It's strange how Adam’s eyes have changed since the incident. The corneas have become a pale, pale, icy blue, almost dissolving into the surrounding white, with staring dilated black pupils. His gaze is never focused on anything that anyone else can see, although he reacts to things in his immediate vicinity as if his visual perception were unimpaired. He stumbles rather than walks, and he stumbles along regular twisting geometric paths, as if trapped and wandering in invisible corridors. He lifts his hands to his head every so often, as if warding off blows.
We're in the yard of the squat party building, Adam is stumbling around in the sunshine, lost. The pikey kids are pushing him around, laughing at him. But a bit scared and apprehensive, too, they back off when he turns to look at them. The way he looks at people is just too weird.
"Are you trying to find your way out from somewhere?" I ask him. He nods. The pikey kids look at me strangely. "You're a bit fucked in the head, too, aren't you?" they ask me.
I used to see Adam around a lot at those parties. Every time he sees me he gives me a great big bear hug. Probably no one else ever thought he might be trapped in a world that is just as painfully real as this one. Shit, I don't know. I do know that it's not always wise to interact with psychotics on their own terms, to enter their mirrorworld. If you can let go of consensus reality at will enough to do that, you're in some risk of losing yourself in there.
I think he was really, really alone in there.
