I kept my mouth shut. I wasn't going to say anything to the contrary even if he claimed black was white. "Matter," he went on, "is composed entirely of atom. Atoms are broken down to electrons and protons and their kin. They, in turn, appear to be nothing but charges of electricity, charges of energy, not matter. So that all matter is really just a manifestation of energy in a peculiar state of stress." I waited. This made sense. I began to recognize some of the things I had learned years ago in high school physics. "Between the vortices of energy which make up the building-blocks of matter, there are comparatively vast stretches of just plain empty space. Within the atom, almost all is vacuum. Between molecules, more vacuum. In a so-called solid mass, it could be demonstrated that less than a quadrillionth part of its mass has any reality and that only in the form of disturbances of energy. And that figure is grossly exaggerated." I waited. This was still making sense. And anyway, when you are hopelessly trapped there is no sense in being impatient. "If," went on the professor, "you understand this and project the picture of it in your mind, you can mentally resolve all things into swirls of nothingness, into less than air. If you can do so, you can attain complete control over your own body--for we alone are able to control our own masses by means of will. "And if you can picture these masses of rock as pools of nothing and yourself as the same, you can pass yourself through these rocks as a whiff of smoke in air. You can revisualize yourself as solid outside this trapping pile." I thought about it. Wild it was and yet based on real reasoning. "If you will give your mind to me, let me hypnotize you with your cooperation, I think I can cause that to happen. You will then pass through the rocks and appear outside. Then you will send for me," he said. I thought that over. "Why don't you do it yourself?" I asked. "I am old and it is better done with an outside subject. Do not forget that this has never been done." "Okay. Start," I said, suddenly making up my mind. I didn't want to die and I would do anything, however wild, to avoid it. When one sits alone in darkness beneath a ruined house and knows that there is no hope, a decision like this comes normally. All is logical according to the conditions given. I gave him my flashlight and he shone it in my eyes. Then he started weaving it and repeating what he had said about atoms and electrons and masses of nothing. I watched him fascinated, and I thought of little whirlpools in empty black space. I saw flashing ripples on a void. I saw lone lights untended in nothingness and reflected from nothing. And I saw that they were glowing from nothing. Light, just light. I saw a solitary mote pursuing an endless track across a vast area that was utter abyss.