The noise stopped.
Arthur discovered to his embarrassment that he was lying curled up in a small ball on the floor with his arms wrapped round his head. He smiled weakly.
"Charming man," he said. "I wish I had a daughter so I could forbid her to marry one . . ."
"You wouldn't need to," said Ford. "They've got as much sex appeal as a road accident. No, don't move," he added as Arthur began to uncurl himself, "you'd better be prepared for the jump into hyperspace. It's unpleasantly like being drunk."
"What's so unpleasant about being drunk?"
"You ask a glass of water."
Arthur thought about this.
"Ford," he said.
"Yeah?"
"What's this fish doing in my ear?"
"It's translating for you. It's a Babel fish. Look it up in the book if you like."
He tossed over The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy and then curled himself up into a fetal ball to prepare himself for the jump.
At that moment the bottom fell out of Arthur's mind.
His eyes turned inside out. His feet began to leak out of the top of his head.
The room folded flat around him, spun around, shifted out of existence and left him sliding into his own navel.
They were passing through hyperspace.
Yes, that little description of hyperspace sort of describes my entire week. Started out with a blizzard that nearly buried my entire house. Ends tonight with me, sitting in my kitchen, feeling like the bottom has fallen out of my mind and everything that I've known for the past 20 or so years has shifted out of existence.
No, I'm not going to go all Sylvia Plath or Vincent van Gogh on you. You will not need to increase your dosage of antidepressants or sit under a light therapy lamp for hours after reading this post. Rather, I just want to meditate on how unreal the last five or so days have been. Like something from a van Gogh painting or a Plath poem.
This afternoon, I sat in my new office at the hospital, the door closed and locked. I was surrounded by remnants of my old office, including my Employee of the Month picture, which I nailed onto the wall behind my desk. I listened to my online Christmas radio station and assembled patient charts. All stuff I would have done last week, as well. Except that I felt like I'd been swallowed by a whale or something.
Like in the movie Pinocchio where Geppetto and Pinocchio and Jiminy Cricket are sitting on the deck of a boat in the belly of Monstro. Everything is sort of normal and sort of isn't. There's the boat and the wooden mast and the windows and a lamp. But look up, and all you see is a heaven of whale ribs and stomach. It isn't quite right.
Until I somehow find my footing in my new space (which will only last for about six weeks), I am going to continue to float around on my little boat, waiting to be coughed up onto some foreign shore. (Yes, I am now mixing narratives. I am no longer Geppetto or Pinocchio. I am Jonah, on my way to the shores of some distant Nineveh. Stick with me.)
That is the extent of my wisdom this evening. Everything is inside out, upside down. I've made the jump to hyperspace, and I'm not enjoying it right now. I'm on a voyage, but something much larger (and fishier) is doing the navigating by the green auroras of winter.
Saint Marty isn't much for sea food.
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