We walk side by side and hand in hand down the alleyway to somewhere and nowhere.

There are places like this in the universe where there exists only within the boundaries surrounding. Just you and I alone. No big city, no forests, no oceans, no nature, no history and no time. All that is there is what we see, and nothing we can’t. Just a gaping emptiness around us.

No shriek of mice nor hum of motor, no muttering behind doors nor caw of birds. You presume it’s just quiet, but places like these aren’t just quiet. How can you not feel it? How can you not tell how wrong , how unnatural, how completely surreal this is?

But you just carry on talking, asking me where we’re going, what I wanted to show you.

I wanted to show you this. I needed to show you this.

We reach a dead end and I say that we’re at the end of the world.

You laugh and ask me why I’ve been so quiet.

I ask you why you think I’m joking.

The scene shifts before our eyes, the brick wall warping, becoming blurry. You rub your eyes, but the unnatural blurriness remains.

You ask if I see what you do. I nod.

We look around. Nothing else is blurry. Just the wall. Like some sort of unfocused picture. You step forward and reach out to touch it, but I grab your hand, pulling it back.

Instead I reach for some rubble on the floor next to my left foot, a bit of brick. I throw it at the wall, and it hits. It ricochets off the wall and lands at your feet.

I gesture for you to listen, and we hold our breath, looking at the blurry wall. Then the sound of the rock hitting the wall sounds again. Identical to the one before. You look around, trying to find the source, not yet trusting your ears. No echo in this alleyway, no one behind us, no rocks kicked accidentally.

Then I gesture to the bit of brick no longer at your feet, but back near mine.

At first you begin laugh, but then you go quiet. You go really quiet.

You pick up a pebble next to a box and look at me. I nod. You throw it at the wall. We watch as it hits the wall, and then lands near me.

We both look at the pebble as we hear the repeated sound, and I ask you to keep watching the pebble as I turn to look where you originally picked it up from.

You ask me if I can see it. I say yes, and ask you the same question. In a breathless voice, you reply yes. You ask me how it can be in two places as once. I tell you to keep looking, but you’ve already turned around. You look where I am and see the pebble, but when we look where you were, it’s no longer there.

Our eyes meet. You ask if we can leave. I nod.