uncontemplatable

B1-Caligula/c1-naked.md

@@ -242,4 +242,56 @@ to lurch upwards. I dove forward in a panic at being left behind. He didn't even
 have the courtesy to sneer at me but closed the cage door with a tired sigh as I
 tried to regain my composure. 
 
-[[...57]][[Consider omission of some expo and smells but include in a branch called "smells"]]
+Later I learned that the prison is contained in the depths of a mine. This
+thought terrified and deeply disturbed me. It would be so easy to close up the
+only shaft, disable the elevator, and abandon, forget the prisoners forever with
+no hope of escape, to starve to death, alone in absolute darkness. And then
+think of the expense required to maintain the prison as it was with light, food,
+and staff. What justified such an elaborate enterprise? What kind of prisoners
+was this place intended for? And why was I among them only to be so casually
+released? What about my mysterious jailer who questioned me so casually? Why was
+nothing in our conversation relevant to the reasons I had been imprisoned in the
+first place. No mention of any accusation against me, nor was I treated as an
+enemy, a dissident, or political liability? Unless such was touched upon during
+the forgotten part of our conversation, it was as though the only thing I did to
+secure my freedom was to utter my name.[[57]] Much later I would reflect upon
+these questions again with a growing resignation.
+
+The irons cage containing me and my new jailer had been grinding and shrieking
+its way upwards for a full five minutes before I became aware of a faint light
+filtering down from high overhead. It was at least another several minutes
+before that faint light grew into a blinding brilliance so intense I had to
+close my eyes tight and cover my face with my hands. As such I did not glimpse
+the moment of my birth into this strange world but instead entered it like a
+baby with eyes tightly shut and mutely weeping. My first impressions were all
+the more pronounced upon my other senses. And of them, most dramatic at first
+were the smells.
+
+To an amnesiac, if that is even what I was, I think that smells are like
+pyrotechnical explosions of memory, meaning and forgotten feelings. Each smell,
+as it reached my during the last few moments in the lift, was like a trumpet
+blast of startling information. Each scent on its own contained a world of
+references and connotation and in combination the olfactory melange told me
+stories of a life lived. By me or someone else or no one I could not say but I
+was transported. The scent of fine, wind-blown powdery sand conjured a broad
+bright and blazing red desert, empty and forbidding at the break of day. The
+smell of mingled spices, sweat, and perfume  evoked long musical nights, hungry
+lips, and soft fingers fumbling beneath silk, frantic grasping limbs and the
+musk of desire. The smell of blood and freshly butchered flesh brought to mind a
+crowded meat market. But that same smell, combined with a heady incense
+converted the market into violent ceremonial sacrifices before stained and
+hideous altars. And then as the scent of perfume wove itself back into the mix
+my mind revisited [[59]] sensual ecstatic dancers caught up in the throes of
+orgiastic death and fertility rites. All together the many scents now combined
+with a thronging noise of many voices, cries, and animal brays to transport my
+mind to a seething populace. 
+
+But for all the thick tangible detail in each vision, one element was
+conspicuously absent in each one: me. Not one of these memories if that is what
+they were, contained any indication that the had been experienced by me. Noting
+proved that I had actually ever lived. Whether this is a symptom of amnesia or a
+consequence of some other awful and uncontemplatable truth I could not tell.
+Thankfully, all these thoughts, sensations or memories ceased and fled my mind
+after only a few moments when I found myself able to open my eyes. I then began
+to experience, finally, the world in first person.
+