Books: An Abridged Existence (excerpt)

Chapter 3

A large stone field. Many large, flat rocks, protruding at odd angles. No set pattern. A man sits among the stones, with hands on knees and legs crossed. He picks up a rock to examine it. It is a flat rock, with a round side. Grey in color, and chipped and scratched significantly. He tosses it up gently into the air and catches it with his hand, still examining it. He sniffs the rock. He bites the rock. He taps it on the ground. He looks across the field and sees a large, gray rock. It catches his attention. The man looks back at the rock in his hand. He throws the rock at the catchy gray rock in the field. And misses. The gray rock turns around, and looks like a chicken.

The chicken flies through the air and over to the man. A rock hits the man in the head. The chicken transforms into a woman. The man is bleeding. The woman holds out her hand. The man takes it. The wound on the man’s head catches on fire. The woman hands the man a sizeable large and yellow pill, the size of a finger. The man swallows the pill. His head is no longer on fire. He has no injury. The man kisses the woman’s hand. She turns into rope, and binds him to the ground. He squirms and tries to break the bonds, but fails. The stones fall away; they fall down, deep into the earth. The man is left suspended; floating in the air, bound by a boa constrictor. The serpent tightens on the man, and starts swallowing him. The snake is wisps of fume, and the man is falling.

The man softly lands on his feet. He is standing in a field of stones. He cautiously looks around, and at the large rock he stands upon. A large blue bubble comes slowly over the horizon. The bubble slowly drifts above the rocks towards the man. The bubble touches the rocks a few feet away from him and bursts, turning into mist. A man steps from the mist. The man from the mist hands the other man a door handle. The mist man shakes hands with the other man and steps back into the mist. The bubble reforms, and floats away at an incredible speed. The man looks at the door handle, and holds it horizontally. The man turns the handle, and pushes open a wooden door in front of him. There is a small room with a bed beyond the door. The man steps inside, and lies down on the bed. He looks at the ceiling. It is beige. The door slowly closes. A click is heard. The door is completely shut. The bed is surrounded by bookcases. All the walls are lined with bookcases. There are no doors to the room in which the man is lying on the bed staring at the ceiling. The man slowly begins closing his eyes.