Student Spectrums

I could tell that it was ten minutes from seven; exactly an hour prior to when I should clock in for work. My routine on the morning of the day was simple: awaken, drag my lazy self to the kitchen, and begin preparing my coffee. It wasn’t any sort of special day, only the buzzing of my coffee machine to keep me awake. I woke my phone up, as it was also in a sleeping state.

Emails, texts, bills, the usual annoyances. I sighed out of desperation and heard the ringing of my coffee maker. I slowly sipped away, each gulp reminding me of the time that was passing by. The kitchen was quiet, not a single sound to be heard except my drowsy fidgeting with my fingers. I finished my coffee and lifted myself out of my comfy wooden chair. I slipped by its warm embrace and headed toward my shower to wash the last of my sleep.

My cat woke up too, as always demanding his meal and attention. I fed him and went on with my routine; taking a shower, putting my clothes on, brushing my teeth, and getting my stuff ready for work. It was 7:30 and I looked out the window to see the beauty of the unawakened world, the pale Swedish surroundings covered by the cloak of the night. I took some time in admiration, trying to distract myself from the reality of the world. It was 7:45 when I realized the time lost in my profound admiration and ran to the front door.

My car was there in a white blanket. I opened the door and hopped into the cold interior. I started it up, awakening it with a roar that shattered the atmosphere’s morning stillness. I slowly applied pressure to the pedal and rolled through the slightly foggy road.

As I strolled along the road, I thought to myself, “This routine is not the funnest of routines, it lacks some sort of bliss, maybe an adventure of some sort?” I quickly disregarded that thought, knowing this “adventure” was probably never going to come.

I clocked in, saluted my coworkers, and got to work. Only 10 more hours to go. I had been working at my job for almost 2 years now. I worked at a software engineering facility 20 minutes from my home that paid well, but in my opinion was not the best job out there. This job really acted as the side quest in my mind. I wondered, “What a wonderful life? I worked hard during the peak years of my childhood, made connections and friends, made memories and experiences, and then left that 20 years worth of work and fun and traded it off for a life where I have to sit on a chair in front of an inanimate object 50 hours a week.” This struck me, and for an instant there, I felt a feeling of intense grief and regret. The thought quickly faded away from my mind and I went on with my work.

Before I realized it, the work shift was over and I was packing my stuff and leaving back to my house. I stepped in my car and turned the key. Slowly I advanced back to my house. On my way I passed an intersection which was teeming with cars, and I couldn’t move an inch. My GPS then suggested I take a detour. I trusted it and changed my course, now headed somewhere I had never crossed paths with before. It was very green, full of trees and other plants, and the ground was rocky and muddy. I moved slowly across this odd terrain. It looked like I was driving into a thick forest, very remote and isolated.

My car suddenly stopped humming. Up till then I had crossed around 25 minutes on this trail and felt stranded, yet I wasn’t feeling endangered or scared. Rather, I felt like this was the adventure I had craved all this time, something to make my life more interesting.

With my car off, I attempted to turn it back on, but no luck struck me. At this point, the night was casting its veil and I was worried it would be dark before I could get my car back and running. I decided to set foot. There was no cell service and I wasn’t getting any responses when I called out for help. All I heard was the natural sound that surrounded me, which was appeasing at first but wasn’t anymore since I was slowly starting to realize the gravity of my situation.

I locked my car and left. The terrain was oddly swampy, the atmosphere was moist and the temperature was slowly starting to descend. I didn’t bring anything to keep me warm, just a company hoodie and slim jeans. I walked for what seemed like an eternity and passed several creeks and bodies of water. At this point it was sunset, and my worries were slowly starting to come to reality. As I walked I admired the natural view I got. For some reason I couldn’t hear any artificial noise, nor could I see any city life anywhere. My footsteps were the only ones and no sign of previous activity was apparent.

With all of this in mind I decided to start running in one direction, the one I remembered having come from. I ran and ran, tripping from time to time on the trees’ roots and the small craters of water in the ground. I lifted my head up to the sky, discerning and admiring the stars and the moon, which became harshly visible without city life. I looked around myself, hoping for some sort of light or sign of city life to guide me. I spotted in the distant fogginess the apparition of a light, faint but still apparent, with a slight blueish hue to it. It seemed to float and was moving from what I could tell. It looked like a distant flame.

I slowly started pacing towards its faint gleam, hoping it was some sort of way of finding my way back, but to my shock it was not what I had hoped it to be. What I saw was a floating ghastly figure. It had no face but it felt like it was staring into my soul.

“Who are you?” I said with a slight tone of fear.

“I am what remains when the city lights go out,” it said in a very faint, deep voice.

I slowly stepped back from the figure and kept “eye” contact. I moved slowly towards the trees and got a safe distance from the figure. I pulled my phone from my back pocket and tried turning it on, only for it to stay black. With no hope of any exterior help, I exclaimed to the figure,

“Do you know a way out of here!?”

“You’re looking for a door in a place made only of walls,” acclaimed the figure.

“What is that supposed to mean?” I cried out of confusion.

The figure kept quiet and stopped speaking. At this point, the world around me was pitch black, no light in sight except the ominous glowing of the figure. Without a sound, the figure stopped moving up and down and stayed fixed. I lifted my gaze to the figure’s surroundings and then I witnessed the arising of a red circle, in the form of the mythical Seal of Solomon. It slowly rose from the muddy ground and spun on its axis. Then, before I understood what was going on, I swapped places, or dimensions from my perspective.

It was a place that was indecipherable, full of bizarre unexplainable occurrences and phenomena. The “dimension” was deeply ominous. The ground was sandy, and ahead of me the only thing I could see was dunes, as far as my eyes could see. The air was scorching, with the smell of rusted iron and flamed earth, which was not appealing to my nose. The aspect that was much too peculiar to me was the dreadful droning of a machine, with a slight distorted aura to it. It was deafening. I looked around me and all I could see was the constant flow of sand dunes. The figure that had appeared to me earlier was gone, nowhere to be seen.

I stood up, the wind scorching my face with the desert’s ancient odor, pushing my breath back into my lungs. My eyes slowly filled with grains of sand pushing against me. This world was unlike any other. It was daytime, but there was no sun, nor any stars or the moon itself. I was spooked and didn’t comprehend what was going on around me. Even with the droning and the searing ghosts of wind, it was oddly quiet. I decided to set off to look for something other than the dunes surrounding me. What puzzled me the most was that even after all of this time had passed, I didn’t have the slightest thought of hunger or thirst. I set off on what appeared to be a whole journey to find my way out of this dilemma.

The heat was too much. It felt like it was humming along with the noise of the machine. I put out my hand. My fingers were shaking as they touched the air where I should have seen the horizon. The moment my skin touched the air, the sand did not just move, it broke apart like glass.

The loud noise of the desert became a loud sharp whistling sound. My eyes opened up. I was not standing on a hill of sand; I was leaning against the cool stone of my kitchen counter. The hot air was the steam coming from the cup in my hand and the loud noise was the coffee maker beeping to say it was done.

I stood there for a moment. My breathing was not regular. I was half expecting to feel sand between my toes. I looked at my phone. It was 6:51 AM. I had emails, texts, bills, all the things to deal with on my phone. I took a careful sip of the coffee. It tasted like coffee beans, not like metal or dirt. The quiet of the house felt like it could break easily. It felt like the desert was still there just behind the walls of my kitchen waiting for me to fall asleep again.

With a sigh I put the cup down and started getting ready for work, the yellow light of that dark world still in my mind.