[ WP ] Someone gets stuck in Limbo-With a famous dead person

I am not sure how long I ’ ve been walking this road. It feels like years, but it is hard to tell, because the sun never sets and I can never seem to pause. Not for eating, not for sleeping, not even for getting that nasty rock out of my shoe. I started at the end of the road, literally. A simple line on the ground. On one side, a wide band of gravel and sand, extending for what looks like a mile until it reaches a big grey house. On the other side, a cliff, at the bottom of which is just nothing, really. There is no getting off the road. In the distance, beautiful and desolate landscapes are offered, constantly shifting. Snowy crooked mountains, blank white deserts, irradiated apocalypses, red carnivorous jungles, or any haunted nightmare, all perfectly rendered, all inaccessible. There is no getting off the road. So I ’ ve been walking. 
 
 I haven ’ t reached the house yet, and I don ’ t think I ever will. I don ’ t think any of us will. Most of them are walking, just like me. Some run for a time, then they slow down. Then they walk, just like the rest of us. Nobody talks much. 
 
 This woman stayed close to me for a while. I ’ d say a couple of weeks, maybe, if I have to put it in ways you can relate. She never told me her name, but she was constantly staring at me, as if I had something weird on my face, or as if I had something she desperately needed. She definitely had a thing or two on her mind, that she wanted to share with me. But that poor lady didn ’ t know the first thing about making an intelligible sentence. She was more into howling and shrieking, apparently. That ended up being a very enjoyable couple of weeks, as you can imagine. 
 
 At some point I became convinced that I could see a crossroad, somewhere between me and the big grey house. It got to my head, I guess, because I got really excited and jumpy about it. I was trying to tell others, pointing like crazy with my scorched fingers. Just to show them, you know, as they couldn ’ t see it, and they needed to see it. Also, I put way too much efforts into trying to evaluate how long it would take me to get to that crossroad. If you want to understand something about this place, it ’ s that you can ’ t think straight. You ’ re not crazy or anything. Your senses are clear. But it just really does not make sense. So your mind gets along, but barely. It ’ s not designed for being in a place like this. 
 
 Then there was this guy. All dressed in white, and smiling like crazy. He was the only one smiling, no doubt about that. Maybe that ’ s the reason many people actively tried to keep a distance from him. I think it was more than that, actually. Most people were openly aggressive, shouting at him or even throwing rocks. I ’ m not sure, but it seemed like they knew him, somehow. You can ’ t really throw rocks though, they just drop to the ground. Anyway, he didn ’ t care about no shouts or rocks. He just smiled some more and approached anyone in his vicinity, like he wanted to initiate conversation. 
 
 He came to me eventually. At first he seemed surprised that I didn ’ t know him. But then he asked when I was born, and when I died. My answer made him laugh. Really loud. For a moment the ground was shaking, and the landscapes looked like they were melting, and the people around us, with too many eyes and too many teeth. I got really scared, for a minute or a month, but then he stopped laughing and simply resumed smiling. If you can believe him, he came to life about two hundred years after I passed away. He told me he owns the place, so to speak. More exactly, he created it. By mistake, he said. He was investigating death. Experimenting with the states of consciousness associated with neural decay. The passings of the souls, if you want to be poetic about it. 
 
 It ’ s more or less at this time that I lost a shoe, when I was talking with him. That was a real bummer. And not even the one with the nasty rock in it, of course. I asked him what was so funny about it. Why he smiled, why he laughed at me. He told me to look around. To see the beauty, the endless elegance of the results of his research. He vanquished death. Once and for all. And not just for himself, but for everyone. The generations passed and all those to come. Then he started laughing again, and I kept walking.
