatively normal way and make relatively normal progress while doing so. He proceeded to walk down the new corridor he had entered. It was getting cold however. He had to pull his jacket tighter around him to keep from shivering.
Then the cold wind went away while a warm wind coming from behind him grew stronger. He wondered how this was possible considering that the door behind him was closed but then he realized that the wind had probably blown it back open.
He loosened his grip around his coat and raised his head and looked around for some place to stand or hold onto so that, if the wind from behind became overwhelming, he’d have a way to fight it better than by just leaning into the wind.
He still was troubled by the intensity of the light. His eyes burned and watered. He just leaned in the direction of the wind that came from behind and let it push him forward. He ended up running to keep from being pushed over.
The wind blew harder and harder and then suddenly it stopped blowing. Nor did the other wind arise. He heard the door behind him slam shut. There was complete silence.
Free at last from the pressure of competing winds, he stood upright and rubbed his eyes once more and looked around.
Everything around him blazed with light. He touched the walls. He bent down and touched the floor. He looked up at the ceiling. It was all smooth like glass or plastic, shiny, and cold. From behind those surfaces, something produced light. He felt like he was walking in between, above, and under giant television or computer screens that provided only blankness and a light that was white with a slight pinkish tinge.
A Theory of Gravity Page 6