SUSAN JONES (28) enters the ward, a long bright room flushed with white, rows and rows of beds, and buzzing overhead lights. Hesitant, she steps forward. The double door gradually shuts behind her as she moves towards the window, and she sighs.
Ahead, sitting with a dazed expression by the window is MICAH HARRIS (33), completely in his own world. He hardly blinks as Susan edges closer, pausing just short of by his side. A look of concern glazes over her.
SUSAN: Micah
No response.
SUSAN: Harris.
MICAH: Stop it.
Susan moves closer, she kneels down by his side.
SUSAN: What happened? You wouldnt answer my calls, wouldnt react to my texts, you had us shaken.
Micah turns away. He looks out the window.
MICAH: Leave me alone. Just
please.
Susan and Micah remain in awkward silence, punctuated only by the overhead buzzing, for about a minute.
SUSAN: Was it something you ate?
MICAH: Oh, for fucks sake no, no it wasnt what I ate
SUSAN: Well what then? You expect me to guess?
Micah turns to her, his teeth gritting into a pained scowl.
MICAH: No. No
I wouldnt expect you to ever guess it.
Susan reaches out to hold Micahs hand. He pulls away.
MICAH: If I told you
Susans eyebrows shoot up; shes getting sick of this. Micah takes a deep breath.
MICAH:
right. There
was something in the formula. You read it?
SUSAN: No, it was half scrubbed out. I suppose you fell against the blackboard when you collapsed?
MICAH: I suppose. Thank God. Its just
something in there, if Id known Id react like this, I
Jesus, I wouldnt have spent all night on that fucking thing.
Susan squints, her mouth falling open slightly; this doesnt sound like something hed say.
SUSAN: But, Mi
MICAH: You want to hear? Right? I dont want to say it, and if you interrupt, I wont
Susan obliges. Micah gestures to a glass of water on a nearby table and Susan reaches out to it for him. Taking it, he has a shaking sip, grasping the glass in two hands.
MICAH: Fuck. Okay
You were right. About your pocket theory.
SUSAN: Jesus
thats not right, you said it yourself
MICAH: I know, I just couldnt shake the feeling. I had to test it. So I put my mind to it, wrote out your damn equations then expanded on them, stretched it to the furthest it could go. I threw everything at it. Everything I thought could break it
even the slightest glitch could bring the whole thing down but it fought back. I was so tired, Susan, God
Micah wipes his eyes.
MICAH: Thats it. You were right.
Susan kneels in silence. Micah takes another sip.
SUSAN: So, reality
MICAH: Is a fractal. I suppose it makes sense when you think about it. Everything in nature is.
SUSAN: Universes within universes
this is going to be huge
Micah jerks forward, the glass slipping from his fingers and smashing to the floor he clutches the fabric of Susans shirt and pulls her forward violently. His breath is heavy against her face.
MICAH: NO
no
w-we, we cant tell them NO ONE!
SUSAN: What?! Micah, this is the most phenomenal discovery since
I
I dont know! Its massive!
MICAH: Listen to me
Micah lets her go, leaning right back. She slides back a little and throws him a confused glare.
MICAH: When I got it, the final piece of the equation, it was about four in the morning, I saw something thats what made me collapse something I couldnt take, something even now I just cant wrap my head around
SUSAN: L-like an epiphany? A eureka moment?
MICAH: Heh. Thats a nice way of putting it. No, more like a vision.
Susan readjusts herself and moves close again; this is absurd, but coming from Micah, too intriguing to ignore.
MICAH: I saw our world, the planet Earth, floating in black extending for countless lightyears. It was immense, more immense than we can grasp. But its nothing. I felt lighter than light, shooting away and across the stars, then through galaxies and nebulae, further and further I saw the structure of our universe, webby, stringy, columns of galaxy groups interlinking all over the place. I tried to close my eyes, tried to escape. I couldnt. I went further.
SUSAN: Micah, are you sure
MICAH: Quiet. Further
I went way further, until even these webs of galaxy structures seemed small. Then I came out the other end, into
into another universe, the one above ours, the one around ours. The one ours is contained within Susan, you cant imagine it, but I saw things.
SUSAN: W-what?
Susans eyes widen, terrified and enthralled. Micah takes another deep sigh.
MICAH: Our reality, everything we know and even dont, all of it. Contained in a speck. A tiny grain of light on the edge of a sea of atoms. Atoms greater in scale than all the universes mass combined. They surrounded us, and like an ocean carried us gently as they shuffled amongst themselves. I flew further out, zipping incredibly far away, until those atoms took the shape of one huge particle, in a universe of particles, apparently endless in all directions. I kept zooming out, those particles merged into matter, than something more.
Susan shuffles backwards a little.
MICAH: Heh. Scared?
No answer.
MICAH: That something was a mote, nothing more. Bundled flakes and strands, dust. And like the atoms that came before, this dust mote too seemed insignificant as I continued outwards
I
I realised this speck of dust, a grain of hardly anything at all, rested deep in the fabric of one, huge, thick, messy tangle of fibres, intertwined to make the texture of a single, plain blue sock.
Micah pauses. He grips the arms of his chair and tries to rise. Susan doesnt move to help him. He makes some progress but slumps back down in defeat.
MICAH: You cant want to know more.
SUSAN:
Tell me. Everything. Tell me everything you saw.
Micah nods.
MICAH: Well, as you can predict, I continued outwards, faster than ever before. It was the sock of a woman, she cant have been older than twenty-five, twenty-six? She seemed happy, laughing with friends in some kind of lounge or living room. Her foot, the one
were on
rested on a coffee table. Susan, this was just a vision, it could have been nothing
SUSAN: Keep going.
MICAH: I
okay. The view shifted outwards, I seemed to fly high above the Earth again, but it looked a little different. Altered land, two moons, truly alien but familiar all the same. Then I kept going, and as before my journey was astounding stars, galaxies, clusters of the things, they flew by so fast, faster even this time. Then I kept going, going, going, going
until
SUSAN: Y-you came out the other end
MICAH: Another universe, wrapped around the previous, and I kept going. Again, the universe was hidden amongst atoms, again those atoms formed particles, and again I learned where it all resided.
Susan backs away a little more, struggling to get to her feet. She walks to the window, her eyes blinded by the bright summer sun. She stares up at the sky.
MICAH: A pebble, that universes rested on an unassuming pebble that itself was among many on a dirt lane in some
park, I assume. Before I knew it, this girl came out of nowhere, huge, imposing, her dirty shoe crashing to the ground and in the indents of the sole, caught between rubber ridges, the pebble inserted. It went with her, every step, the sneaker and her fading into the distance and I kept going.
SUSAN: How long, Micah? How long does this go on?
MICAH: Its coming to me in fragments, but I saw quite a bit. So many universes, packed within each other
that one I just described, the one with the girl in the park, it was in a sea of atoms making up a water drop sliding down the skin of an athletic diver as she emerged from the pool. A-and that universe, when I zoomed out enough to see, was caught in a blonde hair strand on the head of a teenager, cycling home from school
Susan breathes deeply, her hands shaking and gripping the window mantel. She shuts her eyes and shudders, heaving back tears.
SUSAN: This cant be real, it cant. My theory couldnt
couldnt result in this.
MICAH: And that universe was itself encapsulated by another it was a speck on a speck, on a speck on a sand grain, trapped in the rim of a sunbathers bellybutton. She scratched slightly, the weight of infinite realities rolling about in that crevice. Further out, that universe in itself was contained it was a speck on an electron, whizzing around an atom, dancing madly as electrons shot about in all directions, charging up a current of electricity that combined with many to produce a flash, a brief moment of intense heat and light, ignited by the tap of a womans finger on her smartphone as she posed to take a selfie. The same electron I spoke of, it blasted out of the flashlight, one among many particles shooting towards her at lightspeed. It collided with the bumpy, slick skin of her tongue as she hung it out childishly, then pulled it back in when the photo was taken
Micah takes a deep breath, turning to Susan. She continues looking out the window, struggling with the revelation.
MICAH: And it kept fucking going, on and on. THAT universe was caught in the air, shoved recklessly about by the periodic beat of a speaker; a girl in her bedroom with phone in-hand, blasting some strange version of rock music, I believe, as she and her boyfriend made out intensely on her bed. THAT universe whizzing on-board a subatomic particle unfamiliar to me, itself in a stream of purple light pouring from the tip of a colossal finger, blasting as energy, like a kind of magic, by the will of a trainee witch THAT universe on an atom resting softly between the creases of skin, in the hand of a sword-wielding knight, her fingers clenches around the handle, swinging wildly in the midst of battle
Susan sniffles, and coughs back the last signs of fear; it is difficult, but the initial fright has subsided.
SUSAN: This is so fucking wrong
MICAH: I know
SUSAN: Please, dont stop.
MICAH: Susan, I dont want to continue
SUSAN: I want you to
I need to know this, all of it, just keep going.
Micah massages his forehead, squinting to remember.
MICAH: U-uh
ah
and that universe, of course, was nothing in comparison to the one surrounding it too. A speck on an atom, in a sea making up a sweat stain, having long ago marked the imprint of a single toe on a sandal
the owner, a young teacher, discarded it with several others into a drawer, then shut it. THAT universe was on a streak of mud, running down the skin of a student archaeologist as she scoured through the dirt of some ancient town, whipping the sweat from her brow and in the process, sending the mud and the universe deep into the scowling folds of skin between striking amber eyes. A-and THAT universe, if I dare to go further, was clinging to an oxygen atom in the midst of an extravagant chemical reaction, blazing into light as a small orange cinder at the end of a cigarette. The first-time smoker choked a little, dropping the thing to the pavement, and surrounded by pressuring classmates, she snuffed the flame beneath the toe of her boot
SUSAN: W-why the fuck are these all
perverse?
MICAH:
what?
SUSAN: Every single one of them, something to do with a girl or a woman. I dont get it!
A moment of silence.
MICAH: Neither
do I, quite. I suppose its just coincidence
?
Susan gives Micah her first glance in a while, an unconvinced one.
MICAH: I dont know. It is perverse
maybe God is just like that, he enjoys it that way.
Susan quietly chuckles, then the smirk wipes away from her face. She turns back to the sky.
MICAH: Well, then that universe, you can guess by now, was within another. Floating in air, trapped in a bubble, amongst a mound of bubbles in a foamy scented bath; a princess, exhausted and grumpy, dipped her toe into the water followed by a full plunge, and the bubble was swept with the force of her entrance, flowing directly into the crack of her
ass
making up the mass of bubbles that popped in an instant when her cheeks clenched THAT universe was kept inside a bottle on a shelf, one of many belonging to a fairy who liked to collect them, just to look at and feel a little powerful. She lived in a city of fairies, all very tiny themselves, all very conscious of just how small they were; their castles and roads, houses and farms were microscopic, and while to them their city was widespread, a mega city even with millions of inhabitants, it was nothing but a minute stain on the skin of a giant, a speck between the creases of a lazy girls hand, slumped out over the edge of a bed as she moaned that Monday had finally come. Time for the fairies moved incredibly slowly compared to the girl; a single breath from the giant human could last whole decades for the tiny fairy folk
but, they knew their fate. The crease, the valley of skin, they were deep within was closing as the hand slowly twitched a little, and in time the city would be crushed into nothingness. The fairies were too insignificant to act, and too reliant on the city to escape it in search of a new home
their culture was one of sorrow, in wait of the inevitable fate, their art was melancholy, their songs spoke of deep pain and regret, so beautiful, even more than we can conceive, and yet this would all be lost forever
SUSAN: Oh my god
MICAH: Hm?
SUSAN: Thats
horrific. Jesus.
Micah pauses momentarily, clearing his throat. Susan gestures with a nod for him to keep going.
MICAH: THAT universe was spiraling through a storm of chemicals, spewed out from the nozzle of a deodorant can, hurtling on a collision course towards the slick hot skin of a soccer player, freshening up before her biggest match of the year
and THAT universe was hitched to a sucrose molecule, whirring aimlessly and surrounded by a galaxy of other sugar fragments, carried on the tumultuous breeze of a hiccup as a girl and her college friends celebrated the beginning of summer with ciders and
and
Susan turns back to Micah. She stumbles over to him, leaning down and resting a hand on his shoulder he is silent, yet inconsolable. He shakes his head.
MICAH: And
it just
SUSAN: It what?
Micah turns to her.
MICAH: Keeps going.
Silence.
SUSAN: It has to end sometime
MICAH: Does it have to? Does it?
Susan staggers back.
SUSAN: IT CANT KEEP GOING FOREVER LIKE THAT!
Silence falls again. Susan begins to whimper and returns to Micahs side. He clutches her shoulder and grips it tight, looking straight into her eyes and she into his.
Their voices grow quieter. Micahs lips tremble as he speaks, his voice cracking with every syllable. Susans eyes well up and so do his.
MICAH: It does.
Giantess World
