eQualia

The walls we built with a wave like curvature to them, bending in and back out, the crests often being spaces for gathering.

At this moment, looking down The Hall, he had the sensation he was literally swimming in it. They took on a shadowy form, their outline shifting moment by moment in as though they were roto-scoped moment to moment by a painter in his internal theater. He felt he should keep some distance from the walls, he couldn't be sure if he was getting close enough to bump into them.

He waded down, the floor had a main path, wide enough for several persons to stand side-by-side and pass another group without breaking each others eye contact. The path peeled into ramps, typically down into shared spaces, where people congregated among furniture. The noise from these hovels deflected against the ramped floors and up into ceiling that bent and shaped to reflect the floor.

He had the sense of being enclosed when on the path, the waved walls broke open into large rooms that gave him the sense he was suddenly expanding out into space, voices collecting around him, and shimmering silhouettes of shadowy people who moved among each other, 'living drafts for a painting', he thought.

He noticed how slowly his thoughts moved through his own mind. He became sensitive and almost ashamed of it in that moment. A couple passed by him while on the path, and he wondered if they thought about as slowly as they spoke too. Something emerged in his mind, of words being the at the peak a self, somehow held up by the whole combination of senses and faculties that unwittingly became the trust of language.

He was standing still, becoming upset at the sensation that seemed to swarm about the lining of stomach. There was an illness about the feeling, perhaps anxiety or something actually infectious. Everything about everything was off by many degrees in his current experience, and his normal sensations and feelings were foreign to him entirely.

A large room expanded out, two stories reveled themselves on both sides. and the path split two ways with a hearth in the middle of them.

He felt entirely out of place and vulnerable. Walking into this last room was like walking onto a stage surrounded by a crowd on all sides.

Shuffling on, he could make out figures in closer detail. The ghostly outline of colors surround every single thing seemed more intense here. But he intuited each person more easily than typical. He thought to make his way into the crowd and get off the path.

Either side of him felt too particular, he didnt see anyone that he knew and had any interest in either way, so he slowly glided in to the open heart.

Furniture of organic shapes encircled the center, pooling into smaller collections of seats that faces each other. About a dozen people among them, they mingled.

On the perimeter he exchanged a silent greeting with someone, who then smiled to say, “You look like you're tripping harder than you were ready for.” in reply he squeezed his eyes in an overt cringe, somehow trying to both an acknowledge the point and avoid drawing any attention to himself. Also, avoiding actually speaking, which he feared he might somehow fail to do correctly.

They all stood or sat facing inward toward each other. All deep into something he had no context, or particular interest in. Out of his left peripheral view, he saw someone utterly disengaged in the goings-on, and looking directly at him.

She was particularly hard to see clearly.

He initially thought she was brown haired, but looking longer thought she was now black haired. Grey shirt, and darkened pants, he was only just getting close enough to tell her eye color as he moved towards her. She lay angled with a foot on the floor, and her middle back on the seat of the couch. Her upper back and head lay against the cushions, holding herself up by an elbow.

She didn't say anything, and he noticed she was had dark red hair. She stared at him, blue eyes with shadow like wrinkles that shifted about her face. Her hair seemed to swarm, fading in and out of slightly different configurations moment by moment.

The invasive emptiness he felt swarming his stomach moved into his chest. He felt like his heart and lungs had blurred out of existence, and he was struggling to breathe and live.

She adjusted herself slightly, but stayed fixated on him. A handful of blonde hair, fell across her face.

The walls moved out and away from him, and the ceiling felt like it was coming down fast and close to hitting his head. Everything blurred to the point of blindness, and he collapsed.