Book Explorer: anowalk

Say the four corners of your house collapse.
Plush chair type of place.   Unassuming, or
pleasant to the senses, you say, maybe
that isn't right exactly.  It doesn't have a smell--

even after generations of smokers,
smudge faced & the locomotive cough.
Now breezes blow through.  You can almost smell
the kites flying, the rusted chain on a bike

left leaning on the porch.  You can't stay,
not with everything you've lost, not without

Dick jerked awake, his wrists restricted, unable to grip the floor to crawl or pinch his nose.  He blinked twice as smelling salts were wafted under his nostrils followed by the overpowering scent of too many sweaty bodies cramped together.

"Easy there, boyo, easy.  You got yourself topsy-turvied by that last hook there."

Dick glanced up at the speaker: a weather-beaten man in brown pants that were missing one leg.  A make-shift patch hung over his left eye made of the ground-down bottom of a glass bottle. 

The gentle touch of a cool breeze wafting over his face pulled Dick Baker from his dream of a scorching sun and blistering skin. He opened his eyes.

His body lay stretched across a narrow bridge, concrete chafing his skin. A peculiar, purple overcast blotted out any potential sunlight. A dull glow reflected by the violet clouds provided most of the illumination. Dick couldn't discern exactly where the light came from--it seemed ambient and sourceless. He picked up the pump-action 12-gauge, feeling anxious, and continued to survey his locale.

Dick wakes up with a head injury in a dark room that's violently shifting about.  Everyone's armed and looks a bit rugged and combat worn.  Everyone knows Dick and things about him, but he's apparently suffering from amnesia. 

This time, Richard awakens naked, alone, with nothing--no journal, no shotgun, no memory. Not even the knowledge of his name. Helpless as an infant, he is held in an advanced medical facility. His caretakers speak to him, and he understands--but he can utter no words that they can comprehend.

Truly alone and unable to communicate, Richard tries to remember who he is and how he got here.

While many of the worlds Richard visits have been kind or at least indifferent to him, this one is openly hostile. As soon as he arrives, he is beaten senseless and thrown into a pit. There, he meets others like himself--lost souls, exploring the boundaries of consciousness and sanity. In essence, the virtual worlds have a "garbage collector", and this is it. It is thus up to Richard to demonstrate he won't be thrown out with the other refuse. He must escape the pit, and confront the custodians this prison once and for all.

The sound of nothing pulled Dick from his dream of fire. He opened his eyes….
And saw nothing. Felt nothing. This was beyond nothing as the mere absence of something. This was nothing, pure, concentrated, throbbing, living nothing.

Dick attempted to stand up; nothing swirled about to impede him and he almost fell, floating deliciously in thick essence of nothing.

Richard wakes up in what appears to be an indoor meadow. Grass, flowers, the whole nine yards. But instead of being outdoors, it's in a giant cave that is so long he can't see the edges. It's also dead silent for a little creepy effect. It's in an odd, perpetual nebulous grey light. He sees a tree in the distance, the only point of interest in any direction, and sets off for it.

Dick wakes up to find himself in his home city, his own time, holding a shotgun and lying in an alleyway somewhere. He stumbles around the city for awhile, disoriented, before someone sees him and calls the police, resulting in his arrest. Dick finds out that he's under suspicion for murdering his family with a shotgun. All the evidence is stacking up against him, and Dick can't remember what happened that night...

Richard finds himself in the Garden of Eden, which has been overrun by nasty inbred LOTR-style elves who have a thing for human flesh, when they can get it. They are the product of God's second, 'perfect' experiment, and never had to leave the Garden because they lack emotions, which is what persuaded Eve to eat the apple in the first place. The Garden is inhabited only by the elves and of course the snake, whom God neglected to banish. The snake helps Richard get through the Garden. Outside is nothing but a desert of eternal night, but it's safe.