Slowly

You're listening to Eels Radio on Last.fm. Outside pouring. You had a dream last night that you were sitting in an art gallery full of people. You knew none of them. You're trying to remember the details but they disappear in a haze. You're home alone, even the street outside is dead. Rains quite heavily now. You remember saying something to someone standing next to you in the dream. In the dream you're all looking at pictures. The artist is a young man with black hair, long. You can't see his face. You don't remember much else, so you try to focus back on your work. Suddenly the radio stops - the Internet got disconnected. Suddenly the room fills with silence thick like pancake batter. Drowning in pancake batter would be unpleasant you think. Suddenly there's panic.

You click 'Connect' with just a little too much haste. This is ridiculous, you say to yourself. There is still a little light outside. I think - I might you repeat to the man in the dream. But the man shows no sign of wanting to have a conversation. Suddenly you remember it was not a dream - it was a nightmare. You were all standing in the gallery and no one spoke. Connect, connect, please connect, you need to hear music, radio, voices of real people, something to remind you that you're awake and that this now is not the same as that then. You were scared for a reason, you are scared for a reason - it was that something everyone knew. You mustn't speak, you mustn't tell. And the damn thing won't reconnect.

You realise your heart is racing and that there's someone at the door. It's a panic attack you think, you've been through this before, you say, you know the drill.  One must keep calm and it will go away, it always goes away. But there's someone at the door and no reassuring voices come out of the computer. You must call someone. But all you get is answer phones and you know there's someone standing in the corridor, silent, still, starring. They must all have been starring at the walls for a good long time, forever perhaps until you stumbled upon them in your carelessness. You are transfixed with horror. Although you know you should keep quiet and draw no attention to yourself the words seep out of you repeating, maniacally, in the dead silence of the room: I think I might be slowly and you know they can hear. Everyone knows it and it mustn't be spoken and you cannot help it and you cannot see the face of the man in the dream.

Of course it is him standing outside your door with the rain outside lashing against the windows. You're having a panic attack, it's just a silly panic attack and by chance no one will answer their phone. But you know this isn't real even if there and now seem so much alike. You must remember it's not real. But you're certain you can see the shadow of his feet Slowly you say very slowly and the man standing next to you is almost begging you to stop. You mustn't say it, it mustn't be said. You've been here before, the horror falls heavy layer upon layer and it perhaps you've been in this gallery for years. You're one of them now you think without surprise and that is why he has come to collect you, still in the corridor outside the door. You feel like everyone in the world has died, long ago and now, finally, you too are giving up to the overwhelming solitude.

I think I might..  and you can feel the panic of all those trapped starring at their walls as he finally turns. You should have stayed quiet; instead you gaze in horror at his face, a stony wraith where two black holes stare back at you instead of two black eyes. Two eyes scooped out eons ago and so you know and swim towards the door through muffled silence as thick as clay and when it opens it is you, standing in the doorway, starring at yourself with hollowed-out eyes and it's your own voice ringing in the dead silence.