Logic Dies, I am Sorry

Caught in mid-sentence, the Distinguished Gentleman, while speaking and also fumbling through his notes, was taken by surprise by a deep bass rumble. It was a rolling sound, one that seemed to approach, yet whose volume remained steady.

He did not stop to ponder whether the audience of 50 to which he was lecturing heard what he did. It was quite clear to him that they did not. He did, however, wonder what the rumbling would translate to in their world. He was now aware that the noise suggested a great degree of speed, as if its sole purpose were to engulf and consume.

A young woman stood up to ask a question. Actually, she had been standing there from the second the noise had interrupted his train of thought. He now mechanically asked her to voice her concern, and it seemed to the audience that the pause in his speech was normal, that nothing out of the ordinary was occurring.

As she spoke, the way the slight breeze in the stadium brushed through her hair - and swept it ever so slightly - made an impression on him that swallowed his conscious attention whole. Now, from far, far away, he heard himself replying to her question with great ease; he was speaking calmly and fluidly and while he watched his hands gesticulating animatedly, he continued probing his inner reaction to the movement of her hair, an event so commonplace and familiar that it scarcely should have been noticed.

The rumble was approaching. Now, he could sense it as a sphere of noise, which seemed to put forth some kind of light. It was indeed getting louder, but he certainly was not frightened by its intruding presence. In fact, instinctively he welcomed it. He knew it will consume him but he longed for it nevertheless.

While conversing back and forth with the young woman, he had taken off his spectacles. His pen fell to the floor and suddenly the sphere exploded into the room. His notes flew off his desk; the young woman had walked toward him and picked them up. She wanted to explain that he had contradicted himself while lecturing and she was searching for the old notes that would prove her point. As she stood there accusing him, he became enamored by the energy she exuded and distributed throughout his many worlds, like flooding water that spread throughout a sinking ship. He was ready to put his life to rest. And thusly, the sphere blew him into a form of dissipation. "Ah, yes. Thank you," he said, and the young woman returned to her desk, relieved that he had finally agreed with her about his contradiction.

Now that everything was calm once again, he stood in his place for a minute, silenced by the storm. After a long and slow sigh, he forced himself to reassemble his entire being into that point of focus so carelessly called "a lecture". Fully conscious at last, he opened his mouth to speak: "I..." and there was a sudden loud rap that came from the back of the stadium. Each and every student quickly turned around in their desks and the sound of their whispering grew louder and louder until the room overflowed with the clamor of their voices. The words he had attempted to speak were "I have nothing more to say".

And, from the back of the stadium, a figure emerged from the darkness to approach the students.