In which I walk and reflect

The sun is shining very brightly and yet it is still cold. How long have I been here? A week? I would try marking the days, but "days" and "nights" seem arbitrary here. I saw the sun rise and set within an hour one time. Does that count as one day?

I went outside again today. There was no more department store or Italian restaurant. Instead, the streets were lined with steel buildings, the sun glaring off them, blinding me. I walked amidst them, each building reflecting my image back, until at one point I was between two mirrors, my reflections arcing back and forth into infinity.

I turned the corner then and found myself in front of a movie theatre.

There was nothing on the marquee, though, and no posters within any of the frames.

There were notices on the doors, but they were all in gibberish. Things like "the gostak distims the doshes" and "reduction occurs step wise though the essence is all one."

I couldn't even get inside the theatre -- the doors were all locked. I have a feeling that if I had been able to go inside and sit down and watch one of the films, it wouldn't make any sense at all. Perhaps it would simply be a white screen and I could make my own movie with shadows. Perhaps it would like the notices, just snippets of complete nonsense. Or perhaps it would have made perfect sense and revealed all secrets of this city and how to leave it.

After trying to open all the doors, I just turned around and walked back. The row of mirror-buildings had become sloping houses with brick exteriors. I glanced back and the theatre seemed to sit there, lonely, on the corner.

Sam Norton