The Room (Lucien Hearn - Memory Reconstruction)

Night and day burn together as a radiant glow marks a new cycle. A cacophony of silence fills the room and I rise, recalibrating. The blanket is black. No, white. It is white because there is a pattern on it. Or a stain. Unless the pattern is made up of a series of similar stains. I think there is some color, so that makes sense. A blazing red and blue. No, how could I forget, there is no blanket. What was once a warm covering is now a forceful breeze coming from the window opened the previous night. Day. Little difference. I don’t remember this room because it’s not something I’ve seen before, it’s something I’ve never stopped seeing long enough for it to have an impression. The items of the room, all at once, force their way into my skull through any crevice they can manage. It hurts, then it just burns and burns until the pain recedes to a light simmer. I may not know the room, but it knows me and it knows how I understand it. There is no discussion of our arrangement but there is an agreement. The faces and critters on the books chatter gibberish and everything in the room begins to jitter; subtle - yet erratic. The clock stands still, serving as the only constant within the room. Time is not shifting from one hand to the other, both arms reach outwards, grasping at any semblance of dimension. Fear is what surrounds me but it is not what fills me. This is our agreement. I understand nothing of it but there is a rhythm, rhyme, and reason to every motion. I’m aware of it. On calm days, slow days, there’s a sort of gentle insanity that washes over everything. It’s all exactly the same - in a particularly strange way I can’t quite put into words. And it’s a nice insanity, almost like living in a picture book and being fully aware of the plot unfolding around you. Everything is exactly the same, and that’s what makes it different. I roll back along the mattress. The arms cross. The eyes shut. Day and night burn together with a radiant glow marking a new cycle. This piece was heavily inspired by Ken Kesey’s work in “One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest”. Kesey implements foreign descriptors and strange imagery to develop a more surreal world for his book. During his time with electroshock therapy, he has a fascinating dreamlike experience. The most striking piece of this was the light rhyming and change of pace he incorporated throughout the section. The audio/visual accompaniment was chosen as this was not only the choice song for writing this piece but also because it is about reflecting on who you are and your past. The video takes place primarily in a single room, which is a nice coincidence.