Layers of Abstraction

I jolt upright and rub my eyes as they adjust to dimly lit room I find myself in. Featureless, save for a metal bed frame fit for an asylum, a stained mattress, and a desk at the far corner. The walls are beige, certainly don’t feel padded, so I can rule that thought out.

Am I still dreaming? Not at home but somewhere quite like home? I don’t know and I’m troubled by the thought of finding out.

“One small step for man,” I mutter under my voice as I lift my feet out of the covers and plant them firmly on the floor. Cold to the touch, not quite tile or stone but maybe wood. I’m sure I had carpet, not parquet. Easy to mix up I guess…

The slippers are right where I expect them to be, which is a relief, but in my wakening daze I can’t be too sure. They are slippers, aren’t they? I’m relieved to find out they are, and I mustn’t be losing my mind.

After all, I did have a few drinks before I turned in the night before; a late night coding sesh. I didn’t think much of what I was consuming, whether it was wine or beer or vodka. At the end of the day it’s all an interface over alcohol.

I trundle over to the desk, back slouched, to check the computer. I can’t be alone in this, right, so maybe someone on my Discord server knows.

..Was it redesigned overnight? My computer seems familiar enough, thank god, but this is not the Discord I know. What the fuck does Colloquy even mean? Where are the emojis?

The glow of the monitor reveals more of the detail in the room to me and I slide back from the desk to stand up an—wait, my desk chair doesn’t scrape against the floor like that! It has wheels. I guaran-fucking-tee you I was sitting in that just moments ago, I’m sure I was! I’ve never used a dining chair at my de—that’s a dining table as well?

Turning around, the bed seems much closer to me than it used to. I could pretty much jump into it from here, but didn’t I walk across at first? This can’t be real. It can’t be.

Welp, fuck this room and the fever dream it rode in on; I still know what the rest of my house is like.

To call the sensation I just felt otherworldly or ethereal would only contribute to the diagnosis of my insanity, yet still the sensation of pins and needles overwhelmed my legs as I stepped towards the exit from my bedroom to my landing. The sudden liquefaction of my calves, trembling before setting into concrete, rendering me static.

As the feeling passed I made my way onto the landing and found my self stood face to face with a portrait. It was a man I’d never seen before. It was a portrait I’d never had on my wall before. An embossed label on the frame simply stated Alan Kay, 1975. In my periphery were many similar portraits not yet reified, as if templates awaiting examination.

The floor creaks again where it once didn’t and I appreciate my slippers remained in tact. Hardwood floor, almost raw floorboards. The sole of my shoe shielding my heel from an errant nail.

I look side to side across the landing and unless my eyes deceive me there was no end either way. The unfamiliar portraits helped me co-ordinate and upon deeper observation, I could not see further than maybe four or five frames, three or four metres give or take.

With no other options I decide to turn left down the hallway, intuitively feeling that it was the right direction. In the blink of an eye the most proximate portrait quadrupled, but I couldn’t be sure it was already mosaic. Another embossed label says nothing more than ‘The Gang’ and I can’t help but notice that the background of each of the four portraits consisted of a unique design. Despite further inspection a pattern was not forthcoming, and I move on again.

Already in the midst of a living nightmare, unsure of my being either as an instance of a practical joke or a classic burnout at the end of his tether, I venture further into the house that is like my house and finally approach the staircase to the ground floor.

I shit you not, the space between me on the first floor and my destination on the ground floor was just one step. Surely it can’t be that simple, but why is the ground floor so far away?

For what felt like an eternity I put one foot in front of another, one step at a time, seemingly moving nowhere, the ground floor still as distant as it always was. Did it not recur to me that I was led into a trap in this damned house-like?

Then I reached it. I don’t remember how many steps I descended because, as I looked backwards, there was only one step after all.

Am I a visitor in my own home or is the home visiting me?

I’m afraid I can’t say, unsure as I am of my state.