tthhee oddiissee, chapter 1
Ro opened his door to find that it lead nowhere.
That isn’t to say that there was a wall or some sort of impassable object, but there simply wasn’t anything: a pure white void.
Ro had always suspected this could be a possibility, but never thought it would actually happen. He shut the door, resting his back to it and sipped the energy drink that he had taken out of the fridge. It was a bad habit that he had formed, downing 300 milligrams of caffeine each morning to help him get through work, but he tried to console himself with the knowledge it also had BCAAs and was sugar-free, not that it was really the reason he purchased them in such large volumes.
Ro also realized that the t-shirt that he threw on last minute wouldn’t be appropriate in almost any work environment; no matter the sentiment “PU$$Y HUNTAZZ” was not something that anyone in management would likely be okay with. He found himself thanking the void for avoiding a workplace faux despite the fact that he wouldn’t be making it to work at all that day.
Ro made his way to his perennially-closed windows, peeling back one of the corners he had covered with foil to see that it wasn’t just the door to the backyard that no longer lead to the backyard. Ro had wanted to black out the light in his place completely, as he found doing this and combining it with harsh fluorescent overhead lighting had helped him ignore what time of day it was and let him work much longer than he usually would without meaning to. This was despite the fact that since dropping out from art school he had no creative project to work on.
Ro made his way to the top of the stairs leading to the ground level of the house, where his landlords lived. It dawned on him that he never actually seen what their living space looked like, despite living there for three years. They weren’t bad people or anything, but neither party was interested in what the other person was doing with their life. He often forgot what his landlord looked like, barely even registering when she or her husband were in the basement to do their laundry.
He opened the door to see it was much like that formerly lead to the backyard, leading to nothing at all. Ro thought it would’ve made sense to other people that the entire house would be encompassed in the void and not just his basement apartment, but for some reason it made a great deal of sense that this would be happening to him, specifically.
Though, to be fair, Ro didn’t know this was happening just to him. It was extremely possible that there were other people in other parts of the world experiencing this same phenomena right now. Hell, Ro thought, this might not be the first time in history this was happening, and may not be the last. Ro had no reason to think this, but for some reason he did. Ro rarely ever thought he was all that unique in any way.
He made his way back down to the questionable living room set-up that he had, collapsing into the cheap folding dish chair in the middle of the room. He put his drink on the floor and stared at the ceiling. He felt like he should’ve been much more panicked by this scenario, but he didn’t mind much at all. It wasn’t like he was really going anywhere in work and, as of late, he had been considering moving out of the city that he found himself staying in more out of convenience than need. The real question was what to do next.
Ro had supposed he should call his work to let them know he wouldn’t be coming in. He had called out just last week, so he had the number in his recent contacts. He knew Jenn would be pissed that he couldn’t make it to his shift, especially with the recent firings leaving them short staffed, but she would have to deal with it.
He was surprised when he dialed the number to find that a company that sold frozen food was on the other line. It wasn’t the sort of food you would find in a supermarket, but a direct-to-consumer brand that characterized itself as a gourmet option. Ro had never really understood what that had meant, but he suspected it meant the meals could only be heated up in an oven as opposed to a microwave. Whenever he had the opportunity to use an oven to make his frozen garbage, it turned out better anyway. He had memories of seeing this brand delivering to his neighbor’s house growing up, and had always wondered what that was about it and what the appeal could possibly be. These were thoughts that didn’t help Ro in his current situation at all, nor would it ever important in his entire life ever again, not that he knew that.
Ro tried looking up the number for work, but it seemingly disappeared off the face of the Earth. There wasn’t even a listing saying it was now permanently closed. It raised some questions about Ro’s current state of being that he had no real interest in finding the answer to. It wouldn’t help to ponder the nature of his life.
Ro decided to take it easy for the rest of the day, downing his drink and playing a video game he didn’t like for fifteen hours before falling asleep again.
Ro was disappointed, but not surprised, to find that nothing had changed from the day before. He had hoped that he could sleep it off somehow, but that didn’t appear to be the case. This was something he was going to have to deal with.
Ro got to work getting online and trying to do some research. There were no news stories about a basement disappearing and searching his own name only brought up his low-reaching social accounts. There was a decent chance no one had noticed yet, and Ro had an odd feeling that somehow it would go completely unnoticed at all. He went on trying to research if this sort of thing had happened before, but could only find low-effort joke posts. Again, Ro knew this would be the most likely case, but he knew he wouldn’t forgive himself if he didn’t look it up.
Ro realized that the rest of the research he was going to conduct would’ve had to be much more hands-on. He had a pile of books in the corner of the his living room that he had been meaning to get rid of for a while, and took the first one off the top of it. He always felt guilty getting rid of something that was given to him as a gift, but the writer simply failed to make the video game industry in the 90s sound interesting.
He opened the door, gently held out the book into the void and dropped it. The book came to a stop with a light thud right where the ground should’ve been. Ro reached down and tried to feel the ground around the book, but his hand went right through where the surface should’ve been. Ro picked up the book and dropped it again in a slightly different spot, but saw the same thing happening. He wasn’t sure what to make of it.
Ro took another book, a collection of comic strips that ran in alt-weeklies for a few years in the late-80s that was far less revolutionary than it was made out to be. The cover was falling off of it, and there wasn’t a used bookstore that would even put it out in the free bin. He went up to the door at the top of the stairs this time, and threw the book out into the void as hard as he could.
This time the book split all the way apart, pages flying haphazardly in every direction. The pages continued flying outwards, seemingly without any friction to slow them down.
He continued his experiments with more books and in different locations: some books fell into the void forever; some flew upward; and other repeated the same sort of reaction the other books had, but there was no consistency with any previous testing. Eventually, the only books Ro had were ones he wanted to hold on to (or hadn’t read yet), and he brought his experiments to an end.
It was clear to him that he was going to have to enter the void at some point. It wasn’t that there was some sort of eminent threat to his well-being (in fact, his refrigerator seemed more stocked than it had been yesterday), but it didn’t seem like this state of unbeing was going to come to an end any time soon. He had no idea what he would find when he left, but he also reasoned he wasn’t ready to face the unknown quite yet. It was at this moment that he busted out a set of resistance bands that he bought years ago, still unopened and sitting in the back of his closet. He wasted very little time in getting to work.
Months had passed, and as he expected, no one noticed Ro had been missing. It didn’t help that he couldn’t seem to contact anyone he knew and they, in turn, either couldn’t contact him, or just didn’t bother.
He had worked out nearly every day since the day he got rid of his books, slimming down and building up strength he didn’t have before. It’s not that Ro was hideous before or anything, but he knew if he was dropped into a random environment, there was a good chance he wouldn’t even survive a week. Now, he was well-equipped to at least survive two. Hell, even three weeks wouldn’t be out of the question. It was time to find out for sure.
Ro spent most of the morning deciding what to bring with him. Ro was never much for preparing for disaster, and while it kept him sane, it wasn’t much help here. Even if he had some camping gear, that would’ve helped. The closest thing was an emergency kit that was in the trunk of his car, but that wasn’t much help here. Ro decided not to take anything with him, leaving him to focus entirely on his wardrobe.
His socks were nice and wool; they were a Christmas present and boasted of being “performance-focused.” He wasn’t sure what that really meant, but he figured it would be better for the unknown. He went through his underwear, and put on the last pair he had without holes under the elastic. He had considered putting on one of his jockstraps, but they were made more for looking good and anal sex than actual performance. He didn’t know if he would have any cruising opportunities on the other side, and thought it would be foolish to make it a priority. He put on his best pair of jeans: black, slim fit, and made his ass look incredible. The real question was the t-shirt. He wasn’t sure if he should wear one of his work shirts that he wouldn’t mind getting dirty, or something he really cared about. As far as he knew, Ro wouldn’t ever end up back here again, and some of these were sentimental.
The t-shirt he landed on made little sense to anyone not in the know. It was completely black and said in white, Century Gothic font “CHOCOLATE BITCH.” It reminded him of someone he hadn’t seen in years, and had missed for much longer. He rarely wore it, and when he did, he never explained what it meant. He covered it up in a black hoodie, anyway.
Ro then went to his closet and pulled out his favorite pair of shoes. They were made of injected foam material, and in the shape of high-top basketball sneaker. Truth is, it was his second pair, the other ones he wore out so much they were scuffed, scarred, and dirty. He was saving this clean pair for when he wanted to impress, but it didn’t seem like he was going to encounter such an opportunity anytime soon.
He left his phone, his wallet, and his keys all on his desk. Ro knew they wouldn’t be useful to him, but couldn’t explain why. Then, as a bit of wishful thinking, he took a sticky note and wrote “Be back soon? -Roland” on it, sticking it to his bedroom door.
He grabbed an energy drink: his favorite and the last one that was in the fridge. It was as if it knew he wasn’t coming back. He then went straight to the backyard door. He contemplated going through the one at the top of the stairs, but thought it was silly to change things now.
He opened the door, staring, once again, into the white void. He opened up his drink, and chugged it, throwing it behind him. He didn’t want to risk an empty can somehow screwing up his journey.
He took a deep breath.
He stepped out the door.
And he fell.