Blackhole | Navilan

Light slowly creeps in. I struggle to crack my eyes open. Someone is pulling me up by my armpits, my body feels heavy, my spirit absent. I put no effort to lift myself up, I am tired. They throw me down on an old, rusty iron chair. I hear a lot of noise but can barely make sense of any. I don’t even know if it is people talking or just random sounds. My eyes open wider. It looks like a train station. People are moving on tracks, but I don’t see any trains. It’s foggy like the entire place was run with steam engines, but I hear no hiss. Two baby rhinos push a block made of stone in front of me. Is that a table? Are they going to serve food? It’s not that I am not hungry, it feels as though I can never be hungry. I’m startled by something large and fuzzy brushing up behind me, I turn back. I see a panda wearing glasses with a cheap plastic frame. She is chewing bamboo shoots on the side of her mouth like a cigar. Sucking in the drool, she throws down a large stack of what looks like ancient papyrus and a couple of nails on the table and says, “Write!”. “What do you want me to write?” my voice barely makes a sound. “How should I know?” the panda barks back. “When should I give it back?” I try hard to get any information out of her. “Never. Oh, please, never”. She blurts through her insulting giggle and walks back. I don’t know if this is heaven or hell. But I am certain that I am dead.