The room is full of happy, chatting people wearing colorful garb. The room is not large, but no one minds. Darkness is outside the window panes, but it is held back by fluorescent light over white Formica library desks. I have coffee, and the energy to keep reading, talking, studying, analyzing for hours.
The room is as above, but it is noisy and I can't think straight.
The room is as above, but it is early morning—too early. Cold, bright sunlight pours through the windows and hurts my eyes. Other parts of my body hurt, maybe somewhere in the finger and toe regions, I'm not sure.
It is bright and sunny, with a steady, refreshing breeze. I am standing on top of the Arch of Triumph (sorry for the name!) looking west across liberated plains toward the sea. My energy is steady and seems inexhaustible. There is nothing I can 't accomplish, and the afternoon is young.
It is warm and sunny, a summer afternoon in the living room of the house I grew up in near the Southern California coast. The standard brown carpet, the buffet with a pastel by my grandfather hanging above it, blue sky in the bright dining-room windows to the south. The air is humid and not quite fresh, but pleasant. I have just returned from a day at the beach with my brother and parents.
The room is narrow and dark and square. I can't see much, just solid, black shapes with dark-red outlines. I know it is daylight outside, but there are no windows. The air is stale with the smell of my own farts. The room is crowded with hard furniture. I can't move. I can't move anything forward without some brittle, hard table hitting me in the shins or a dark, heavy armoire blocking my path.
There are other rooms in my mansion. I never know which one I'll be in next.
© Matthew Hammond August 2009