I'm at my house. I'm offered a form of group therapy with my younger brother. This involves the opening of a very large vertical trunk. Unfolding it's self on hidden hinges, what emerges is a traveling museum trunk, filled with strange and interesting objects. Some hang and slowly pinwheel, others play music, while most sit idlely by.
My brother sits in front of the trunk at eye level. I can see him through the various hanging objects inside it from the other side. The therapist just wants my brother and I to take photos of any thing in the trunk-gallery that interests us. She doesn't specify any limit on how many pictures we can take. I'm handed a strange camera: when closed it's the shape of a thick wallet. The camera opens into a trapezoid-shape, and has one large orange shutter button. It is unlike anything I've ever seen.
She gestures to the box. I begin to look at all the objects arranged within. After a time, the only one that catches my eye is a photo hanging on the inside right side. It is a black and white photo of a room containing a full-wall mirror, with the reflection of a man standing in it. However, in the room the mirror reflects, there is no one there.
I never took the picture, but I looked at that image for some time.
I was standing outside on a blustery day with the sound of a strong wind crackling around the corners of a large Victorian house.
An immaculately dressed Ian and Gabrielle entered the house, as it was in fact a large curio shop fill with all sorts of oddities.
As I walked up the stairs, I could hear the tapping of Ian's cane on the landing above me. Dressed in a Victorian suit and bowler hat, he stood amidst a cluttered, yet ordered loft space. I could see dust in the air as it drifted past ceiling window panes. Gabby was examining a series of old ties hung over top of an old clock. Near a large mirror, was a box filled with turn of the century children's toys. Inside the box was a hypercube, which I picked up. It was made of light, and cast a soft light on its surroundings. Not unlike the expanding/contracting "Hoberman Sphere" toys that expands into a large lattice-work version of its self - my hypercube expanded into a fourth dimensional, multigonal version of its self in my hands.
I could see and understand for that brief moment shapes that don't really exist - math that lacks form in our world. This was both frightening and fantastic. In the back of my mind, I remember being very concerned that my hypercube was knocking over antiques over when it expanded. Gabby and Ian were not pleased.
