The Long Sleep

Начало книги

He was not dead, but nearly so.

Many times, the heavy breath of the void — cold, sweet, slow, and fetid — had been inhaled and exhaled over him. But it had failed to claim him.

For an inestimable length of time he had seen nothing except a hazy light emanating from an unknown source, filtered through (it seemed) the underside of a cosmic fly's unfurled wing: translucent white streaked through with pale blue veins. He had heard nothing at all in that time: not the breath of the void nor his own breath. He had required no nourishment. He had needed no entertainment. He drifted in syrupy warmth which had no odor, and received no tactile stimulation. As a substitute for the womb, this place, whatever it might be, was without parallel.

Perhaps because of this lack of stimuli, he had not even entertained a single thought in all those hours. Mindlessly, he had drifted, swimming down rivers of nothingness… He existed as much like a vegetable as like a man, insulated from everything except his own greatly reduced bodily functions.

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