Time in the Otherworld

(Verbalized by Nimue, translated into written word by James)

In the ballad ‘Thomas the Rhymer’, Faerie is described as a land with neither sun nor moon. My loss of vision has left me spending most of my time in a strange kind of twilight. The faerie folklore has been rather on my mind. Sometimes it feels as though I have stepped out of the human realm and into some otherworldly state. It’s all been rather uncanny. Fairly familiar places are now strange and surprising. My ability to work out where I am varies. Not being able to see faces well adds another layer of uncanniness.

Brains are rather good at filling in the gaps. This is how psychedelic drugs work! Where I can’t make sense of what I’m seeing, sometimes my brain interprets wildly. I did get one giant spider, but most usually I get bonus dogs. It’s an interesting discovery, apparently my default is to interpret what I can’t understand as something quite friendly. While my limited vision creates a lot of feelings of strangeness and sometimes alienation, the world feels like a friendly place. I’m inclined to attribute that to my brain as much as anything. Even in stressful situations, I’m not populating the darkness with anything horrifying.

Thomas the Rhymer himself spent seven years in Faerie and then returned. I’m hoping for a shorter stay in this strange twilight realm, but in the meantime, I’m trying to appreciate the peculiar gifts this experience has to offer.