It's only a line

I saw a black line form, first it was squiggly but as it stretched it grew in thickness and in clarity. It stopped suddenly. All it was, was a line as if it had been drawn with a marker. It stayed stationary. I looked at it for a while, waiting for some sort of movement. Nothing.

What could one do with a black horizontal line? I thought about moving it with my mind but nothing happened. How in the world did I even get into such a state? I knew my name, it was Tom, Tom Bates, a simple first name at that. Tom was a nickname for Thomas –one of twelve apostle who was called a doubter. Tom often referred to the male animal such as tomcat or a tom turkey. Tom was also offensive and derogatory name for a Black man who was abjectly servile and deferential to Whites. I never heard such a term used before but I knew that such a term existed. I knew my age, I knew who I was, I knew I had been reading a manuscript that had been written by Charles Neville, and that I was travelling on a train. I had my memories intact, but I couldn’t clarify my present situation, how I got into such a predicament and how I was going to get out of such a place. Though I did not even know what place I was in, if one does not know where they are how will they get out of the place that they are in. If I was to get out of such a place how would I be certain that I would return to the train and be sitting in an upright position? If I was to leave my current predicament how was I to me certain that I would not be transported to worse off scenario.

I continued to stare at line, not really knowing what would come of it, or if I had lost the plot and had gone crazy. You know certain things can throw you off kilter; a close death in the family might just be enough to set one off down the road of madness. Madness, what was madness?

A little bit of brainstorming might help. Insane…mad as a hatter… fool… foolish… idiotic… silly... mental…a condition…mental illness…brain damaged…brainsickness…crazy…dementia…deranged… disturbed…lunacy…unbalanced… ‘not quite right’…absurd.

I stopped thinking watching the line grown in width and height. I stared at it, zoomed into the blackness as it filled up my view. The blackness disappeared just as quickly as it came. Now I could see something, a three-legged wooden table stood in front of me. It looked sturdy even though it was not leaning up against anything. I could see what looked like cards laid out on the table. I neared it with my eyes or what could be termed my visual perception as I was unsure if I had eyes or not.