The Mortality Files- A Surface Dweller's Tale, Part 3: My Mind-Altering View of the Inner World

Malcombish the giant was right; the water tasted like it had "just jumped through a ring of electrical sparks", but I drank plenty, and filled my bottle from the eager cascade pouring from a neat hole in the wall.

( see previous episodes, PART 1, and PART 2.)

We left the entry cavern, and a minute later I ended up dumping that funky water out of my bottle when we reached a patch of green grass-like tubes, or what Malcombish called water grass. By breaking these tubes off with a pinch, the inverted leaf could then be drank or poured, and it was a sweet water indeed, but held to the light, was clear as a lens in my glass traveling bottle.

I asked Malcombish his age, and he had to think about it. He began by detailing geo-gravitational anomalies, dilation of time and fluctuations of space that left my head spinning, but finally he explained that on the inside of the Earth, they didn't depend on things like day and night, and had little use for the notion. They didn't count how many times the sun crossed an imaginary line on the surface of the planet, and hence there were no 'birthdays' to celebrate for Malcombish.

Nothing was flat down here. We traveled down an eerily lit hallway with a towering arched ceiling, occasionally carved into geometric patterns of artistic fancy by someone long ago. It was never clear where the light came from, it seemed that every molecule of air was aglow with invisible beams, or the stones themselves were emitting the amber light.

We reached a large porch-like ledge, and here the ceiling of the cavern vanished above in a distant mist, complete with puffy clouds easing about in the light-- now more of a peachy tone. Whatever was up there was as high as the sky. Then, I looked down, into the sky below-- this was a monstrously gigantic chamber.

Malcombish sat down next to me, looking at me carefully, and I sensed that he was going to make sure that I didn't fall into the sky below. But it was breathtaking, and a rush of dizziness caused me to buckle to my knees.

This was inside of the planet? I asked Malcombish how far down the chasm went, and he of course corrected me. "You mean how long is it. It's forever. Even if we took the train."

With an open hand he offered a look, and above us in the 'sky', a silent train was indeed easing along, but with no track to clickety clack, and of course it was gigantic, with each section of the train as big as a stadium. Smaller craft, like the size of my car, were flashing up next to this colossal train, and seemed to disappear into it, while others emerged from various sections, flying away hurriedly.

So then, as that giant flying train went by, far beyond it I could see the huge carved ceiling of an immense balcony across this vast gorge that had previously been hidden by distant clouds. That was a big balcony, and it's ceiling was actually carved into rows of buildings with illuminated windows, jutting downwards like stalagmites, and I realized that I was looking at a faraway city, suspended from the ceiling, and looking like an upside-down postcard of New York City at twilight. I wondered what it was like for the multitude who must live there in perpetual twilight, and what they must do with their time.

As I gazed at this suspended city, I realized that I was crying.

How was it possible that this inner world had been kept from us surface dwellers for all of these years? I was a mere flea, and the surface forests that I'd grown up in, as it turns out, were like the fur upon a breathing, living thing.

My mind was dimming out as I looked across the void, and my head was now stuffed with things that I couldn't explain.

At once, I could see why the inner earth was kept from us-- I was just one of the ignorant clods crumbling in the sun out on the surface of a sturdy round space vessel, barnacles who hadn't a clue-- so that one quick glimpse of the splendor that exists within that vessel, and I was tripping.

This was when I started to lose it, I guess. It was all surely a dream, and all at once, I wanted to go back to the surface with every bit of my soul. I wanted to go find my car, and smell the desert again-- hell I wanted to go home, screw the desert-- I wanted to smell normal trees again, and to feel the sunshine, to see the stars.

I was a tiny microbe, living my life on the surface of a plump watermelon, totally unaware of the idea of melons at all, like a pointless little germ.

I panicked. How long had I been down here now? I had obligations, things to do, people to meet, up there, on the beautiful surface. My life had never been normal, but I wanted that back, my old abnormal life of being the oddball in a square corner.

A quick worry took the stage: I wondered if my new friend Malcombish would be offended if I wanted out of his inner world so suddenly and desperately, and that I felt tiny and insignificant and ill-informed about my planet and whole world, and what existed inside of it. I needed out.

It was the voice of Malcombish, ever psychic, that brought me around from my panic. "It's time for you to go back, O Sun man." It was all I needed to hear, and we marched back up the giant hallway without speaking.

I was in shock. I don't remember much about the walk back to the laboratory room and it's roots and vines and stone seat, but I noticed that Malcombish sat in the throne quickly, and with that gentle face, he offered, "Come back soon, and don't lose that hat!"

I had the hat, I made sure of that, and then was blinded by desert sunlight; I was back on the surface in the gully where I'd heard the chime and the voice of the giant. I put on the hat, and immediately heard Malcombish, "See you after a while, Sun Man... it's a pleasure to share this old planet with you!"

---

You might be thinking that I was too scared to go back down there after my breakdown, and you would be right; I was scared, in general, for a while after that little trip. I've stopped counting how many times the Earth turns around relative to the sun, but I would guess that it was a few years before I went back to the desert, and back to the place where most Earthlings live-- inside of the planet.

Previously, parts 1 and 2 of this story:

1. https://steemit.com/writing/@therealpaul/the-mortality-files-a-surface-dweller-s-tale

2. https://steemit.com/writing/@therealpaul/the-mortality-files-a-surface-dweller-s-tale-part-2-the-hat

photos above are mine, simulating the scenery within the Earth, since I didn't own a camera back then, and plus the story is fictional, 2018

Click @therealpaul for more