Sanctuary

“Right this way Sir.” said the manager of Sanctuary, the newest fad to hit the city in the last few months. Simon had been putting this visit off for quite some time now, but in order to get Fiona, his overly hip girlfriend off his back, he had agreed to give it a try.  She had been overly pushy about this subject of late. At first he was flippant about the place, causing Fiona to fly into a rage. “I find something I think is important and you won’t even consider it! She yelled “You and I never like the same things.”
Her sudden anger had surprised Simon and caused him to think he had misunderstood the importance of Sanctuary to her.
         He had to admit that the experience had agreed with her. She was a lot more interested in life in general and she had become more physical than ever, Simon had no problems with that. She attributed all her newfound energy and lust for life to Sanctuary. The talk of her new favorite place had been going on constantly and it was driving him a bit nuts. Fiona had even threatened to sleep in a different room until he agreed to take a look for himself.
He promised that today he would go and see what she had been raving about for so long. So there he was.
         “Lead on.” He said and held the door open for the manager who looked at Simon with a mixture of shock and pity.  “Sanctuary” was a perfect example of being in the right place at the right time. Who would have thought that a place that rents sensory deprivation tanks would be a hit? The musical choice: Industrial Metal added a strange duality; it looked more like a nightclub than a place to disconnect from reality. “Perhaps that is part of the appeal” he thought.
         Before leaving for Sanctuary, Simon’s girlfriend had given him few pointers. “I won’t be there to hold your hand, so don’t be an ass!” was all she said to him. Now he knew what she meant. He looked like a lawyer at a fetish club. All those people dressed in black leather, too involved with their own experiences, were acting like there was nowhere else on earth that mattered. His discomfort continued as he saw small groups of people who were putting on orgiastic public displays that he felt only took place in Roman times. They were oblivious to the passers-by who occasionally stopped to admire their flexibility and creativity. The loud music and flashing lights made only his blue suit and white shirt stick out even more.
Their route around the upper mezzanine avoided most of the mayhem, but the strangeness was just beginning. Simon could not help but stop and look over the masses of people, some dancing some moving slowly to a beat that had nothing to do with the pounding bass that was assaulting his ears and chest at every thump. Usually there is a unity of movement in this type of crowd; however, he noticed that there were only a few people actually dancing to the very obvious beat. He remembered that Fiona appeared to lose her sense of rhythm in the last few weeks, not that he had much opportunity to notice. Looking at these people, he was reminded as to how far they had drifted apart. He had considered just leaving recently but she had become more interested in him since coming to Sanctuary, this was the reason he was here. Now with all this odd behaviour laid out before him, he felt that this might not be the ticket to rekindle their strained relationship. “One more try for old times sake” he thought.
The manager came back to him and tapped Simon on the shoulder “This way Sir” He shouted in Simon’s ear in order to be heard over the oppressive beat of the music. Simon was led to an old fashioned elevator where he was ushered in by a young man in a leather outfit who was attached to the elevator by a series of chains. This arrangement looked like it would make the operation of the heavy iron double doors of the elevator rather difficult, still the attendant looked like he enjoyed his job a little too much. The ride to the basement was like the descent into some crazy person’s mind. Layers of loud confusion, followed by a muddled mix of noise punctuated by the bass that thumped in the background slowly diminished as they descended until there was finally silence. The last line of lyrics he heard as they descended was “I don’t understand you”
“You got that right!”  He laughed to himself, surprised that he could pick out a line of German that his high-school level comprehension actually understood.
The elevator operator opened the doors and Simon was led into a dark room with what looked like rows of coffins along each wall. A leather clad attendant stood next to each chamber. The entire space was decorated in black; the only light source seemed to be the flickering candles that sat in elaborate candelabras all around the room. “You’ve got to be kidding” Simon muttered to himself. Beside each chamber was a small curtained area that served as the change room for the person to disrobe in before climbing into the tank. “This” the manager said gesturing to the unobtrusive black box with an air of ceremony “is your home for the next hour. Get undressed and when you are ready, call your attendant and he will help you enter. The water is body temperature and heavily salted for buoyancy.”  Simon nodded. He had seen sensory deprivation chambers before but this was new. There was a whole culture surrounding these places. Why anyone would spend an hour in total silence and darkness and then have to head back up to that sensory assault made him wonder what kind of experience he was about to have. Still, he had promised his girlfriend that he would try this, so he acquiesced and began to disrobe.
Entering the tank was not too difficult, when Simon stepped out in front of the tank; the attendant, after casting an admiring glance at Simon’s naked body, knelt down on all fours so Simon could use him as a human footstool. At that point not much could surprise him so he stepped up and put a little too much weight on his attendant’s back and was rewarded with a muffled cry of pain. A small smile crossed Simon’s lips as he relished in his small rebellion on this whole farcical exercise.
As advertised the water was the perfect temperature so as to be almost imperceptible. The salinity made it seem almost oily and supported his weight well. He lay down and the attendant looked in to give him the rules. “I am here as a safety measure, I will be standing by this tank only. All you have to do is say ‘Simon says open the door’ and the door will be opened. Ok? Have a good trip” He giggled to his quick wit and before Simon could call him an asshole, closed the door. 
The total blackness surprised him, there was no point of reference, in fact, he was not even sure if his eyes were open. He floated quietly and wondered what he had gotten himself into. Although it was a very small chamber, he did not feel claustrophobic. There was no perception of space in the chamber, just the unending dark. The water supported him and he began to try to pick out anything that could be seen as distracting. There was no noise or any visual keys, barely any feeling of cold or hot. Simon was alone with his thoughts for the first time in as long as he could remember. That made him extremely uncomfortable. He was not tired, so that meant that he would be alone with himself with no distractions for an hour.
The water was all he could think about: the water, the beach, lying on the beach with his girlfriend, the seagulls. He could picture the beach perfectly; as he had feared, his imagination had become incredibly vivid. There was a sound behind him, a seagull cried as if fighting over a scrap with another bird. Simon turned and walked over to the source of the commotion, the waves had washed a carcass on the shore. It resembled a mass of small fish, but every time the seagull tried to steal a bit for a snack, the mass reacted and startled the bird until it got tired of the game and lost interest. “I am getting really sick of this pointless exercise” the seagull said and turned to fly away. “Good luck” it said over its shoulder as it disappeared into the distance. “Stupid bird” the growing mass said. Simon turned and looked at the mass, it was not what it appeared to be; it was gelatinous, continually changing colour and shape. Simon thought the voice resembled Fiona’s. He was just thinking about her when the blob began to take her shape “What made that guy think that he could impress me with a show like that?” Fiona said, repeating the first words that they had ever spoken. “I don’t know” he responded. “So you didn’t know him?” 
“No, but thank you for getting rid of him.”
“No problem” said Simon as he turned to walk back along the beach.  That was the strangest thought he had ever had. He was not sure if he had fallen asleep, and did not think that much time had passed. Unlike a dream, he was able to try to figure out what was going on, he could feel the water if he concentrated, but it was different. He was having trouble moving his head, but then he didn’t have anything to prop himself up against so he was not sure if it was just his imagination. The vision was as strong as ever, he could feel the sand beneath his feet and smell the sea air. The tank he was in seemed a distant memory. Had he even gone to that building? He had thought that he remembered something about it, but every time he tried to remember, he became dizzy. Thinking hard, he started to remember the feeling of the water that supported him, but then, the sand beneath his feet was undeniable. He could only concentrate on one reality at once; otherwise he became disoriented. He was here on the beach now, so he might as well take a stroll, feel the sand and listen to the surf. He could hear the waves crashing in the distance and the cry of the gulls. What was the sound that the gull made? It wasn’t a sound at all, the bird had talked to him “Something about a pointless exercise” he thought. “Why did the bird even care? There were plenty of fish in the sea.”  Simon laughed at his joke, but something didn’t feel right. “Why should I be worried if a bird was concerned with a bunch of fish?”  “That wasn’t it.” Simon thought. He got dizzy again. “Maybe I should get back to Fiona” he remembered something about leaving her standing back at the beach. “She is going to wonder what happened to me. After all, she was a nice girl and we made a connection.” That other guy had been a jerk and Simon felt he played the part of knight in shining armour quite well, it would be easy starting up a conversation with her now. “Just go back and talk to her,” he told himself. “It worked last time, there is no reason that it won’t work again.” The water was getting louder in his ears, he was confused. Again he thought about calling the attendant but the idea of him being in a tank was absurd. “Maybe I was thinking of the waiter,” Simon thought.  He turned and walked back to the area where Fiona had been standing. Something struck him as a bit odd. He couldn’t remember the first part of his trip or even how he got to the beach. The problem got even stranger when he thought about Fiona. She hadn’t introduced herself so how did he even know her name? The dizziness returned in even greater intensity than before. There was something not quite right about the whole scenario, it was like his memory of the first time he met Fiona, but the logic was wrong. Simon stopped walking and decided that if he was going to try to get the most of this experience he should concentrate on facts. The sick feeling returned as he neared the place where he left the thing that resembled Fiona, he did not feel right at all. Maybe he should try and ignore the thought about that day. “I can’t say the memory of our first meting was a great one, Fiona thought I was trying to use my position of saviour in order to get to know her, she was right and it took all day just to gain her trust so that she would agree to go out with me.” This would not be a good day to recreate. The experience was beginning to make sense to him now. Simon turned and walked down the beach, his mind ran through his past faster than he could comprehend. Flashes of memory brought on surges of emotion Simon’s head swam as he tried to stop the out of control movie in his head. Finally his mind cleared as he heard Max barking behind him.
Max had been his favourite golden retriever. Growing up with Max had been a constant joy, he missed his dog terribly and to hear him again brought Simon true joy. He turned and saw his beloved pet running from the place that Fiona had been standing a few moments ago. She was gone. He looked around to see if she had walked away, but the only footprints visible were Max’s and his own. Simon knelt down and hugged his dog; this was a memory he wanted to hold on to forever.
“Simon says open the door”
The door opened and the new Simon stepped out of the tank. The water had disappeared. There was no need for it to continue with that form now that it had a body it could control. The transfer had been difficult, mistakes in logic and the confusion of the human mind made finding a storage place for Simon’s consciousness difficult. It had almost lost him when he had examined the full memory of the day; good thing the animal had been introduced. “They always find someplace to hide in their minds.” It thought to itself.
The new Simon dressed and looked at itself in the mirror, the black outfit looked appropriate; it fit Simon’s body perfectly. Thanking the attendant, it walked to the elevator, eager to go upstairs and join the others.