The Station
My small room.A closet, a bookshelf, a piano, a desk in front of the window, a TV, a sofa bed, and a chair.
Every guest who visited us would stay here.
It was evening.
Lights began to shine in the buildings outside.
I opened the window, and soon the room filled with the fresh, breezy air of the evening.
I sat on the floor.
The first woman was sitting there with me. She was a friend of a friend, and she had brought several colorful books that they had asked me to read aloud.
Another woman was sitting on the chair.
We were sitting on a camel-colored rectangular rug with a dark square in the middle.
“Look. What do you see?” the woman sitting on the floor with me asked again.
“I don't see anything,” I said.
Again.
I really didn't see anything with my eyes closed.
The woman turned toward the other woman.
“She doesn't see anything.”
“Try again,” the woman on the chair said.
I tried again.
Nothing.
The woman on the floor opened the book.
She smiled in a funny way.
And we continued reading.
The book was about ancient Egypt, its history told through pictures.
I had been tracing pictures from this book and keeping them in my album.
After a while, the first woman asked me to try again.
I closed my eyes.
Soon, I began to see black and white colors changing into each other.
Then everything began to feel as if a spaceship were flying straight through space.
Lights on both sides stretched into long lines, left and right.
The lights mixed with something that looked like sunlight.
Then everything suddenly stopped.
All around me was a blue-white sky.
The invisible spaceship continued its journey.
The sky was blue, filled with foggy white clouds.
The clouds touched each other and slowly moved apart.
How long was this journey?
I wasn't sure.
Soon, a black square appeared inside the clouds.
Blue-white sky.
Black square.
The spaceship entered the black square.
Everything became dark inside.
But it wasn't ordinary darkness.
It looked like dark clouds moving around me.
Then, somewhere far away, a golden light began to shine.
It grew brighter.
It pushed forward.
As I moved closer, I saw a long, golden-yellow metal tower.
It looked like a modern electrical tower.
In front of it were metal poles with wires running between them.
The wires began to shine.
And something pulled me backward.
I opened my eyes.
The room was still there.
The women were still there.
And our evening of reading continued.
