Beyond the glass
Staring into the bathroom mirror, I notice my reflection lags, Again.
A split-second delay that should not be possible. My hand reaches up to touch the back of my head, fingers brushing against a tender wound whose origin is hazy. The cold surface of the glass sends a jolt through my body, as if the room itself is folded into another dimension.
Is this just stress, or a subconscious plea for escape? The lines between realities begin to blur. Flashes of another life where the only meaning in living is to chase the next high. In those moments, eluded truths seem almost reachable. Colors painting a gray picture vividly when the price is paid.
Back in the lab, surrounded by equations and computers, everything feels distant. The monumental discovery we were chasing — manipulating time itself — hovers at the edge of my consciousness. The wound on my head throbs, a physical link between these fractured worlds. Was there a betrayal? An accident? Or is this duality just a product of my fragmented mind?
Somehow, without breaking causality, these two extremes seem to harmonize. The student and the addict — polar opposites — serve as information carrier. In the drug-induced haze, the addict version of me taps into hidden truths, hallucinations that align with the wild theories the scientist strives to prove. The head wound makes this exchange in this physical dimension tangible. Triangulation with additional dimensions.
Opening my eyes, the reflection in the mirror syncs perfectly now. The wound is still there. The two worlds may not exist independently, yet they influence each other. It is not clear, leaving me in a space where meaning is fluid, where understanding flickers in and out like a faulty signal.
Maybe the manipulation of time is not just theoretical. Maybe it is happening within me, across these intertwined time lines. The addict’s hallucinations provide glimpses into hidden dimensions, while the student’s decodes them. Together, they form a loop.
Blurred lines and shared insights. The world outside the bathroom. The overlapping realities, the singular understanding that defies conventional logic. Without breaking causality, without fully existing, these worlds interact, and in that interaction, perhaps there is a path to the truths I have been seeking.
My essence remains unchanged, yet everything feels different.
By removing resistance to wonders, they become possible again.
Sleep offers no escape. A labyrinth where lab corridors bleed into subliminal spaces, where colleagues speak in riddles, and strangers share profound truths. Half awake sweating the distinctions between waking and sleeping blur, each state offering clues but no answers.
The cost of chasing in this moment became apparent. Relationships have strained, health neglected. The wound is a constant reminder of sacrifices made, willingly or not. Is the potential breakthrough worth the fragmentation of self? First doubt and then resolve creep in.
Throughout the day, anomalies appear — on the laptop a note like from the lab, a street sign in a language I do not know but understand, only like in a dream. It becomes clear that the boundaries between my additional two realities are dissolving. I find sketches of equations, until I look closer. As if the brain is now trained to imagine patterns in things normal people would never do.
Confused, I return to the mirror. The wound is gone, it was just a bump against a door. But for a moment it looked like the addict was visible in the mirror for a split-second while entering the bathroom. I press my palm against the glass. Nothing. Three seconds and nothing.
The entirety of the loop — the flow of information between the two selves. The addict’s visions are not mere hallucinations but probabilistic windows into dimensions beyond our perception. Different states of being symmetrically connected in a potential mental superposition.
