Trapped In Infinity

Trapped in Infinity

Rowan never viewed himself as being lonely, he knew he lived in a lighthouse by himself and on the edges of the town, but this never bothered him. Rowan, although living by himself, did not live alone because he hated human interaction, he would often find much happiness on his weekly trips into town and the small conversations he would have with admiring and thankful sailors. It was rather he thought there was a peace to the solitude in which he lived. Yet what Rowan found most enjoyable were the nights when he would leave his post and sail out across the still night water, so he could look up at the stars. He marvelled at their beauty their light like drops of crystal paint in the sky that waited to fall to the earth and paint it in their heavenly glow. Quiet and peace were two of the things Rowan enjoyed most within his life, yet peace is a luxury few ever receive.

It was upon a day like many others, with night drawing near and Rowan preparing the mechanisms within the lighthouse, when as he glanced out across the water he saw it. He didn’t know what it was, except from the fact that it was a light in the water. Rowan was used to seeing ships’ lights out on the water, but what took him back was that the light was stationary even in the churning waves, and most baffling it glowed with a colour he could not describe. It was like nothing he had ever seen before, or anything that should be seen. There were no words for what the colour was, any attempt would have been as pointless as describing purple as orange. Though disconcerted, he tried to remove it out of his mind blaming it as merely tiredness trying to suppress the incomprehensible nature of the colour from his mind. He wanted to say this was merely a hallucination, but how could the mind conjure such a thing as that colour upon the water. What had further baffled his mind was that though light in the water seemed close at hand, but the beams from lighthouse could never illuminate it or shed light on its source. Rowan’s attempts to suppress his worry was futile and he thought of the light upon the water and it seemed sometimes that when he closed his eyes he could glimpse that colour in the corner of his vision.

He awoke the next morning thinking that the light would remain out there on the water, yet, somewhat to his relief, when he looked out across the waves he saw no sign of it, the waves were empty as they always were. Rowan continued with his day with the same routine that he followed every day, till the thought of the strange occurrence was a whisper in the wind of his mind. It was only until the evening, when the thought of the light had become a drop of ink in the ocean, that as he looked out he saw it once again and the light flooded his mind. He felt stunned as if hit by an unseen wave, his mind spasmed as if shocked, what he had regained of his serenity was stripped away from him like meat torn from the bone. The very presence of it in open defiance of nature and mankind, it would be alien if he did not see it here on this world upon the waves.

Rowan could bare no more to look out across the waves its presence irked him pushing on the corners of his mind strangling it into confusion and worry, and where he had once been able to dispel it from his mind he was not given this respite again. His anxiety grew with every passing night, but within the worry and concern there was a longing for it. He had a curiosity, a gnawing in his strangled mind to see it, to gaze across that watery desert and look more upon the light. Rowan would sometimes find himself like a voyeur looking across the water, often longing to see the light and its colour yet when he saw it he would detest its light and himself. Rowan when doing this cared little for the tasks that he would often busy himself with and the lighthouse became slowly more sordid, as did the appearance of Rowan.

When he finally forced himself to go into the town nearest him for some more food he was looked at with worried and nervous eyes, which had once been kind and accepting. He could feel their unseen judgement as they stared at him and feared they might peer behind his eyes and into the anguish of his mind, which would lead them through the door of anxiety and slow madness. He could feel his feet drag along the sanitised pearl floor of the stores, his presence defiling that purity like a bloodstain.

“Rowan,” a cheery voice said in front of him, startling him “how are you we haven’t seen you in here in a long while. The lighthouse treating you well.” Rowan almost staggered back at the voice hearing it seemed muffled to his ears and he thought it odd as he had only been gone for a week.

“I am, fine. I am fine thank, you I…I…just needed to get some food.” The words seemed to not come from his mouth. Rowan knew that the man could see past his eyes could see what Rowan had seen.

“Well it’s always good to see you, hope to see you soon.” Rowan stared into the man’s eyes which in that moment seemed to be a bottomless cave unending into the deep. Rowan left the store his eyes gaunt and began to walk home. His brain moving through a mire of thorns and tendrils that seemed to wrap around his mind and squeeze as if it were anaconda. He returned home eventually.

The light continued to glare on the waves for several days, until finally that day arrived that he had waited for. The snake on his mind had tightened and he had become gaunt, he longed to alleviate his mind on the waters, to have his mind expand on the waves to loosen that grip and look up into the stars once more. The night was clear and the stars were above him, and for the first time in weeks did Rowan feel slightly more whole as he prepared the lighthouse before his journey out on the water. Once he had prepared everything he drove down to the waterfront where he kept his boat. The boat was small with a sail that Rowan rarely used as he would never venture too far out into the water, staying safe in the shallows. The water was calm and rippled at the shore when he set off on his boat. The silky blackness of the water hid the horrors of the deep, the fishes which despite being so close to the centre of our earth seemed so equally alien. Rowan did not think of this, as the sea had been part of him all his life so why question it’s nature now, much like how the sky is always above us and yet is so rarely questioned.

He pushed off, the boat sliding through the water like a swan, and there were no great mountains to frighten Rowan as they had Wordsworth but neither ever thought of what lay beneath, just an emptiness stretching endless. Except it wasn’t empty. Far out in the waters that light glinted. Rowan thought not to look and stared up at the sky, to the stars, to the things that he used to once marvel at, used to cherish. He looked up to try and feel that warmth that he had so often felt, but as he looked up the stars were cold. They were so far away and their light was so dim leaving him alone and desolate on the water, even the water which reflected those stars seemed to be far away as if no light could touch him. The night was oppressively silent and he wished for turbulence in the water, something to fight against, something to set his mind on, an adversary to struggle against. He felt purposelessness in the silent isolation on the water. Where was that comfort that he so relied upon?

All that remained upon those waters was that light. The light scratching at his mind like a septic rash. Rowan could no longer maintain his curiosity and dared to itch at the poisoned wound, sailing toward the light and the depths. The light seemed to be beyond the crest of every wave to which he could never reach, always at the edge of his fingertips. He continued to follow the light his eyes fixated on it, so much so he could not see around him that the waves grew larger. The wind had picked up whipping at Rowan’s hair which now framed his wild eyes, that now reflected the colour of the light in the water. Only as the sea boiled, churning beneath him did Rowan even think to look back behind him at what he thought would be shore. There was only water. The sea melded into the mantle of the night sky, the stars and night bled into the water reflecting their distant light, and Rowan alone in his boat was shrouded in the black. His heart raced and as he turned expecting to once more see that light in the water and that maddening colour that would provide at least some direction, he saw once more nothing but the shroud of night. He was left alone to be judged by the sky and water. He was out in the deep. Rowan attempted to rally and pull the boat around in the trying water, he scrambled but the boat which he had so often relied on betrayed him as the stars had done earlier, and felt it shifting beneath him heaving under each wave. Rowan’s efforts were ultimately futile, and the boat crumpled in the water the mast falling with it, trapping Rowan on the boat and the tendrils of water slid up the boat. The water would have been bracing had not he already been soaked in the inky blackness.

Rowan sank with the ship his body becoming blind and numb in the freezing water, all he felt was the building pressure as he was consumed. He tried with deaf hands to free himself from the mast, scrabbling at the wood. As his body was dragged down he managed to worm his was out and free himself from the mast. He was free, but suspended in a starless space unknowing to which way was up and which was down, he was lost. Heart pounding, he swam in the only one option he had left in escaping from this breathless fate and strained his arms forward into the water. It felt as if he only pushed the water aside and he remained unmoving. His lungs whimpered and his mind was dizzy and muddled as he swam.

Then he felt it, air and with a final push forward he wanted to find himself above the water looking at the sky yet he didn’t, he was in a cave. He gulped in the air and scrabbled onto a platform of rock. He sat upon the ground recovering and as he sat there he noticed something, the walls of the cave were carved as if chiselled. Rowan dragged himself closer to the walls, where carved into its face were eyes, a single slit down the centre marking their pupils. Rowan wanted to wonder what creatures lurked in the water and in this cave, and what were the eyes watching in this chamber. Rowan saw at the end of the chamber a corridor leading to the left and right. As much as he wanted to leave the room and this cave he felt he couldn’t, his body was welded to the floor, and curled like the tail of a chameleon. He lay there, his clothes sodden with salt with the eyes watching him closely. Their eternal gaze made him restless under their judging watch. Under this pressure that glared into him, Rowan felt he could no longer bare to be in the room or at least he thought he could see what lay beyond in that corridor. Rowan slowly pulled himself up, the room was silent except for his shaking breath and his wet footsteps which sounded like he was stepping on brains. He walked toward the opening to the hallway and stepped out into it. The barren walls continued into the unseeable distance the hallway lit by some unseen light that seemed to eradicate all of his shadows, leaving him alone. Rowan took a step down the hallway, as if the couple of steps he took down the hall could reveal what lay at its infinite end. Rowan’s eyes could barely comprehend what was before him and in desperation he whipped around to go back into the chamber that he had come in from. He turned but couldn’t see the entrance, how far down had he walked he thought. His feet started to quicken beneath him as he walked back looking at the wall, his hand running along it trying to find that entrance to the chamber. Rowan was so desperate he didn’t notice the ground beneath him had begun to angle slightly down, and so he descended further into the earth.

Rowan after walking for what he thought was minuets was breathless and finally noticed how he was walking down further and further. He stared at his feet on the slant, he must have passed it he prayed and turned to walk back, even though he knew he had seen no opening in the walls that he had walked past. As he turned he expected to walk up the slant to search for the wall, but saw before him only downhill. Rowan swivelled his head looking back and forth down that seemingly infinite corridor and saw both ways leading down reaching deep into the crevices of the earth. It was as if Rowan stood upon the peak of a mountain seeing only the route down, but when he looked at his feet he was on the slope. No matter how far in either direction he walked his path led down. Rowan’s eyes constantly straining and bloodshot at the infiniteness of it. That’s when he saw it, at the end of the corridor, that colour to which he could not name, that light which had haunted so many of his nights. It was at the end of the corridor a beacon that signalled to him to move closer, well as if Rowan had much choice left, it was all out of his control. It can’t be said how long Rowan walked down that hallway or how deep he went under the mountain of water, trapped in this tomb of rock whilst the crushing openness of the sea was above him. The corridor did come to an end though and the light grew closer and closer until he came upon a heavy set of doors and above them glowed a crystal resembling that of a star which pulsed with that light and indefinable colour. Rowan lay his palms on the door in exhaustion. Thought now evaded Rowan who just wanted, needed any escape and this door held in it an impossible promise of escape, a possible hope. The doors themselves were of a heavy slate and much like the eyes that had adorned the previous walls were engraved lit by the sickly pallid light yet rather than eyes, the door was decorated with images of the stars. The stars on the door were wrapped in tentacles as if clasped by monsters from the deep. As above so bellow thought Rowan. As he leaned upon the door it slowly shifted under his weight the door slowly giving in to the force.

Rowan stumbled forward past the door to what he thought would be another part of that confinement or to another endless corridor. Yet it was neither of these, instead he walked out and found his feet in a shallow lake, his feet would have made a ripple if the lake had not been so expansive and still. The lake passed into an endless horizon and acted as a perfect mirror for the night sky that was above it. So seamless was the reflection of the sky that it would have been impossible to distinguish the lake from the sky if not for the water that chilled Rowans feet. Where Rowan had once enjoyed that night sky he now saw it stretching on endless and could see it all in its full immensity. He could see those celestial bodies both so close and massive that it could burn his flesh and so far that he thought he would never feel warm again. Though Rowan could feel the water at his feet the sky and lake were mirrored and he could not fathom if he looked down into space or up at it. The most maddening aspect was that every star he saw burned with that unknowing colour, dots of maddening paint upon a pitch canvas and he realised then that the light he had seen in the water had been a drop of paint that had fallen to the earth from these maddening stars.

Rowan could neither avert his eyes or move as he was brought to his knees looking out across the infinite expanse before him, blood slowly trickling from his eyes, though he could not tell, and time stopped from him as he would remain there for eternity. Yet his presence had not gone unnoticed as from the lake, or could it have been the sky, something shifted and a large ripple spread through space, and it saw that the door to the lake was open.