(Google Image search: “Space Duvet”)

Yester day all I managed to do was a drawing, to day a 2500
word story. I’m improving, which is good : ) It might come across rather bleak in parts, but it is just a
story, it never happened and will never happen… However personally I think
overall it is rather positive, but I shall leave that decision with you, and remember,
“Live long and prosper.”

The Space in Between the Duvet

It is dark and I’m lying utterly still under the duvet, I
hear the noise of the bussing engine pushing me through space. I imagine the
stars flying past and the endless darkness that exists outside of the cold
steal that is my space ship.

I’m an explorer onboard a one-man
space ship on a mission to boldly go were no man has gone before. I smile at
the Sci-Fi reference. I turn around in my stasis bed; soon I will fall back to
my eternal sleep. It is my paranoia that foresees me to wake up ever so often
just to see that I’m still me, that the ship is intact and still flying true.
Spending so much time alone in ones head is not good for anyone, quirks are
bound to happen. A truck drives past my window and the headlights invade my
bedroom.

I’m torn from my imagination and know that if I steep
outside of the bed and open my eyes I will not feel cold steel against my feet
nor will I see the inside of a space ship. No I’m firmly planted on earth were
some people even question if the landing on the moon was a government
conspiracy. Defiantly no interstellar travel in our reality and if there was I
would certainly not be suited for the job, for this is a world were even bad odor
can stop you from being apart of a space program. I’m currently unable to get
out of the bed to be among the living and it has been like that for the last
eight days. I recently suffered an anxiety attack like I do at least once a
year and now I’m whimpering like a child.

There is no escape from ones own
mind. As a child one grew up with villains being an external force and adults
being more than capable to deal with them no matter how dark it looked. Nobody
prepared you for the evil that recedes within one self. I’m not talking about
dark impulses, such as opening a car door in front of a bicyclist, or do any
other unethical acts. No I’m talking about the hidden voice within that subtly
pulls you down. I think a lot of women, at least I’ve meet a few, have a voice
that tells them they are not good looking enough and men, I think, have a voice
saying that they are not man enough. This is obviously very simplistically put,
but for arguments sake lets follow it through. Most people I think are not
overwhelmed by it, it is the force that drives them forward. Makes them go to
the gym and constantly push them selves forward. It is certainly this fear that
advertisement taps in to. But some like me have a slightly different reaction,
I have known people who commit self harm and others who stuff them selves with
food, but I hide under the bed or do something repeatedly, like playing
solitaire for 12 hours, to escape from my thoughts.

I cannot escape any longer, I
have to go to work, but I cant, I just cant, all I want to do is disappear in
to eternal darkness. How can I succeed in what I want to do when the enemy is
my self? I’m an artist, a photographer and a performer; my work is actually a
reaction to these lapses of depression. I have been relatively successful with
it to. I have had three solo shows of my work and numerous group exhibitions.
If you look hard enough at my pictures I think you will be able to see my soul.
But it has never caught on, never gotten to the stage were I get back a
fraction of what I put in to my creations. It is not enough to make good work
if nobody sees it and it is not enough to make good work if the right people
don’t see it either. You have to sell your self; one has to go out there and
scream to the world, tell it that you exist. Nobody else is going to do it for
you.

The easy solution is to end ones
life to relinquish responsibility. I have achieved a lot. Why should I need to
do more? I have a loving family and an extraordinary girlfriend that have a
stake in my life. But what do they get back? A self pitying fool who is no good
to anyone. Al I need is a chair and a rope and I will get an answer to the
biggest question in our human existence, is their life after death?

It is dark and Albrich is lying utterly still under the
duvet. He slowly opens his eyes. The last memory he has is feeling the rope
tightening around his neck. Obviously he was unsuccessful, he feels relived, he
did not really want to die, he just wanted to stop the overwhelming feelings
surging through his mind. At least he might get some thorough help now, not
just prescriptions for happy pills or to few sessions with a psychiatrist.

A strange humming sound confuses him;
it is like nothing he has heard before, only imagined. An engine pushing a
space ship through space. Albrich throws the duvet away and finds himself in an
alien environment. He looks down at his body and feels a surge of fear as he
sees a body that is not his, a body stranger then he could ever have imagined.
A foreign voice is talking rapidly to him in an unknown language. As he jumps
out of the stasis bed he shouts “I don’t understand. What is going on hear? Do
every one who dies wake up like this?” The foreign voice stops, re adjusts and
replays “No. This is not meant to happen. My master, whose body you are inhabiting
was in stasis. Some how you have over written his soul. You must go back in to
stasis and I will try to correct the error.” Albrich stands totally still,
feeling the cold from the floor creep in to his body, as understanding reveals
it self to him and he replies. “No, if this has never happened before, how do
you know if you can reverse the effect?” The voice does not reply. “You don’t
do you? Your master might even die and we both will be lost. No I have dreamt
of this from the first dream I ever had. I’m not passing up the opportunity to
boldly go were no man has gone before.”

Albrich looks around, the room.
The stasis bed and the floor it resides on floats in the centre of an orb. “How
do I get out of hear?” “I’m not going to help you, human.” Albrich smiles, “so
you know what I am, I think you know a lot more than you are giving on, Mr Voice.”
Silence. Albrich Walks over to the edge, looks down and realises it is a fair
drop, enough to kill a human. But he is human no more and takes a leap of faith
as he mutters under his breath. “I have died ones to day, why not one more
time.” But instead of falling he floats upward until he reaches the shell of
the orb that he easily travels through. Albrich finds him self, staring out in to
open space, planets and stars passing his field of vision with a blink of an
eye. “Amazing, utterly God smacking amazing.” Once again the room is
minimalistic. He walks around it, not very big but the 180-degree view of the
universe makes it feel vast. Albrich is about to sit him self down on to the
floor, but a force forms around his body like a chair. The sight of the
universe passing by, like a screen saver he once had, is mesmerizing and
Albrich finds him self steering blankly at it, until a planet that looks like
Earth catches his attention and the space ship turns with his thought and stops
right in front of it. “Totally unreal.” “No this is enough, you do not know
what you are doing. Go back to the stasis bed now, before you do something
irreversible.” “No you only live once, actually in my case twice and if that
has taught me something then it is that one can not live with the fear of doing
something wrong, one should just do.” Albrich controls the space ship like one
would control ones own body, if you want to walk you walk and if you want to
crawl you crawl. Albrich enters the atmosphere of the planet that caught his
eye, but soon realises that it’s not Earth, the continents are all wrong. But
there is some kind of life down there. “I suggest you get out of this
atmosphere quick, a weapon has targeted us.” Says Mr Voice with some urgency. Albrich
heads Mr Voices advice and speeds away from the planet. Soon he is dashing
around the universe like a manic, the freedom is intoxicating, until fatigue
overcomes him and he falls asleep.

Albrich awakes to a most sublime vista, and he smiles.
“Another day in the universe, what do you have to say to that Mr Voice?” “My
Masters people will catch up with you and put an end to your personal joy
ride.” “Well I’ll just have to try and have as much fun as I can, for death is
always at ones door, knocking and knocking until you let him in.” Albrich
leaves the controls and notices that the space ship changes course. He returns
to the chamber with the stasis bed and enjoys the thrill of flying around in
the orb. “So Mr Voice when I don’t control the ship you do?” “That is correct.”
“And if we should land on a planet you could abandon me there and return with
your people?” Silence. “I’ll take that for a yes, hence I’m confined to the
space ship and we are in a game of tug. Certainly a lot more interesting than
sitting on a cloud, full of joy whilst playing a harp or burning in the pits of
Hell.”

Albrich touches the shell of the orb on the opposite end of where he
entered the cockpit and emerges to a room vastly bigger but completely empty. “So
what is it I have to do in this room I wonder?” Albrich jumps up in to the air,
stands on his head, sings a song about Humpty Dumpty, tells a story about the
turtle and the rabbit but what ever Albrich tries has no effect, except that a
chair forms around him where ever he tries to sit down. Finally he falls exhausted
in to a chair. “At least I’m not on Earth going insane.” With that sentence
Earth appears before Albrich in al its glory. “Now what is this I wonder? And
what will happen when I say England?” The view changes and reveals an island
just of Europe, with some futuristic planes flying through the sky. When
Albrich zooms in further towards London he barley recognises what he is seeing.
“It must be the future Earth, and this is some sort of recording or monitoring
of it.” “You are correct human, my master has been watching your planet for
what is to you a very long time.” Says Mr Voice. “Has he now. Lets see if he
has been watching me. Top bedroom, 106 Delce road, Rochester, Kent, 30 October
2009, 09:00” With that voice command Albrich sees him self in bed with the
duvet over his body, imagining that he is onboard a space ship. “Ah those were
the days.” Comments Albrich as he sees him self in turmoil. The Albrich in the
projection gets out of bed with a purposeful movement and walks to his office
were he starts writing on his computer. “What am I doing, this is were I resolve to kill my self.“
Asks Albrich rather bewildered. “What you are watching is how events on your
planet truly unfolded and if you continue watching you will see how your life
really ends.” “You mean my life ended a long time ago, not just yesterday? And that
I’m not really me, I’m a recording?” “Yes. Whilst my Master was in stasis, he was
reviewing the data from your planet. He does that by living the lives of
selected specimens, be that dolphin, mouse or human. My guess is that my master
had an emotional reaction to what he was experiencing in you and went from
observing to reacting. Causing the predicament we are currently finding our
selves within. I believe you must have struck a cored within him, normally he
is in full control.” Says Mr Voice. “Unlike me, who collapses at the site of
trauma…” “You see… you must return.” “Because I’m not real? That when I die
there will be no digital haven for me. No this just strengthens my resolve not
to return. If I have a choice over the real life or a predetermined recording I
chose the real no matter how short it proves to be.” “What about your family,
your girlfriend and al the wonderful art you will make?” “What of it? It has
happened I have apparently already lived that life and I made an absolute mess
of it, now I shall live another.” “A life that is not yours to live, how can
you be so selfish?” “Watch me.”

Albrich travelled around the galaxy, seeing events never
imagined by humans and had loads of fun, but slowly ever so slowly his mode
started to change. He started to wish for what he could not get, to leave the
space ship to explore a planet by foot. No matter how extraordinary his life
was he found him self becoming restless and wishing for a change. Until he
cries out to the universe “No matter were I find my self, no matter how
wonderful things are around me, my mind destroys it.” “The mind is a powerful
thing, if one does not watch out it can trip you over.” “I want to feel the
embrace of my girlfriend.” “You can.” “I want to see my friends and family.”
“You can.” “But they are not real, I’m not real. The real me is probably
burning in Hell.” Says Albrich highly aggravated. “That might be so, but please
give back the life of my Master, I beg you.” “No I will not give in to death
once more, I shall live this life to its full potential. I shall see things
through. I will not give up, I will not relent. I shall succeed.” “I’m shore
you will, but not in this life.” Says Mr Voice as calmly as ever. Everything
goes black for Albrich and several aliens appear. They talk to Mr Voice as they
carry the body back in to the stasis bed.

I left the deliriums of my bed, self loathing and casual
thoughts of suicide 6 hours ago, to type some random words, just to think
through what was going on in my mind. I look at the final sentence and smile
once again. “If time and space is infinite, then anything is possible. A world
where turtles can beat rabbits in running completions, a world where Humpty
Dumpty did fall of the wall and all the kings men could not put him together
again. A real world for every story imaginable, now that is an extraordinary
and mind bending thought…”

The END

As an additional note: Even though I personally have felt the thoughts of suicide, this is not something I plan to do. I’m to stubborn.