Now being inside this place, I couldn’t tell what time of day or night it was. The area I entered seemed quiet. I could hear some faint music. I was trying to get closer to the music and also be aware of my surroundings. It didn’t seem too different from what I was used to. The buildings reminded me a lot of back home, I couldn’t find any type of vehicles or contraptions that would be used as transportation. As I get closer to the rave like sounds, I am getting closer to the middle of this underwater dome. I haven’t been walking for long. Maybe ten minutes, although it seems way longer as I’m trying to take in everything. Reaching this music and realizing it is really loud, like in a concert loud, I see that it is some type of outside gathering with just a huge projection screen. The screen was located on a stage elevated higher than the crowd to where it wasn’t accessible. It’s showing nothing but what looks like a computer screen saver that has those neon lines bouncing from the sides of the screen along with laser dots all over the place.
I see people that don’t look very different compared to myself. I get closer to the crowd cautiously so I don’t draw unnecessary attention to myself. No one seemed to even notice me. They’re all dancing sort of the same and not even with their eyes closed as if they were hypnotized or in a trance of some sort. I was able to find some features that made them different. There were gills on the sides of their necks. Although we weren’t in water, they were able to breathe just fine. These beings had similar hands and feet but webbed a little. I couldn’t really tell what the surface of their skin was made of. No scales for sure but the only parts of their bodies that weren’t covered was their necks up and their hands. They were all dressed in wet suit type attire and uniformly all the same style. I could see that their attire came in about four colors: black, gray, white, and red. The ones wearing red were not in the crowd but around the stage and along the outer edges.
I finally found someone that wasn’t in this daze that had consumed everyone else. It was a woman and she had an expression that seemed as if she was longing for more than what everyone else were clearly enjoying. She was so unaware of me that when I reached out and touched her shoulder while saying “excuse me” that it startled her. She stood up straight and then put on her authoritative demeanor and said something in another language, I responded with “huh? Do you speak English?”
“Oh yes! Where did you come from?”
“Sorry, I didn’t mean to startle you but I’m not sure I just appeared here. Well more like I was out there in the water. Where am I?”
“This is Flatonia.”
“Flatonia? What is going on here?”
“Oh, this? They’re just doing a weekly self-ritual.”
“Self-ritual?”
“Yea, they take something that is called Paradise. It’s a pill that helps them focus on the noises around them and is supposed to help release all negative emotions and stress. This goes on for about two hours. It won’t work if they don’t have music.”
“So why aren’t you participating?”
She goes on to explain that a pill shouldn’t be the fix when there is there is a slight malfunction in life. Not only does the pill help them forget and eliminate the negative emotions, it also creates an alternate fantasy that is triggered by a certain kind of music. I was curious to find out how exactly this was accomplished. Would I experience this alternate fantasy if I were to consume the pill?
Works Cited
Photo: Jean Marc Charles.Return to Project Square of the Seasons. n.d. OL and Sereno Architect. Landezine. Web. February 17, 2016.
Song: Stirling, Lindsey. “Crystallize.” Soundcloud.com. 10 February 2016.
flatonia 