Solipsism

My uncle was an eccentric man. An accomplished physicist, he was at the top of his field when he abruptly decided to end his career and retire to his villa in the French countryside. His friends and family couldn’t even begin to guess what had prompted the drastic shift. He didn’t have a wife or children to whom he could devote more time to. In fact, he had been content with living a bachelor’s lifestyle well into his forties, which he certainly possessed the means to do. When asked, he merely stated that he was tired of the hustle and bustle of the city, and that he wanted the space to clear his mind.

I still remember the day he came to pick me up from the old train station. My mother, his sister, got up to hug him while I remained seated at that bench, gazing off into the waving lavender fields that flanked the railway on both sides and toying with the bracelet father had given me for my birthday. It was my first time out of the city for any considerable length of time. Under better circumstances, it would’ve been quite exciting. The reason why my uncle had agreed to let me stay with him was due to my parents’ rather tumultuous divorce proceedings. Both conceded that I needn’t get caught in the crossfire until everything was finalized.

“Mon caneton!” He exclaimed, causing me to perk up.

Back when I was even younger, I used to throw tantrums whenever he’d call me his “duckling”, demanding that he rename me after a more majestic bird, such as a falcon or an eagle. Although it still earned him an eye-roll, the familiar nickname brought with it a small degree of comfort. We finally embraced and, after a quick and tearful farewell with my mother, he led me back to his car.

We agreed that since I was a big girl now, I’d sit in the front seat with him—something my father still wouldn’t let me do. He was obviously trying to cheer me up as best he knew how. Although grandma and grandpa were never legally divorced, he knew all too well what it was like to have your parents constantly at each other’s throats and you being powerless to stop them.

We drove past the lavender fields and along an unpaved dirt path. I watched with somewhat unease as the closest thing to a town shrunk away in the rear-view mirror, giving way to rolling hills and verdant pastures. Soon, the only man-made structures within sight were the concrete utility poles dotted across the scenery, but even they were not impervious to being reclaimed by the inexorable grip of nature. I noticed a couple of white storks nesting atop one of them. They should’ve been flying south by now, I thought; summer was coming to a close and they had a long journey ahead of them.

“Jusqu’où est l’Afrique? (How far is Africa?)” I asked uncle, who was more surprised that I had spoken to him in French than by the nature of my question.

Although my mother’s side of the family has its roots in Strasbourg, my father is from Berlin, which is where I was born and raised. Due to his lack of fondness for my father, uncle never bothered learning German. As a result, when nobody was around to translate, we primarily spoke in English, since it was the only other language both of us knew relatively well; I, having been exposed to it since kindergarten, and he, having honed it throughout his many years of teaching abroad.

“Très loin. (Very far.)” He answered. “Farther than you can imagine.”

For some reason, I interpreted that as a challenge. I trained my eyes on the horizon, conjuring mental images of giraffes, leopards and palm trees, of sprawling savannas and impenetrable jungles—all things my young mind had been conditioned to associate with the exotic continent. For all I knew, I could’ve been staring in the exact opposite direction from where south was, but it wasn’t like my uncle would’ve bothered correcting me either way.

“Et… here we are.”

His unexpected proclamation stirred me from my reverie. Situated at the forefront of a quaint birch grove stood my dear uncle’s abode. It was humbler than I expected, consisting of only two stories and a gable roof. The wrap-around porch had a distinctly Romanesque architecture, and was perhaps the most intricate part of the whole building, barring the balcony which had a similarly ornate design. It was undeniably picturesque; however, it didn’t quite match the grandiose mansion that my younger self had envisioned.

Days turned into weeks. The novelty of being out in the countryside wore off rapidly. It wasn’t that I missed the gray drabness of the city, but I did miss having friends around. I’d manage to convince uncle to play trictrac with me on occasion. He feigned enthusiasm as best he could, yet it was clear that this whole arrangement wasn’t ideal for him either. Most days he remained cooped up in his study. It was one among a list of places I was absolutely prohibited from entering, and I honestly didn’t much care to. I had seen glimpses of it through the door and spotted only books and papers stacked endlessly atop a crowded desk—hardly something a girl my age would’ve been interested in anyhow.

But then there were rules that made considerably less sense, such as never going up a specific flight of stairs or only being allowed on one side of the property but not the other. Entire sections of the house were closed off at random. There was even a period of time during which I wasn’t allowed to use the indoor restroom, having to resort to the pit latrine outside. I, of course, adhered to my uncle’s peculiar stipulations, yet I did frequently question him about them, to which he always replied that there were certain customs that everybody staying here had to obey, or else ill luck would ensue.

And then, one late September afternoon, something happened that forever changed the course of my stay. The day was warm and humid. The scent of ozone permeated the air, serving as a precursor to an impending storm; a forecast further substantiated by the advancing mass of clouds in the distance. Uncle was leaning over the porch, watching me kick a ball around the sun-scorched patch of grass up front. Whenever I’d glance back at him, he’d nod and smile, which was praise enough for me. I was just happy to have an audience for a change.

A sturdy kick sent my ball ricocheting off a stump and down the wilted lawn, spurring me to chase after it. Propelled by its impetus, the ball persisted along its anticipated trajectory. That is, until it came to an abrupt and unexpected halt, as if it had collided with some invisible obstacle. My run slowed to a walk. Even from my inherently naive perspective, it was clear that something wasn’t quite right. The farther out I ventured, the heavier and more viscous the atmosphere around me became, to the point where I could feel the weight of it inside my lungs.

The ball’s state of inertness proved to be short-lived. Just as I was mere steps away from reclaiming it, it suddenly launched itself back towards me with even greater force. I dove just in time as it flew past my head, and I heard it shatter a window somewhere behind me.

“Inside! Now!” My uncle yelled.

He needn’t tell me twice. Terrified and on the verge of tears, I scampered back within the boundaries of the estate. Uncle remained outside for a while longer, but eventually joined me as well. His face bore an expression I hadn’t seen him wear before.

I tugged on his sleeve, seeking both comfort and an explanation, yet his vacant stare remained unaltered. Only once my sniffles escalated into full-on sobbing did he finally deem it appropriate to acknowledge my presence. I could see it in his eyes: the inner discourse taking place within his mind. Even if I was woefully unprepared for the truth, what other possible explanation could he have offered me? Ghosts? That would’ve hardly put me at ease. If anything, the introduction of another, even less predictable concept into the equation would’ve made things even worse.

He told me to get ready for dinner while he goes upstairs to inspect the broken window. He promised to explain everything after we’d both had a bite to eat…

Being granted access to his study for the first time since my arrival felt incredibly peculiar. A sense of uncertainty lingered within me, contemplating whether this was perhaps some form of test. Noticing my hesitance, uncle chuckled and reassured me with a pat on the head, then told me to take a seat on the antiquated, yet invitingly cozy armchair, snugly nestled between two towering bookcases. He proceeded to retrieve a jar labeled “Anomalie 005” from one of the shelves, unscrewed its tightly fastened lid and flipped it towards me.

I wasn’t sure what he was trying to show me initially. The glass container appeared to be completely empty, or it was until my uncle slipped a piece of copper wire inside of it, then hurried to close the lid. I watched in awe as the sample rapidly began to oxidize, changing from reddish-brown to bluish-green in a matter of seconds. A complete minute thereafter, it had reached a state of near disintegration, undergoing severe corrosion to such an extent that its original form became virtually indiscernible. And then, following an additional minute or so, the scant remnants of the object dissipated entirely—not even a trace of it was left behind.

Uncle explained that this was but a modest example of what else was out there, waiting to be cataloged. According to him, there was something about this particular plot of land that defied all current scientific laws. It would manifest localized spaces wherein the principles of nature and physics ceased to function as intended. Some were benign and required specific prerequisites in order to be observed, while others, such as the gravitational disturbance I came perilously close to experiencing firsthand, were far less selective. He used big, complicated words like “transmutational” and “metaphysical” that flew right over my little blonde head at the time, but, essentially: it was the identification of these unconventional occurrences that motivated him to abandon not only his career but also the opulence of city life, all for the opportunity of being the first to unravel their mysteries.

From that point on, our relationship changed.

I was no longer solely my uncle’s niece; I was now his assistant as well. Or, at least, that’s how he initially framed it, back when things between us were still relatively innocent. He gave me a comprehensive tour of all the anomalies he had succeeded in documenting, and in certain cases, even managed to contain. For instance, there was a specific corner in the attic that maintained a constant temperature of precisely 1°C, just above freezing. In stark contrast, within the woods, adjacent to the villa, was a location that caused any inorganic matter that came into contact with it to spontaneously combust, irrespective of its innate flammability. Then there were the anomalies that only responded to particular metals and alloys, while being simultaneously repelled by nonconductors such as rubber or glass, thus rendering them capable of being transferred.

A fully developed mind would’ve likely been overwhelmed after being presented with so many groundbreaking revelations all at once. However, as a child, my world-view was still rather flexible. My fantasy books were gradually supplanted by subjects such as physics and chemistry. It took mere weeks for me to acquire an understanding of concepts that students five years my senior didn’t even grasp the basics of. My uncle may not have excelled as a caretaker, but he was—as much as it pains me to admit—an outstanding teacher

In-between lectures, I was, on occasion, charged with the routine testing of some of the oddities that he deemed “safe enough”. My favorite was the one that acted as a kind of miniature air funnel, causing any water filtered through it to come out a delicate pink, which I now knew was due to the presence of potassium permanganate.

I kept quiet about my various extracurricular activities whenever mother called. She wouldn’t have understood even if I had told her, either assuming we were playing pretend or, worse, that her brother had officially lost it.

Things carried on more or less as described all the way up until the start of winter. That’s when it happened—the event whose aftermath elevates this narrative from a mere dubious account to my own personal horror story.

It had snowed heavily. I was engrossed in the task of decorating the upstairs hallway in eager anticipation of the swiftly approaching holidays, when a peculiar sight caught my attention. Gazing out the nearest window and through its crystalline layer of frost, I noticed the presence of an unfamiliar anomaly suspended amidst the open area preceding our home. Unlike most others, this one was difficult to overlook even from afar, presenting itself as a kaleidoscope of colors and shapes, hovering just above the snow.

I was about to go and retrieve uncle, but he was already headed for the foyer. He protested as soon as he saw me reaching for my coat, instructing me to remain inside while he went to assess the situation.

In an act that undoubtedly caught him off guard, I opted to stand my ground for once. I hadn’t come this far to still be treated like a dumb child. My age wasn’t a concern when he’d force me to play housewife, or to keep him company whenever he felt “lonely” at night. If I was old enough for all that, then I was old enough to make my own decisions.

The moment he brought me into his room following a night of excessive drinking was the moment he forfeited his right to act like my surrogate father.

The crunch of snow beneath our boots blended with the incessant buzzing of the porch light. The sky was a solute of grays. Its opaqueness rendered the exact time of day largely irrelevant. The temporal aberration itself was the most luminous constituent in our vicinity, albeit not the easiest to observe directly. It wasn’t that it was so bright that it hurt to look at. The nausea it elicited came from somewhere deeper, less primitive.

I picked a color from the numerous that comprised the anomaly and watched as it dissolved and disseminated within an ever-swirling maelstrom of hues. I’d refer to it as psychedelic, but I’m not convinced the human mind is capable of even hallucinating something as surreal as this. It seemed as though a fragment of our illusory world had detached, permitting us to gaze upon the primordial ooze that resided beyond it.

I’m not being abstract for the sake of it; there are just not enough words in the English language, and indeed any language, that would allow me to simultaneously convey to you the profound, paradoxical and existentially paralyzing essence of the spectacle we beheld that day. Imagine being told to write an essay for a book you’d only ever read a single passage from. Once again, my adolescent psyche was simply unprepared to grapple with the underlying questions posed by the anomaly’s sheer existence. Instead, I merely accepted it as it presented itself: a “living” Rorschach of polychromatic patterns that made me queasy whenever I looked at it for too long.

My uncle didn’t have that luxury. The radiance emitted by the entity reflected off his stupefied countenance. Despite any discomfort he too may have been experiencing, it evidently wasn’t enough to deter him from advancing further towards the blooming lights. I endeavored to follow suit, but the sensation of vertigo became too much to endure.

Every heave, every retch was like regurgitating chunks of my own soul. The ground beneath my feet felt liquid. My ears popped and my temples began to throb, as though an air raid siren had gone off near my head. About twenty or so paces ahead of me, my uncle stood in front of the shimmering mass, his form outlined by the nebulous amalgamation of hues. He reached forth. As he tried grasping at its ephemeral shapes, however, the anomaly simply vanished. It didn’t disperse into stardust or collapse in on itself, rather it merely blinked back out of reality, never to reappear again.

If it were only I who witnessed it, I would’ve thought the whole thing a dream, but uncle never gave me that opportunity. He became obsessed, believing that the events that unfolded were, in fact, an attempt by some higher power to establish communication with us—a profound message from the cosmos affirming that he was on the right path. That may have indeed been the case, for all I knew, yet It wasn’t like him to make such unsubstantiated and fanciful deductions.

I watched the gradual decline of his mental faculties unfold before my very eyes. Reason and logic gave way to zealous conviction. Most days, he’d walk right by me, as if I were part of the furniture; until, eventually, he ceased to withdraw from his study entirely, not even for the most basic of needs. I was left to fend for myself: alone in a big, cold house on some remote tract of rural land.

I tried to call my parents but the phone wasn’t working. Though I blamed it on the weather at the time, considering what was about to transpire, I wouldn’t be surprised if my uncle had deliberately isolated us from the outside world. Supplies were running dangerously low and it wasn’t like I could walk to the nearest town to get more.

The door to his study looked even more imposing in the ambient glow of my candle. Pushing it open, a waft of foul odors promptly compelled me to cover my nose. The stench of ammonia was so potent that it made my eyes water. Nervous yet with no other alternatives remaining, I crossed the threshold, stirring up a cloud of dust in the process.

Darkness dominated a significant portion of the room. The sole source of light was a dim lamp, which lay beside the desk, seemingly toppled over. Whether by accident or as a result of some manic fit, I couldn’t say for certain. I relinquished my candle and gripped the base of it instead, then used it to illuminate my surroundings.

Beyond the prevailing state of disarray, the first thing I noticed were the jars of urine stacked against the wall to my right. Nearby them was a grimy bucket whose contents I could deduce, yet chose not to validate. There were pages from books and research notes scattered haphazardly about, some torn to ribbons, others crumpled and repurposed as makeshift toiletries.

I ventured deeper. The rancid, stale air became near impossible to breathe without the threat of vomiting. Even more disconcerting were the subtle undulations coursing through it—a telltale sign of an anomaly, and I appeared to have walked right into its epicenter. Come to think of it, those jars had to come from somewhere…

And then, I saw him. Slumped at the far end of that pigsty, stewing in his own filth, was the madman himself. His disheveled hair looked even grayer than I recalled, and his once meticulously trimmed mustache now extended above his lip. At his back was a weathered chalkboard that bore the marks of countless lessons and presentations. Now, it bore only a single phrase:

Cogito, ergo sum (“I think, therefore I am”)

I called out, but received neither a response nor a reaction. Not at first. I would’ve presumed him dead were it not for the rising and falling of his chest. His eyelids began to flutter, and when they finally snapped open, exposing the bloodshot eyes beneath, I couldn’t help but squirm.

“Mon caneton!”

My uncle’s overly exuberant smile caused me to feel a sense of discomfort and intrusion simply from having to observe it. Having been roused from his state of semi awareness, he sprung to his feet, clothes hanging loosely from his malnourished frame like soiled rags. He then proceeded to fish out a piece of chalk from his breast pocket. With it, he encircled and frantically underlined the solitary quote scrawled on the black board behind him, as if it were the solution to some equation known only to him.

“Oui, ça a du sens maintenant (Yes, it makes sense now)…”

He vehemently slapped his hand against the surface, imparting his imprint onto it. His strained laughter reverberated throughout the confined space.

“It was a convincing charade you played, oui… Mais maintenant, je connais la vérité (But now I know the truth). You aren’t real. This, all of this, none of it is real!

His face reminded me of an apprentice seeking to prove himself to his superior.

“That was the test, was it not!?” He beamed, all but assured of his imminent triumph. “Je l’ai fait! (I did it!) I have passed your test! Now, show it to me! Show me the truth!”

Those terrible eyes were honed squarely on me, expecting me to peel back some hypothetical curtain that would, in one fell swoop, validate every single one of his delusions. When confronted with nothing but my own frightened expression, a distinct shift in his demeanor occurred. His neurotic gestures gave way to a new and subdued form of madness.

“Why…why do you still insist on pretending? It is over. The deception has been exposed. The conclusion has been reached. You are but a thought in my head and I COMMAND you to take me to the other side.”

He paced back and forth, avidly scratching at his perspiring neck. My heart was racing so fast that I feared it would either explode or eject itself from my rib cage. Growing up, I harbored the belief that adults possessed unparalleled wisdom, capable of effortlessly navigating any predicament. To witness the utter subversion of that notion, that lofty paradigm, in such a thorough manner verged on the surreal.

“Je sais ce que vous complotez! (I know what you are plotting!)” He abruptly pivoted and exclaimed, startling me to the point where I let out an audible cry of fear.

There was nary a shred of sympathy left in his voice. My cowering only agitated him more, if anything. After baring his teeth at me for a while, he firmly grasped both sides of the board, then pressed his forehead to it as well. His first few murmurs were too faint for me to catch, but the subsequent ones I very much did:

“…not real. You aren’t real. Figment. Illusion. Vapeur…”

And then, came the line—a single sentence, engraved so deeply within my recollection that it forever impedes me from perceiving any man as aught but a creature of instinct, concealing his predatory nature behind a façade of refinement and civility; which, no matter how intricate, always crumbles away under the right circumstances. Sometimes, in the midst of my insomnia, I find myself contemplating whether I can still hear it, emanating from some neglected corner of my bedroom.

“…You aren’t real, which means…’

“I can do whatever I want with you.”

I wasn’t about to wait for him to charge me. I turned on my heel, intending to make a swift dash towards the exit, but an unfamiliar force seized hold of my wrist. Father’s bracelet—the anomaly was reactive to the metals that composed it. I pulled and I pulled, but found myself unable to escape the distortion’s magnetic field; not with the object of its fascination still attached to me. By the time I finally succeeded in liberating my hand, my uncle was already upon me.

He tore into me, his jagged nails ripping through both flesh and clothing indiscriminately. My fighting back only seemed to fuel his single-minded perversion. Despite his weakened state, he was still much stronger than I was. I’d rather not elaborate on how far he got until I mustered the courage to jab my thumb into his left eye, granting me enough of an opening to crawl out from under him. But even that achieved little. By the time I was back on my feet, he had already recovered. I was painfully aware that I possessed neither the strength to overpower him nor the range to outpace him.

So I did something that, to this day, baffles me as to how I was able to pull off. I once read an article that explored the phenomenon of children exhibiting remarkable cognitive awareness in response to bouts of extreme stress. Factual or not, I’m not qualified to say; yet if I were to be placed in that exact same situation nowadays, I don’t think I’d have the wherewithal to respond as ably as I did.

I raised my arms, but instead of employing them as a barrier against my uncle’s advances, I slowly began to clap. He came to a standstill. His perplexity reassured me, and my applause became more fervent. I somehow found it within me to suppress all of the pain and humiliation I felt at that moment, and then twisted it into a gleeful smile.

“You are right.” I said. “None of this is real. Congratulations! You have found the truth!”

I extended my hands in an encompassing gesture, as if to emphasize the point. His frenzied eyes, one of which had become swollen and noticeably more crimson, darted about the room.

“Tu mens! (You lie!).”

Spittle flew forth from his mouth, spraying against my face. I merely shook my head in response. Despite his protests, I could tell that he desperately wanted to believe me. He had to, for the alternative would have necessitated facing the repercussions of his horrid actions.

“I never lied.” I vaguely retorted, then gently offered him my palm.

“Come, I’ll show you…”

Hand in hand, we stepped out into the wintry landscape. The gusting wind swept my hair aside and its icy touch nipped at the raw patches of my skin. I paid it no heed. In the broad context of all the tribulations I’d endured, something as commonplace as the cold was an almost welcomed discomfort.

“Do you see it?” I inquired, pointing to the horizon, where the rising sun met the sweeping pale dunes.

He acquiesced with a series of affirmative nods, restlessly hopping from one foot to the other. Once a professor of respectable reputation, now reduced to a bumbling halfwit: a lobotomite encapsulated within a realm of his own making. The fragility of the human psyche is a remarkable thing.

“That’s where you need to go. Keep walking and don’t turn back, you understand?”

He cast his gaze downwards and our eyes met, his vacant stare colliding with mine. There was nothing there; Nothing but an absence of self. I wanted to feel some morsel of sympathy for the bastard, but I couldn’t. The wounds were much too fresh and ran far, far too deep.

“Quickly, go! Go or you will miss your chance!”

And off he went, barreling through the snow towards the white beyond. The exact nature of his pursuit, if indeed he possessed a clear objective at this juncture, was left open to interpretation. Perhaps he genuinely believed that the world around him was a simulated construct, wherein he alone existed as an entity capable of thought.

Regardless, he didn’t get very far.

It’s rather poetic that the very anomaly which had instigated my descent into this rabbit-hole of insanity would ultimately bring about its conclusion. As soon as he crossed that event horizon, it was already too late for him. Similar to how my ball had arrived at a sudden and complete stop, his body also experienced an immediate cessation, only to be expelled back with such tremendous force that it literally sent him flying. He collided with the balcony, folding against its marble railing, and subsequently plummeting headfirst onto the solid deck below.

Needless to say, he didn’t survive. I find it difficult to mourn him. He was a brilliant intellectual, yet regrettably, an abhorrent human being, even before the onset of whatever madness afflicted him. He took things from me that were not his take, and growing up was never going to be the same because of it.

Sometimes I like to think that there are numerous ways my story could’ve played out. Perhaps there’s a parallel universe out there where I go on to live a healthy and self-fulfilled life of blissful mediocrity. But after all of the events that I’ve transcribed here, how could I? How could anybody?

Numb and abused, I remember stepping over my uncle’s broken remains and back into that house. A profound stillness pervaded the air, akin to the tranquil moments preceding a storm, despite the storm having already passed. I entered the small, dreary library above the dining hall, set my candle on the windowsill beside me and began my search. I sifted through dictionaries and philosophical tomes until I found the precise definition I was looking for.

Solipsism: the theory that only the self exists or can be known. This introspective standpoint asserts that one’s own mind is the only true source of knowledge and affirmation, thereby emphasizing subjectivity over objectivity. Within this framework, solipsism challenges the commonly held belief in an external reality beyond one’s own consciousness, with proponents discounting the existence of other minds or material existence as a whole.

I gazed into the flickering flame, its brightness diminishing with each passing hour.

It’s quite the lonely thought, isn’t it?

Credit: Morning Owl