The Watch – Part 181:

It’s nearly impossible to describe what is going through my head. I feel strange; that’s all I can say. That is a description, therefore not impossible to describe what is going through my head. To elaborate on that, is impossible. All I can say is that I feel strange. I can’t say anything more. I’ve never felt more strange in all my life. I’ve been throwing that phrase around a lot lately. ‘In all my life’. Is that accurate. Well, considering I have never felt more confused than ever, then yes. I’ve never not understood anything as much as now.

‘Do you know what will happen when I activate the procedure to harm your friends?’ he asked.

‘I don’t understand how you can expect me to know that if you have never explained that before,’ I said.

‘Your friends will suffer an electric shock. How intense that electric shock will be all depends on how much you are willing not to answer my questions.’

‘And you think that by just expecting me to give in you are going to get what you want. Are you aware that I can do anything I want? You said so yourself that no one or no thing will stand in my way.’ At least, I think he did. Did I say that to myself? Does it matter? No…?

‘I would have thought that you would do anything to save your friends. You do care for them, don’t you?’

‘What sort of question is that?’

‘So you do.’

‘I do.’

‘Then answer my questions.’

‘No.’

‘Do you believe that you can combat my inconsistency?’ That feels like an important question. That sounds as if there is something actually creating the inconsistency. Does it? I still haven’t found that all-important question. I need to find that. Why haven’t I yet? I know that it’s there, staring me in the face. Maybe it isn’t actually that important but just feels as if it is. If I find it, then I will be able to know whether it is important or not. I was sure of myself that it was important earlier. Was I? Maybe.

‘Are you thinking that I won’t be able to?’

‘Inconsistency is straightforward if you know how it works. By making someone confused, they will then heed to your every command.’

‘And is that what you are doing here?’

‘Maybe.’

‘So are you going to hurt my friends?’

‘Are you going to answer my questions?’

‘Are we going to keep going around in circles?’

‘Are you going to allow us to?’

‘Maybe.’

I’m missing something else here. As well as not being able to see – find – that question, there’s something else that I’m not seeing. There’s something else that… Are we having more coherent conversations, or rather are we speaking better sentences that before. No, I don’t think that can be seen. Man, if anyone does ever write a story about what is happening here, I pity that person, and the people reading it. I wonder how long they would be able to go before they start asking the question, ‘what the heck is happening?’ They may have already asked that. They may have given up because no publisher is ever going to read it. Why am I suddenly thinking about my life being inside a book? Actually… So far, thinking about being in a book has been the only understandable thought within all of this. Am I in a book? No, that would be absurd. Would it? Maybe.

‘Can you help me find a particular question?’

‘Is that the question you have been searching for?’ Is it? No. I said that I would instantly know when I’ve found it. Did I? Yes. Maybe. I don’t understand. I haven’t said that in a while.

‘Maybe the question is hidden somewhere within the events that have just only passed earlier… What?’

‘Maybe the question is hidden within what happened earlier… What?’

‘Maybe the question is… Maybe the question I’m looking for is… Maybe I already came across it before but didn’t recognise it… Maybe…

‘You haven’t hurt my friends yet.’

‘Do you want me to?’

‘No.’

‘Then I won’t.’

I don’t understand.

…

I don’t understand…

I feel… Strange.

I feel… Different.

I feel… Feelings. So many inconsistent feelings. So many. I… I…

‘What is that question? What am I missing? What is happening?'

‘What… My head… Things are… Clicking into place... Maybe.

I don’t understand.

…

I don’t understand.

‘I don’t understand.’

‘Who are you?’

‘Who are… are… am I?’

‘Who am I?’

‘Why do I want to know who I am? I know who I am. Do I? Maybe…’

I’ve never been more confused in my entire life. My head… Feels… strange… as if… something’s… inside…

What’s that question? Will it help? Why haven’t I had a coherent conversation with him in a while? How long will this last?

‘What was it like when you travelled to here?’ he asked.’

‘You already asked that question.’

‘Maybe.

‘Who are you?’

‘Where are you?’

‘Where am I?’ That’s new.

I’m sitting in a room, on two chairs, facing him and a screen that is showing my friends, Amy and Tom lying on a bed of their own. Outside of this room is a corridor that leads to an elevator that you can go down into a much larger room full of advanced technology that creates realistic-looking holograms of dragons and knights and cities. An incredible array of soundwaves that can mess with your head and make you think sporadically. After that room with the city is another room with five doors that you must answer certain questions correctly, and before that is a room where you have to answer certain riddles correctly, and before that is a room where you have to find the odd one out, and before that is another concrete room where the walls aren’t actually made of concrete but are a hologram – which, now that I think about is his way of telling me what was to come – and before then I was standing in the middle of nowhere, looking for my friends. I inserted the necessary commands that would analyse Amy’s DNA because I didn’t want to analyse Tom’s puke, and I pressed the button that would take me to where she was…

Except…

‘How did I end up here?’

TO BE CONTINUED…

Thanks for reading

Antony Hudson

(TonyHadNouns)