FALLING

By K. Lomas

He woke as usual to the sound of his alarm playing a raucous version of some army get up call or something. Dawn though it was, the bird-sounds were isolated by thick double-glazing, as though the world outside did not exist, although the sun streaming through the curtains hinted that it may.

"Every night," he thought, "It's the same. Christ, how long will it go on?"

He got up. Went to the bathroom. Showered. Dried. Shaved. Went to the toilet. Got dressed. Went down stairs. Made and ate breakfast. Stuck the pots in the machine. Put his shoes and coat on. Went to work.

Same old routine. Well, it worked so what else was there to be done?

He arrived home at the usual time, as usual. Went through his usual routine, which is usual so I will not bore you with it, and at the usual time thought about bed.

"15 years, the same every night!" He thought.

"It's a wonder I am not insane! The specialists have been a waste of time!" he groaned.

" 'Did your mother have big breasts?' "

He laughed. "Huh? what has that got to do with the price of eggs?!!"

As always he switched off the TV and checked the house and headed off to bed, going through his morning routine, but in reverse, but without the breakfast part, etc.

"It's amazing I actually get any sleep at all! why have I not gone insane?!" he wondered.

He reset his alarm, picked up the current book he was reading, started to read, and eventually lost concentration, and drifted ......

Same old thing, every night.

Darkness. He fell in to it. No normal fall. It was as if the planet, no, the entire universe, had been removed from beneath him.

He fell through sheer darkness, and yet aware of depth, of falling, falling for ever. The falling in to total unknown and immeasurable, well: infinity.

Same old thing, every night.

It was not really like falling. It genuinely did feel to him as if the existence of substance had been plucked away from under his feet. Even the pull of gravity could not feel like this, he had often thought, because there feels to be instant total speed from the word --- fall. So sudden, it feels as if his entire insides have been pushed up in to his throat and head, like the sudden stopping of an upward lift, sort of, or was it a downward lift? he could never work it out. Then they settle back down to where they came from.

Every night, still, he tries to will that point at which it stops. The 'Fear Horizon'.

Same old thing, every night.

Then he falls asleep.