I look across the man at the table and he looks back at me. I can see the tiny reflection of myself mirrored in the round lenses of his glasses.
He sighs and pushes those glasses back up his nose and he inspects the complex apparatus that rests on the table; needles scribble and click as they so readily discern truth from lies.
“Let me ask you again,” the man says. “Are you the Greatest of All Time?”
There is also a cassette recorder and I can hear the tape running.
“No,” I answer, for it is a ridiculous question.
I am certain now that there is nothing left beyond the walls of this room. Or if there is anything, it’s so far away that it might as well not exist.
The man adjusts his position and glances at the scribbles created by the polygraph machine. The lines on the paper jump up and down like an irregular heartbeat.
He sighs and then he asks me again: “Are you the Greatest of All Time?”
“No,” I say. The machine whirrs and scratches at the paper. The cassette tape records.
And beyond these four walls there is only the inexpressible, endless void.
Michael Scott Hand 