Somewhere beneath the surface

Imagine a doorless, windowless room underground, with a floor of packed earth and a ceiling that stretches out of sight into darkness.  You are seated at a table of sweating marble.  Currents of damp, cool air drift by at intervals, and from above you hear a barely discernable flapping noise whose origin you cannot determine.

Hours pass without incident.  Then, without ceremony, a panel slides open in the far wall.  Someone enters, walking quickly with his shoulders hunched, and places a stack of grubby reading material on your table.  You cannot see his face, but you catch a glimpse of something twisted and yellow.  He is gone in a moment.  Behind him, the wall briefly flickers to life, revealing its dual purpose as some kind of monitor or screen.

What would you do?  What else can you do?  You dig in to the moldering stack of comic books on the marble table.  You helplessly watch the movies playing on the monitor before your eyes.  You want to cry out your thoughts about them to someone – anyone – but is anyone really listening? 

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~ by renbo on July 13, 2008.