Instant Foreverness became my being.

Simply that.

The mundaneness of physical reality never was.

The concept of Self, Intellect, Being, didn't just cease to be-- they never were.

Even 'concept' was out of the question for during that eternity I, You, and Everything else Wasn't.
 

A few forevers later I became aware that I was aware.  This was a novel notion and I played with it forever, gleefully gloating over the fact that there Was a fact.

The forever flowed.

And the Awareness became aware that it Had been aware and it was Then that all hell broke loose.

Time was born.

Along with Entropy.

And together they mocked me for letting them free again before filling the void with themselves.

Of course they did what they do best, and they did it rather well, too, *sigh* but shortly after their release the cosmoverse came crashing back into painful existence, along with me in it.

And the big brass gong was still pounding away in that empty space between my ears.

Rhythmically.

Steady.

Over and over again.

And each hollow gong sent a wave of pain through me, over me, inside and out...

And that gave me thought which Really Hurt.

I tried not to think, and that helped some, but the gonging -- and the pain that went with it -- was still going on.

I pondered how to think without thinking, if it would be possible to just let it Happen, and would that hurt so much?

gong
 

gong
 

gong
 

It still hurt.

*sigh*

There was no way around it, I was Going to Have to Do something about this.

Since the Pain was already Demanding some of my attention, I allowed  myself  to focus on that.

And instantly regretted it *laughs*

I couldn't move.

The right side of my face felt caved in and puffed out at the same time... bloated to the point of popping.  There was a very erie feeling where my right eye should have been, a swollen void.  What was left of my mind said 'don't go there' and blocked it out.  A dry crusty coating of what had to be my blood covered the puffy void and spread out around my right ear and down my neck a ways.

I was still laying on my back, and the entire backside of my body Burned something fierce.  There was also a flaming streak that started where that boulder sized pebble used to be at my shoulder blade and ended about mid thigh on my left leg.

The gong went off again sending an icepick into my skull which triggered some piano strings to cut into my armpits that I hadn't noticed before (such a Mild pain in comparison) and the piano wires seemed to fan the flames on my backside to new levels of incineration.

And then there was a brief moment of Almost Bearable non gonging, non burning, non cutting, good old fashioned Pain.
 

I latched onto that moment and attempted a thought.

And almost managed one before the gong hit again. *laughs*

The gonging was very steady and rhythmic, and after a while I finally got the hang of thinking in synch with the less painful moments and managed to put together what was going on:

The bottle clunked me a good one upside the head and did god only knows what to my eyeball and  what little brains were left beyond.  During the eternity that I was in la la ville the little green crabby dude, or his cohorts, did the Liliput thing to me and the paralysis I was experiencing was really just a bunch of twine wrapped around me. The gong was a real gong, somewhere very close to my head, and every time the sadistic bozocrabbydude whacked it some other crabby dudes or what not would pull on the lines going under my arms and pull me across the sand for about two inches.  And considering just how much my backside burned I figured they had been pulling me for some miles.

All of this I thunk out between gongs, and with my one good eye kept closed.

Another dozen gongs went by, during which time I surmised they were taking me to some Giant Green Crabby Queen who would torture me for a while before killing me and eating me alive *grin*

Finally I could stand it no longer and I tore my one good eye open.

For once luck was on my side and my eye found me in a rather dark chamber, sparing me the blinding explosion I was expecting.

My glee was short lived though because the bozo banged the gong again and my open eye acted just like another ear.  I winced and allowed my eye to look where it will.

Well, it wanted to know who the hell was making that god awful noise so of course it peeked that way first, and yep, it was a little green crabby dude with a very tiny yet ornate and horribly loud brass gong more or less as I expected except it was wearing jewelry...I wasn't expecting That *giggles*

My eye wandered about a bit and saw that I was indeed tied up, and fully two dozen little green crabby dudes were pullin' me towards my destination...again more or less as I had expected.

Finally my eye twisted around to peek forward, expecting to see some hideous monster waiting to inflict even More pain upon me.

The expected vision was not there.

What I saw was worse.

Far Worse.

My brain went bye bye then, knowing it didn't stand a chance.  It turned full control of my body over to my body and said 'Survive anyway ya can bub, I'm outta here'

A bloodcurdling horrified wail burst from my parched throat just then, the magnitude and volume of which almost snapped my brain back into action, but my body was on a roll now and began to thrash about in vain against the twine binding me.

And still the gong played on, dragging me, inch by inch, towards a fate worse than the living death I had envisioned...