Ouroboros

A tiny man stands at a tiny lectern and looks out two tiny windows. On his platform atop a tight spiral staircase he waits for the fog to subside. It’s time.

He clears his throat and speaks into the oversized microphone suspended from the domed ceiling.

His commentary starts slowly — he notes the happenings outside the window, remarks in accordance with the environment in the dome — textbook stuff.

But soon he’s all warmed up and he starts improvising. He leers at a woman’s ass, throws speculation, plans revenge, talks of grandeur, talks of worthlessness, repeats himself, refuses to talk, sings operatically, elicits deja vu. He talks faster, louder, gripping the microphone with both hands.

Let me tell you, this guy’s an unhinged egomaniac.

Sometimes it’s scripted. Sometimes an even tinier man waddles up the stairs and pulls on the narrator’s leg hairs holding up a faded picture book. There’s grime on the pages and the ink in the illustrations has faded so much that neither of them really knows the original story. A Rorschach in a Rorschach.

The narrator, despite his penchant for monologues, does not like reading the books the little one brings.

But the little one is insistent. He prods the book with a fat finger while looking up at the narrator with expectant eyes. Read it again. Read it again.

So he does. There was never really a choice.

All the radios in here are tuned to the narrator. The volume is always just a little bit too loud. No one is terribly happy about this. Particularly not the narrator who is tortured by perception recursion. He perceives. He perceives himself perceiving. He perceives that. A vertigo inducing tower. A choking ouroboros.

He fantasises about climbing down the stairs and slumping against the cool copper coating of the dome. Could he even do it? He’d never left his platform before. And what would happen then? Silence finally? Could be nice. Or maybe he could invite someone else in to take over for a while. She could narrate, throwing her own unbridled dangerous commentaries around. And he’d just listen. A new voice sounds very appealing.

Either way it’s a silly idea. It’s been tried before and it never seems to work out.

I guess it’s just me in here.