"Your name is David Corbin. If you understand, press button A on your right."
I stared at the speaker in the wall. The mesh-covered hole and the two lights looked like a caricature of a face, set in a panel of dials. I twisted my head to look for the button. I pushed away from the close wall but I couldn't move. I reached down to the tightness that held my body, found the wide strap that held me and fumbled with the buckle. I threw it off and pushed myself up from the hard cot. I heard myself yell in surprise as I floated up towards the light overhead.
I was weightless.
How do you describe being weightless when you are born into a world bound by gravity. I twisted and shut my eyes in terror. There was no sensation of place, no feeling of up or down, no direction. My back bumped against the ceiling and I opened my eyes to stare at the cot and floor. I was concentrating too hard on remembering to be frightened for long. I pushed away from the warm metal and the floor moved up to meet me.
"If you understand, press button A on your right."
What should I understand? That I was floating in a room that had a curved wall ... that nothing was right in this hostile room?
When I reached the cot I held it and drew myself down. I glanced at the planes of the room, trying to place it with other rooms I could see in my mind. Gray walls with a crazy curved ceiling ... a door to my left that appeared to be air tight.
I stared at my familiar hands. I rubbed them across my face, feeling the solidity of flesh and bone, afraid to think too hard about myself.
"My name ... my name is...."
"Your name is David Corbin."