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