When I was a kid, my parents took me to an amusement park. It had the usual stuff – roller coasters, bumper cars, midway games. But what really stuck with me is one particular ride I went on. You stood inside a circular… well, I remember it as being a room. You stood with your back to the wall, so everyone was facing the center, and then it started to spin. It was slow at first, and you didn’t really feel it, but it gradually sped up until the centrifugal forces had you pressed against the wall. Then, suddenly, the floor dropped out. You were standing on nothing, pinned to the wall, everything around you looking perfectly still. You could move, but you had to fight a huge amount of resistance, so you were mostly just held in place.
I mention it because it’s the only sensation I can think of to explain how I felt, standing on that sidewalk. The man I was talking to was looking me dead in the eyes, and I simply couldn’t look away. Couldn’t move. Nothing was holding me there, but at the same time, it felt like the weight of the earth itself was pinning me in place. He was speaking, and I sort of got the gist of what he was saying occasionally, but most of his words just kind of ran over me in a wave. It was just like being on that ride again, pinned back, everything moving so fast but looking like nothing was happening at all.
I felt my eyes start to grow heavy, and I fought to keep them open. For whatever reason I had come to feel that eye contact with him was the only thing keeping me grounded. Without it, I’d fly off into space or something, the pressures holding me in place suddenly increasing me and hurling me off over the horizon. But it was so hard. I felt my eyelids fluttering, his voice soothing and vague and distant. His eyes stared back into mine. They were shining and constant and inscrutable. Slowly, my strength failed, and my eyes fell closed.
As in a dream, I still saw his eyes in front of mine. I heard his voice. I relaxed. He was in my mind, now, somehow. Everything was going to be fine.
Excellent Point of View
Fuck yes.