5 Scenarios I'm Certain Would Drive Me Insane

Introduction

Let's cut to the chase: Humans are quite adaptable. If you made the world three times stranger, I do not think humans were thrice as hardy - I think we'd simply push a majority over the edge to the point where the insanity would be all-consuming. Last night I had some terrible dreams and realized that, in the right circumstances, I would be consumed as such. So I'd like to share them with you.

Scenario 1

I wake up to nothing: Okay, not nothing, for I still exist, and there is some sort of world in which I yet exist. But nothing else exists, as far as I can see. I have awoken to an infinite white room of eternity. This room, which has no apparent ceiling or walls, does not even have a floor. Oh, there is apparently a floor; there is apparently something down there, by which my feet gain purchase and may step, but when I reach down to touch what my feet seem to grasp (ostensibly this floor), I can grip nothing. I can step, but on which I step, how I step, why I cannot touch with my hands what my feet can touch, I know not.

I walk and walk but there is nothing for miles, not that I have the faintest idea of distance, not that I have the faintest idea of what would constitute something in this realm, in the first place, but there is nothing that exists for hours, days, weeks. I don't know, it seems to stretch out forever. But one day, I wake from a nightmarish slumber (with dreams hallucinatory and horrifying, but preferable still to the void of new waking life). And, to my endless relief, I wake to see something real has appeared: A line of dogs, one by one, single spaced, 2 feet between dogs. Dogs in an infinite doggèd line on, no, not the horizon, but in viewing distance, no more than 150 feet away. Red dogs, blue dogs, green dogs. Every race of dogs. And every breed. Dachshunds, retrievers, pit bulls, feisty dogs, saggy aging dogs, all 150 feet away. In a rhythmic, apparently choreographed trot together. One foot, one foot, one foot, one foot. I can hear them barking. Bark, bark, bark.

At first the dogs are an endless relief. Oh, my first thought is of compassion, dear reader, a hint that other entities have yet survived whatever has happened to the rest of the world, giving me hope that perhaps all was saved and redeemed, that it is only a matter of time before all men and women, stricken by this white infinity, may yet unite. And then my thoughts, noble at first, stray to the mundane and economical: I have not hungered once in this trip, but certainly if I should ever start to hunger I could do worse than dogs. I still had my Swiss Army Knife in the front pocket of my button-down shirt, now welded to my form. I rejoice at this potential food supply. Chastising myself even as I do so, I evaluate the edible characteristics of each dog, conceiving perhaps of a fire lit with the kindling and fuel of an endless dog train, perhaps using their bones at some crucial stage.

I get ahead of myself, and find to my horror that nothing is essentially changed about my lot. You see, walking towards the dogs simply pushes them further away in proportion to my steps, in their endless dogged line, bark, bark, bark. Still approximately one hundred and fifty feet away. Bark, bark, bark.

I go insane within the hour.

Scenario 2

I am on a science fiction television serial that is reasonably acclaimed and I play a principal part. Let's call it Star Trek: The Next Generation as a sort of alias. So anyway, I hypothetically play Commander Riker on the Enterprise, on this hypothetical serial.

My agents and handlers and producers, without my consent, sign off on a video game adaptation of this hypothetical particular show. I love video games, and no one warns me otherwise about this adaptation. When I start to play the game, though, I find to my horror that the video game adaptation is not altogether faithful. Oh, I have not the nerd or the egomaniac's desire to see my own image on screen, or see perfect confluence between two different media. But yet I feel some horror as I play the adaptation. I note that, sure, there are plenty of analogous missions to the television serial in the video game. But what sets me off in a rage is that all the characters from the series have been replaced with facsimiles... replaced with dogs, to be exact. Captain Bark. Jean-Luc "Fido" Picard, Doganna Troi, Wesley Dachsher. The list goes on.

And there is no Riker. Not a single Riker. I have been written out of the adaptation! And suddenly, to my horror, my hands are seemingly glued inseparably to the video game controller! I look around for a solvent but to no avail. Then I fall asleep on my couch and wake up in the world of the game. I am Commander Barker in the game. The game was just waiting for me to consummate it, trapped here in eternity, solving missions for Fido Picard who sends me to dog planets where they bark, and mentoring Wesley Dacsher who barks, listening to Doganna Troi that empathizes with all my problems by nature and who barks, and bark bark bark bark bark bark bark.

Scenario 3

I am at a train station waiting for a train. The train is a train of dogs, though, one dog to a car, and all the people on the train have been replaced with dogs. I get in, because I cannot miss the interview I was headed for in the train. I bear the organ-and-skeleton-laden sides and top of the car, I bear the dog conductor, the dog ticket-takers, the dogs in my compartment always making barkèd conversation to bark the hours. I bear it all, and at the end, I try to... uh... disembark. But I cannot, and find I have myself turned into a dog. The interview is not happening, I realize solemnly. Then, at the last moment I gain my humanity back suddenly, force my way out with a Swiss Army Knife, and break through the dog car's exterior. I have seen the dog-night flicker a candle of hope, and in acceptance of the hope, I have brought myself back from the edge.

Only to find that the job I'd sought had been replaced with a dog. Bark, bark, barking away. I accept, angrily, out of desperation and non-fungible economic necessity - for I am the best in the world for this new dog. I treat it kindly and live out my days, and the dog bites me one day and, thence, I rabidly protest Reason. The dog has betrayed me.

Scenario 4

I am in school, about five or six, and a dog appears that is larger than me. All my classmates laugh and play with the dog but I am not happy and cannot see how this dog, so much larger than myself, with such vicious potential, is any different from a garter snake that is ten feet long: Yes, I hear that it is harmless, but it is still a fierce canine, and surely cannot be totally harmless, if it perceives me as a threat, no? I wait in the corner but the day never ends and the dog smirks and glares at me from time to time in the corner, and one by one the dog eats my classmates and they still play happily along with it, and one day the teacher and I are the only ones left besides the dog which now glares at me 100% of the time and I want to protest but lack the mental capacity to understand that I can go home at any time and that the considerations of dog trump the banalities of law and protocol. Seven feet long is this dog, growing by the classmate consumed, and my teacher leaves and locks the door behind her, saying, "Have fun, you two." And then the dog talks in all the voices of my classmates, taunting me, and finally speaking in my voice, to me. And then it says, in a grackle, that that's what I actually sound like, and I record myself on the computer nearby and I do sound that way, about an octave higher than I'd thought, and the dog laughs and smirks and one by one the dog eats everything in the room that is not the dog, except for me, which it steadfastly refuses to allow to die and it barks, making sounds from every one and thing it has consumed, and finally insinuates, by modulations of its voice, this dog insinuates evilly that even my teacher outside this locked room and my parents outside this schoolhouse, even the President (Clinton, as I recall), all have been consumed by it.

Conclusion

Haha, so there you have it: Those are four scenarios I'm certain would drive me insane, Pearls of Mystery troopers! Coincidentally, each of them involves a dog. I'm not sure what's up with that. Sure, I've not been a huge dog person my whole life, and I have never owned one. But I did have a minor phobia growing up, and only occasional familiarity (as well as the mellowing-out of age) ameliorated somewhat my fear of dogs. Oh, what's that? I said "Five Scenarios"? Well, the omitted was a nightmare far worse than any of the preceding. I'd prefer to keep it to myself. Haha, I guess you'll just have to use your imagination on Scenario #5.