Reflections of a timeless soul
Tonight is different. The reflection in the bathroom’s mirror. It does not quite match the movements, delayed by a fraction of a moment.
Touching the glass. There is a strange sensation in the bathroom, a feeling like the room is folded into itself. The glass is cold, but it sends a shiver signaling an alternate path, an escape route.
Staring into the eyes, searching for something. Old concepts of entanglement and additional dimensions now understanding and filling gaps between reality and thought. What seemed before simply impossible now feels uncomfortably familiar.
Going to sleep. Emptiness until suddenly peace in surrender.
Philadelphia, never been there. Never even wanted to. Now drifting through the streets free from all pressures and free from the pursuit of understanding. Homeless, but still feeling much warmer than in the rat race.
The warmth like a motherly hug, no, a hug of pure love by the universe itself. Everything is at its right place and the right time. One quiet singular perfect bubble, until the Fentanyl wears off.
The screams of the body become noticeable again. The dirty clothes, the smell. They become uncomfortable again. Wounds and bruises, they become unbearable again. The thoughts of regret and hopelessness, they become paralyzing again. More, just more and fast.
Everything becomes Unity again. This one trip to the States to meet with mathematicians and physicist . Or was it just a festival in the desert to try drugs? It was probably both, not sure if we arrived there at all. The conference or the desert? It does not matter anymore.
Back in the daily routine. Back to the classes. Neural networks, quantum states and gates, all logical pieces of a different reality. Homework, deadlines and voluntary work to be able to get a job. Everything seems like it is slipping away. A crystal clear distortion of what is directly in front of you. This filter not in front of the perception but also not inside the mind. Embedded somewhere in between.
The work, the books, the laptop. Everything felt distant, like a different life. But knowing this is all the fruit of hard labor. But somehow dreaming of reaching out, taking the fentanyl, feeling it dissolve on the tongue. The world overlaps and nobody can tell where one ends and the other begins.
Going for the mirror in the bathroom. Smiling widely into it. A trick of the mind. A second of dissonance. Is it the constant stress and mental pressure? What is the meaning of this, what to do? The feeling is probably a wish of the subconsciousness to make a longer holiday. Yes, that would help. But who is going to pay for everything? Forget it, no use spending energy here.
—
Sitting on the cold pavement, eyes half-closed. The world around blurring into shapes and sounds that do not quite make sense. The high is fading, and with it, the colors drain away.
Everything becomes flat, grey, lifeless. Again. Searching the pockets for something. Anything to bring it back, to paint the world in those vivid shades that only exist on the other side.
There was a time when the mind was sharp. Buzzing with equations and theories. They were not just words, they were the language of life. Remembering sitting in the classroom, a time when the feeling of understanding was still present. Something about entanglement, how particles could be connected across vast distances, how information can traverse the void.
There was a problem we were working on. Something about neural networks and quantum states. Something about entropy. It was groundbreaking, it was important. A hidden key to some universal truth. All seemed so clear back then, like we were on the brink of something monumental.
Closing the eyes and again and trying to bring it back, that feeling of understanding. Without the drug these thoughts are colorless, lifeless, empty. They have no weight on reality. The rush, the feeling, the flood of sensation, the feeling of being alive. Which comes when the fentanyl kicks in. Again. The memories, the equations, dancing in short moments. They hovered just a bit out of reach. Promising clarity if you just could get hold of them for a short time. Hope, perhaps.
But then it fades again, leaving everything in this empty place where nothing makes sense. The world is dull, unjust, a sequence of meaningless events. The addiction is not just to the drug itself. The clarity of being on the edge of something. Without it, there are only shadows of the past. Without it is just the life of a person wandering through a life that has no meaning without the high.
There was a time when it was different. When the mind was enough. But now, just the idea of thinking, trying to solve those puzzles ravaging trough society without the drug. It is terrifying. It is like being asked to see in the dark. The addiction is the only light, burning the essence of life as fuel.
Taking a deep painful breath. The burning cold rising in the chest. Searching inside the pockets for the solution. They are there somewhere. If we could just get back to that place where everything makes sense. Fingers brushing against the bag, the promise of color in a world that has gone gray.
—
Back in the lab, the hum of servers around, the whiteboard filled with equations. We were so close, on the edge of something what would simply change everything. An understanding of time itself.
The excitement creeping into years of work. The feeling that we were about to unravel one of the universe’s deepest secrets. AI and quantum physics coming together to reveal the nature of reality. To show that time was not what they thought it was.
Late at night. Trying to finish those damn equations. Somebody made a mistake and left it there. That was the moment when it happened. A sharp pain on the back of the head. A flash of light and then darkness. Cannot remember clearly, but it was one the team members. Someone who had grown erratic, paranoid, convinced of some delusion. The person could not withstand the stress. I am not even blaming, everybody was on the edge. A struggle, an argument and then… nothing.
—
Waking up. Everything was different. Everything was fractured, disjointed. A throbbing head, thoughts scattered like broken glass. Trying to piece together what had happened, but the connections would not form.
Memories were like scenes of a dream, overlapping and out of order. The team, the discovery, the betrayal. It all seemed real, but so did the streets of Philadelphia, the fentanyl, the color which only came when the drug was rushing through the veins.
What about the findings? Had they actually discovered a way to manipulate time? Who were those colleagues, what were their faces or names? The betrayal is real, the body clearly remembers it. If it would be possible to reach through the fog. Or just knowing if this is a delusion or just a trip of a high. It just keeps slipping further away the more you grasp, just leaving behind a dull gray reality with no meaning.
The fentanyl brings some relief, a fleeting moment of clarity where the sense returns and remembering becomes nearly possible. A room full of people, about to reveal their findings, about to change the world. Then it shifts back to the streets, alone amidst other chasing the next high. Everything feels real and like memories the same time. No clue what is true anymore.
The only thing real is the mirror. Is everything made up from the fleeting moment in the bathroom? Everything just a bad dream? Trapped in this fractured existence, unable to distinguish between the genius who almost unlocked the secrets of time and the addict who lost everything.
—
Sitting in a small dimly lit room. The servers humming in the background or maybe it is the buzz of the streets. Not sure anymore. On the table a notebook lies open with pages filled with scribbled equations and erratic notes. Some of them make sense, remnants of the old work. But others twist and blur before the eyes. Like a forgotten language.
Flipping through the pages, searching for something. Anything what will bring back some clarity. Was the discovery about time true? Did they really figure out how moments could be connected, folded into one another? Or is this just another trick of the mind, a desperate attempt to hold onto a life that feels like it belonged to some stranger?
An old story about a prince who grew up among beggars creeps into attention. The world never gave him the tools to realize who he was, never allowed him the space to grow into his potential. The environment was hostile. Everybody became just another face in the crowd, unaware of any greatness that could have been.
Am I the prince, in a way? Was there something brilliant within, something that this world never allowed to shine? Or is the brilliance just a delusion, a false memory created by a damaged brain and twisted trough betrayal and drugs?
Touching the wound on the back of the head. It still hurts, or is it fresh? How did it got there in the first place? The team is there, faces focused and eyes gleaming with that feverish excitement. They were so close, they could almost touch it. The understanding of time that defied conventional thought, that what changes what it meant to exist in this universe.
Caught between worlds, a prince or a beggar, a genius or a lost cause. Everything can be equally true.
