He came to in a ditch. A deep ditch with nothing but the blue sky on top. He felt around. Solid earth. Perfectly made. No aberrations.
“Hello?”
He called out.
“Hello”
The only thing that answered was his echo.
How did he get here?
More importantly, who is he?
He could make sense of his being. His body; the limbs, the torso, the head.
He could even say stuff, like how he said Hello.
He tried that again.
“Hello?”
Astonishing sound this is.
“Hello?”
The way his tongue grazes the roof of his mouth, culminating in the rounding of his lips.
“Hello!”
This was exciting. Fascinating, even.
He enunciated every syllable of it hard.
“Hay-elle-oooh!”
“Hi!”, came a voice from outside the ditch.
It was different from his or his echo’s voice.
This was of a higher pitch.
“Hello?”
He repeated.
“Hi there!”
The voice spoke again, this time it was accompanied by a small silhouette of a head popping out from the edge of the ditch. It waved.
“How are you?”
“Who are you?”, he asked followed by a softer, “Who am I?”
“It seems that you are in a ditch,” it said.
“Yeah. Seems so.”
“Why?”
“That’s a good question. I … don’t know?”
“Alright. That’s alright. We’ll get to the bottom of this.”
“I’m already at the bottom of the ditch.”
“No, I meant our situation”
“What do you mean ‘Our situation’?”
“I woke up like this here and I clearly don’t know who or what I am.”
“What do you see?”
“I see you in a ditch.”
“I mean around you.”
“I see more of the same ditch.”
“Roll over!”
“Oh okay.”
“Now what do you see?”
He heard a mumbled voice from the top.
“Can’t hear you! Roll over again!”
“I said I see the sky.”
“Even I can see that. What’s there around the ditch? Are we in a forest or something?”
“No, there’s nothing.”
“What do you mean nothing?”
“I guess something was supposed to be there, but it is not. It’s just the sky, the ditch, me and you and… wait a minute.”
“What?”
“There’s a button here.”
“Well, press it.”
“Why? What would happen?”
“I don’t know. I think something would. I may get out of this ditch.”
“Out into what? There’s nothing here.”
“That’s a good point.”
“But I’ll press it anyway.”
They felt a jolt, a shake.
His ditch began to move as did the sky.
The ditch towards the left. The sky to the right.
His friend at the top scampered for something to hold on to, as did he.
The ditch did a complete 180, as did the sky.
He fell with a plonk towards the edge, between the ditch now at the top and the sky at the bottom, with his new found friend scraping the edges of the sky.
“Did the change in scenery help?”, asked his friend.
“Not really. But it was fun. We are in a test tube, aren’t we?”
“More like a close-ended capsule with a ditch in one half and a sky in the other, suspended in nothingness, whose rotation is controlled by the button.”
“At least we are on top of the situation now.”
“No you’re on top,” said his friend, “I’m at the bottom now.”
“No, I meant… never mind. I found the button. Wanna go again?”
“Yes please.”
