Chapter 2: The Uncomfortable Interior Decor of the Unknown, or, Bartholomew Watson Discovers He''s Having a Very Personal Space Issue.


    Blackness. Pure, unadulterated blackness. Bartholomew, whose life had been largely devoid of such dramatic sensory deprivation, found it rather disconcerting. He blinked, though he suspected blinking was a largely performative act in a realm devoid of light. He wiggled his fingers, which, thankfully, seemed to be present and accounted for.


    "Right," he muttered, his voice a muffled echo in the suffocating silence. "Right, Bartholomew. Just... just think. Where was I? Ah, yes. The manager''s washroom. The… incident."


    The incident. He shuddered. The memory of the swirling vortex, the noxious fumes, and the sudden, unpleasant descent was enough to make his stomach churn, if his stomach had been capable of churning in this… this void.


    He tried to piece together what had happened. One moment, he was enjoying the luxurious amenities of the managerial privy; the next, he was being sucked down a drain like a particularly stubborn piece of… well, he didn''t want to dwell on the analogy.


    Now, he was here. Wherever "here" was.


    He extended his arms, tentatively, like a blindfolded baker searching for a rolling pin. He encountered… warmth. A constant, pervasive warmth, like a freshly baked loaf of bread, if that loaf were also slightly damp.


    "Warm," he observed, stating the obvious with the air of a seasoned explorer discovering a lukewarm puddle. "And… swaying?"


    Indeed, there was a gentle, rhythmic swaying, as if he were floating on some unseen, tranquil sea. Or perhaps, he mused, a very large, very slow-moving waterbed.


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    Then, there was the sound. A constant, rhythmic thump-thump, thump-thump, a deep, resonant beat that vibrated through his very being. It was the kind of sound that usually accompanied a particularly energetic drum solo, or perhaps, a very large, very agitated washing machine.


    "A heartbeat," he whispered, the realization dawning slowly, like a particularly dim light bulb flickering to life. "A very large heartbeat."


    He paused, his mind struggling to process the implications. A warm, swaying, heartbeat-filled void. It was… well, it was certainly unusual.


    "Perhaps," he ventured, his voice a mere breath in the oppressive silence, "perhaps I''ve been swallowed by a whale?"


    It seemed the most logical explanation, given the circumstances. A large, warm, swaying environment, accompanied by a booming heartbeat. It ticked all the boxes. Except, of course, for the distinct lack of fishy smell.


    He tried to move, to shift his position, but found himself constrained, as if he were encased in a… a very snug, very warm, very heartbeat-filled… sac.


    "Oh, bother," he muttered, the phrase a familiar comfort in the face of the utterly bizarre. "This is… this is quite inconvenient."


    He attempted to reason with the situation, to apply the logic of a systems engineer to the utterly illogical.


    "If I''m in a whale," he mused, "then surely there must be some sort of… exit. A digestive tract, perhaps? Or a blowhole?"


    He shuddered at the thought. He was not, by nature, an adventurous man. He preferred his adventures to involve spreadsheets and well-organized filing systems, not being digested by marine mammals.


    And then, a new thought, cold and unsettling, wormed its way into his consciousness. A thought so preposterous, so utterly absurd, that he almost dismissed it out of hand.


    "No," he whispered, shaking his head, though he couldn''t see it. "No, that''s… that''s simply ridiculous."


    But the thought persisted, nagging at him like a particularly persistent mosquito. Warmth, swaying, heartbeat, confined space…


    "Oh, dear," he breathed, the realization dawning with the force of a runaway train. "Oh, very dear."


    He was, he realized with a growing sense of panic, in a womb.


    Not just any womb, mind you. But a womb in a world where people were born from toilets, or at least, people like him were. And that, Bartholomew decided, was a problem. A very, very large problem.