cosmic scream

The door descends; the only thing to do is wait for the one slit of light to go out. Stuck in a dark capsule with kids and adults of various shapes and sizes,I notice the woman in front of me has sixties' poodle hair. Beside her, a balding man recites with a Thai accent,

"Ladies and gentlemen, please fasten your seatbelts..."

only here there are no seatbelts, only cold yellow metal bars. His recitations only make the girl next to me grip the bar tighter. Her mother says, "If you're scared you scream ok?" but the girl just smiles. I think she is too scared to do anything except grin. What a brave girl. I sigh because I don't know what I'm doing in a digital motion simulator.

And then we are plunged unceremoniously onto the jolting train track or what appears to be one. (View of screen blocked by poodle hair). I give up trying to see anything and attempt to be self destructive and let go of the handle at the exact moment when the capsule swings to the right and

the wall's padded. Nice try.

I sigh again. The girl beside me isn't screaming. It's the mother who is. I stare at her because watching a face experiencing both pleasure and pain amidst violent rocking movements is so much more fascinating than watching blobs of light trying to pass off as planets onscreen.

Maybe the people in this place scream because there isn't anywhere else for them to scream. So they bottle it up, find an excuse to bring their kids to the omnitheatre, pay four bucks to get into the black capsule and scream.For all we know, they're indirectly screaming at and for the little one beside them (who stares at their parent's contorted face that suddenly seems alien to them).

Maybe this simulation of plunging headfirst into black unknown space is just another of those ways to make us feel less fearful of life. Controlled fear within the space of a capsule. Outside of that, you're not allowed to feel afraid, you're not supposed to scream.

(unless you're on the edge of a building and it is just a breath away from the plunge)

No wonder people implode and cut other people up.