A muddled confusion overcame him; gravity was ephemeral, vision was a black canvas, his body was pinpricks of discomfort. Had he opened his eyes? It looked the same when he blinked. Maybe now they were actually closed? He exercised this over and over until he noticed a difference.
A crack. There was a thin, white crack just at the very bottom of his sight. He wondered if he could touch it? He began the exploration of that thing called 'movement.' He had hands, and fingers, and elbows which he kept knocking. He realized his knees, too, were awkward and incredibly in the way.
He couldn't move very much at all. Something was in the way. And the more he thought about the restrictions, the more uneasy he became.
What if this is it? What if this is all I get to do, everything I see is darkness and a smear of light, what if I never see my own hands or face or legs, what if, what if, what if....
The more these thoughts raced over his mind, the more he banged and thudded in his cubicle, and the more he did, the louder he became, and the more furious he banged and pounded and clawed at his encasement. Until -
Until the whole front side of whatever he lay in exploded outward, showering him with bits of dried splintery wood. There was momentum that came with the outstretched arms, balled up fists at the ends of them, crashing through his prison. It pulled him upwards, along with a long, sucking breath inhaled through dusty lungs.
He frantically brushed at his face and his chest and arms, shaking with the unknown rush of new life.
Sort of.
The light outside of his old grave was dim - twilight, full moon, stars lighting the open air. He blinked slowly, though felt no need to keep his eyes safe from the dry winds that tugged at his clothing. A moment of terrified and curious reflection overcame him, as if he was speaking to himself from far away.
I am fucked. But I have no idea why. And who the hell am I to BE fucked, anyway? No really, who am I? I know things - pointless useful things, like language, and up and down and breathing and eating and math and shoe size and that I like hats - but I have no idea who I am. No idea.
He looked down at his hands. He knew he was a he. He glanced around. He made sure he was a he after seeing that there was no one else around. Then he felt silly. He had no idea why he should feel silly. He felt like his world was spinning on an awkward axis, throwing common knowledge at him intermingled with the blank, empty void of where HE used to be.
He let himself flop back down into his coffin.
It was a coffin.
He immediately sat back up, pulling himself clumsily out of said coffin, and spilling out onto the floor which was a lot farther away than he thought it was. He ended up face down on hard, smooth stone, and surrounded by the scraping of dried leaves blowing across the tile. There was a door open behind him. Thick pillars hid the rest of the world except for this one little room.
It took him a minute to work his legs right. And when he finally did get to his feet, he started to dust himself off and tidy himself up to distract himself from the thought that he couldn't feel how cold it was, or that falling almost four feet onto his face didn't even hurt, or that he had punched the lid off of a coffin to escape it.
"No, you stop that. Stop freaking out." His voice came without obstacle, as if coming from a breathing, bleeding, salivating being. There was no gust of dust, cough, or black ooze, no feral growl or snarl instead of words, just... his voice.
That was ok. He could deal with that. And though he did not feel the need to breathe (which unnerved him a great deal,) he took the time to take a nice, deep, soothing breath.
"Ok. Ok. You aren't dead. You aren't really dead. You're just... you're just sort of dead. Half dead? Ugh." He shook his head. He ran his hands through his tawny hair. It was not white and dead and falling out. His fingernails weren't three feet long and cracked. His skin felt like it was all there on his face. He had eyelids....
Exasperated, he turned back to the coffin. He walked around it slowly, looking for some sort of plaque or something. There was nothing. It was a black coffin, elevated on a pedestal at the center of a pillared mausoleum in the middle of frickin' no where, and he was alone, with no memories of how he got there.
There was something inside the coffin though. When he plucked it out, it made him smile. He spun the fedora between his hands and in the same fluid motion he placed it rakishly upon his head, flicking the front brim of the dashing accessory.
"Whelp. Nothin' for it, 'spose. I'm sure it'll come back to me." His smile faltered for a fraction before he turned with comical resolution to the open door. "Forget it. It's fine. This is fine." He passed through the door and into the new night, and though he had no idea what strange, deserted suburban area he had emerged from, he did discover something.
Grafiti. All over the outside of this mausoleum. He read it, after taking a moment to decipher the font, and when he figured it out, he couldn't help himself. Doubled over, arms around his ribs, he laughed, sucking in air he didn't need just so he could pretend he was alive. He dashed pretend tears from the corners of his eyes and nodded. Among a many-layered war of obscenities and arguments, done in bright swirling colors read:
You Don't Know JACK
"Hey there. Nice to meet ya. I'm Jack."
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