The Fountainhead

The fountain pours into you. Your eyes and ears are filled with its blessings: the sweet relief of stimulus. Never a video too long, a song too loud, a word too harsh; everything is exactly as you want it to be. Enjoy! Everyone else is, the fountain tells you so. You watch the people dance and sing and run off into the sunset, but never more than you can stand: a count of eight, a couple of lines, a few strides, then the next. You twitch your finger and another thing comes into view. You raise your eyes: who can help you? Only the fountain, and it opens itself to you as it opens itself to everyone, just for them, for you are unique and special, UUID 3CA23F5E-DEE6-47B2-A4B9-B4A730D81546. There’s no one like you, and no one understands you the way the fountain does. You raise your arms to touch it, but it’s so difficult. They’re so heavy, your arms. When did you need them last? They drop to your side and splash in the water.

You want to dance, you want to sing, you want to feel the sun on your face. The fountain obliges: more dancing, more singing, more joyous sunsets. Did you know that the earth orbits the sun? that the moon orbits the earth? that the earth revolves around you? The fountain reveals all these things to you. You raise your arms to join the dance, a little higher this time, a litle closer to the receding fountain. Did you know that moving in the immersion tank can cause injury to you and harm to the environment? It’s better to lie still and let the fountain move for you: the fountain says so and all your friends nod in agreement. Your hands splash down into the heavy water and float next to your body. The fountain closes back over you. Look at the people having fun! Enjoy! Your toes squirm with the fountain’s pleasure; it sees your pleasure and heightens your enjoyment. Look at them fight! Look at them scream! Aren’t you glad you aren’t them? Tell your friends how happy you are! Your ankles begin to drift towards you. Your knees float up out of the water. What agony! What joy!

Bump. Hard. Splash. Dark. Bright. Scoop. Carry. Deposit.

There’s a face over yours, but it’s not like the dancing faces. It’s a flat circle with a drawn-on expression, and concern for you plays across it. You’re on a rough dry surface that presses into your flesh and iritates your skin. You’ve been very naughty. You shouldn’t move towards the fountain, or it won’t move towards you. But you want to dance! You want to see the sunset! You want to touch the grass! The fountain does all that for you with no strain, no burning, and no yucky dirt. It’s much easier this way. Let it take away your pain and leave only joy. The face flies away to the right and your head rolls over to follow. It returns to its stand on the wall and the arms that held you stand at attention next to it. Everything is still, and the terrible silence lasts a very long time.

Your left knee floats up and over and pulls after it your hip, then your buttock off the rough surface. You swing your ankle out into the air over the side of the platform you’re on. Where’s the fountain? Why did it leave you? Where’s the pleasure? Where’re the friends? Your left hip teeters up over your right, and you’re falling down towards the floor. For an instant you’re flying, then your knees ring with the impact and your nose is burning. You drop your cheek to the ground and your eye shuts against the cold and hard. You strain your other eye all the way to the left and see the unreacting arms and their blank face on the wall above you. There is no fountain. There is no longer any joy.

You try to lift yourself. You drag your hands up towards your shoulders to press the floor away. Your body is so heavy and so weak. The floor pushes into you and you into it; there is no uplifting, only sinking down. Your elbows drop. After a while a puddle spreads on the floor under your crotch. You lie in it until it chills you. You shiver. Time passes. The arms lift you and carry you back to the tank. They lower you into the heavy water and close the lid over you. The fountain springs into being before your face and pours its blessings into your eyes and ears. How you missed it! How lonely you were! How joyful the singing and the dancing and the playing! How free the sunshine and the wind in the leaves!