Work Text:
Statement of Luka Stevenson regarding their experience with “the great gap between us all”. Original statement given November 17th 2007. Recording by Jonathan Simms. The Archivist.
Statement begins,
“Oh, I just- okay. Yeah.”
[Luka clears their throat]
“Well, I'm not really the skeptical, suspicious sort but I also wouldn't describe myself as someone who trusts or believes things easily, so when I tell you that I saw just how… wide everything around me now feels I hope that you can believe me. And uh… god, it's hard to speak with you all the way over… there. Uh. Anyways. I'm not the most extroverted person usually, as I'm sure is apparent, but I do go out! Sometimes. Usually with my mates or with my university society, though they don't always make me feel the most welcome.”
“I'm getting off track, I went to University in London to get my Bachelor's in Microbiology, it was… maybe not the best course, you know, but uh. It was what I wanted to do at the time. My mum was pretty supportive and… yeah. It was nice to get away from home for a bit, have somewhere where it's a bunch of people who don't really know me. Most of the seminars and lectures were fine, the lecturers though, they were all pieces of work. And the building was… ungodly tall. 7 floors at least and the stairways seemed to go on forever. Didn't help they were all on the outer walls and those walls were more like humongous windows. The elevators barely worked as well, and when they did, they were always so cramped and took so long you may as well have parachuted!”
“Uh, that aside, we had this week of just doing microbiology practicals, like, your microscopy type of stuff and uh… bacterial transformation. The professor at the time, a Dr… van de Hoogten had a habit of giving us the protocol on some paper then buggering off to get a coffee or whatever it was he did. He was a strange man, he looked old, like reaaally old, he helped design the building apparently and he had like… 10 or so people working under him. I had a buddy, I think his name was Xiu or Shu? He never did write it down for me- Either way, he said he saw the professor heading up to the roof once or twice, probably why I assumed he was smoking. But uh… getting to the point.”
“We were doing the microscopy, as I said before, and for once Dr. van de Hoogten stuck around. He seemed to have taken a particularly big interest in the medium and bacteria we were working with, said he had personally collected the samples or whatever from ‘the deep, wide depths’. Never really specified where he meant but the bacteria was odd, like it moved like… like it was flying? Not like sliding, like it wasn't even interacting with the plates we had it on? But the longer I found that I stared down at it and the more I focused on that floaty movement, the more I felt how very small they were. They were so tiny, even at the magnification we were using. It… made me think and the world around me just felt so much wider. I don't know the exact words that would describe it but… it was like space? Wide, empty. It made me think about the gaps between atoms and… how distant everything is. You know? Like… how we are small compared to the planet we live on. And our planet is tiny compared to EVERYTHING else.”
[Luka audibly gulps in a breath of air then releases a shaky breath]
“When I stepped out of the lab and… began walking down the stairs, I couldn't get over just how far down it really was to the bottom and how far each step was from the next. How my fingers grabbed onto the railing but I knew that there was still a giant gap between my skin and the metal. Relative, of course but… looking at the sky, I felt like I was being watched. Like the sun's rays were particularly focused on me and on the space around me, but I chalked it up to an existential crisis and the dying vestiges of summer coming around to smack me in the stomach, it didn't help that there did seem to be some haze or something in the sky when I chanced a glance upwards. It wasn't until a month or so later when we were asked to repeat the protocol to prove we understood it that the feeling returned, tenfold in fact, watching the bacteria - were they even bacteria? They seemed… so odd. They just seemed to… the more I looked, the less they looked like ovals or blobs and the more they appeared like us. Like little humans flying about. I thought it was absurd and I spoke to the person next to me but their sample was normal according to them and they couldn't see what I could in my agar plate. I thought it was the stress of the upcoming exams but when I went to speak to the professor about it, he told me that he would speak to me about it after the labs were over.”
“It took a while for that to happen and I found myself often absentmindedly staring out the windows at the sky - and towards the sea, even if I couldn't see it, I just… felt it. The big, wide ocean roaring and crashing. It was sickening, in a way. But the worst part was the distance I began feeling between me and myself. My body felt distant and… well, it was still there but when my eyes caught on my shoes, I felt that same sinking feeling that came with the stairs. A swirling, twisting nausea that threatened to render my earlier meals as wall-paint. But then he came over, I almost jumped but my body froze before it could even do that, it was… it was like I was scared of lifting my feet in case they never found the ground again.”
“But I did manage to push that aside, I found myself following Dr. van de Hoogten up to the roof where he said that he could explain everything, my feet moving like they were magnetised to the ground. Each time I lifted them I was so scared that something would reach down to rip me from the ground. He turned to me and began talking, but the winds were just… so loud. I couldn't- I thought I couldn't hear him. But I could, in the wind, his voice spoke to me and he said: “Doesn't it feel horrifying to be so small? To be observed as a specimen in such a wide open space?” I didn't understand him, not at first, but as my eyes gravitated upwards, I could see something in the sky. It was like the haze before, but here, clearer, I could tell what it was like, a lens. But it just couldn't be. The professor's voice was still echoing in my head and I could just… feel how small I was. How big everything else was and I just… tried. I tried not to think, but there was this awareness that reached my stomach. I tried to run away, I got to the elevator but… the presence was still there. Overwhelming, knowing that I am observed and that I am small.”
“I haven't been back to my classes since then, thank god for online slides and… recorded lectures. I guess. But… that's about all I recall. It took all I had to come in and… I could feel it on the way here, the infinitesimally small size of myself and the unbelievably large size of everything else. The space between me and you and… I should go. I'm done. I just… if anything, I am glad to be able to finally get this out. I don't have any physical proof, but… I hope this is good enough. Please. Help me. Grab on and don't. Let. Go.”
[Click]
Statement ends.
We can verify that Mx Stevenson did indeed attend a university in London and was pursuing a microbiology degree at the facilities but we cannot verify the existence of anyone by any name close to ‘van de Hoogten’ working there. So, we can likely assume that this is some alias, especially considering that the name means ‘from the heights' in Dutch and that no first name is given. Though, maybe Luka just never deigned to ask.
We have contacted some of Luka Stevenson's associates and their family regarding these events, the ones who knew them best did note that their mental health did appear to rapidly decline but… none speak of anything quite like what has been stated here. We also have been informed by them that Luka has seemingly disappeared, both from their lives and from their university dorms. I fear they may have been consumed by the sky… this reminds me of Robert Kelly. Seems I'll… have to look into this 7 floor university building.
Statement ends.