Startled -5minutefreewrite

Smoke and mirrors punctuated the abyss.

Just lots of smoke, and a few mirrors out there in the nothingness, so you can imagine how startled I was when a voice said to me, "I hope I didn't startle you."

Then I was startled, but I recovered smoothly. "No, you didn't. Until you spoke, I hadn't noticed you at all... in fact, where are you?"

There's no light source in the abyss, but somehow we can see the smoke and the mirrors. Not our own hands in front of our faces, though. This was the first time I used the pronoun, "we" since I arrived from Rio.

"I'm here. Can you tell me who the president is?"

The president? There are no presidents in the abyss.

"Your name? The date?"

Time is meaningless, we have no names. There is nothing but smoke and... the mirror was coming closer.

And then, there I was, sitting on a curb in Rio, a uniformed woman was checking my pulse, and a bright light shone in my eye.

There'd been no pain in the abyss.