Big Building (Experimental Text)

This narrative was inspired by a book quote (Cixin Liu’s The Dark Forest). The only relation that quote has to this text was from its comparison between humans and ants’ different experiences. 

My main goal was to create imagery that’s difficult to imagine and concepts that seem impossible to exist. I tried achieving this by combining sensory adjectives with senses that they’re incompatible with, and writing concepts/ideas that may prompt the readers to think about things that humans can’t experience or know. 

This short narrative was more explorative of human experiences and limitations, and focused on emotion/thoughts rather than action. I tended to add a lot of repetition to emphasise these ideas. 

“The ant climbed out of the basin and up onto the formation’s peak, but it felt no sense of towering above its surroundings because it had no fear of falling. [...] Without the fear of heights, there can be no appreciation for the beauty of high places.”

From The Dark Forest by Cixin Liu (2008)

The building of sandstone reached for the stars and stretched to the horizon
And the traveling woman did not want to go inside.
The desert was relentless. The sun scorched. The traveller sought refuge.
With no other choice, her tired legs walked timidly in the building’s direction.

She stepped forwards with her two human feet.
She observed the giant building with her two human eyes.
She did this for another hour and would continue for more hours to come.

But something was strange, she noticed… 

It seemed that no matter how long she walked for, she saw
The building would just not appear any closer.
Its size lay still.

The traveller couldn’t grasp whether or not that building was moving farther away as she approached, or if she was even moving from her spot, at all.

Maybe, the building was an illusion of some sort, either created from the depths of her thirst and starvation, or
Created to lure those who were clueless and desperate enough to follow to the ends of the horizon…
Or maybe, the building really did stand there, physically, really, and it was ensuring that no curious lower life forms would touch it,
Reserving its shelter only for whomever or whatever it deemed worthy.

If not, then the building could have simply been just too big,
And the distance between its great sandstone body and the miniscule one of the traveller’s was, in reality, closing between them.

The traveller’s thoughts dredged for something more plausible. 

Faster, she walked.

What was this strange building’s existence, and why was it allowed on planet Earth, the home of humankind?

A structure of this size could have never ben built with humans in mind, the traveller thought;
It could have never been built by human beings.
This was the sort of structure that could only ever bring confusion and fear to humankind. Surely,
It was built by something.

The traveller, as with other humans, thought of herself as skilled at asking questions.

For instance,
What kind of thing was that tall door anticipating to welcome?
What kind of thing would those gigantic windows allow to see through them?
What kind of thing sought protection within those mighty walls?

Was the strange building’s purpose to be a temple for a vicious beast?
Was it a magnificent palace for a titan? Could it be an endless hall for a creature of incredible speed, or a monument for a deity to sit inside of?
Of course, all these were purposes only familiar to human beings, and all these suggestions could be outright incorrect.

Maybe its purpose lay somewhere beyond, and the traveller was in no position to guess,
Even with the limitlessness of her imagination.

Ignorant, it was only in her kind’s nature to lust for understanding. 

She strided faster.

Then, the traveller grew afraid again. She thought,
That building could even be comparable to the colours that creatures with strange eyes see.
Humankind claims to see all colour — the wheel we invented holds it all —
So what more could there possibly be?
The building’s purpose could be akin to a colour that tastes like the wrath that a bolt of lightning echoes across the land,
Or maybe, it could be like a smell that sounds like the glittering of colour brown, if it could glitter.

If, eventually, the traveller would come face-to-face with that strange building, what might happen to her?
What if, in the moment she stepped inside, her body would disintegrate, or be warped into a shape that she couldn’t draw?
Maybe, her mind would become so perplexed in trying to comprehend its unearthly interiors it would melt,
Or she would be trapped inside of a blissful dream without ever knowing?

She thought about animals unfamiliar to the world of human inventions.
For instance, a tired millipede unknowingly crawling into the floor vents of a loungeroom’s heating system,
An elephant whose vision starts obscuring, whose hearing starts muffling, and whose frightened fit of rage and confusion starts amplifying, after the peirce of an almost invisible needle…
Or a peckish mouse who is oblivious to the make-up of a cable in an active power socket.

The traveller wondered if that ginormous, strange building would give her a human equivalent,
But, of course, it would be almost arrogant for her to believe she could conceptualise something
That she knew she could never understand.

The traveller walked on vigorously.

She now not only longed for shelter, but she craved to know.

Whomever this building was built for, could never be awed by its mystery.