VACUUM II: What is it like to be shrink-wrapped inside a massive envelope of natural latex? (Patreon)

❈ Days 3 & 4 of the creation intensive ❈

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Earplugs in, action plan with technician (Miranda, at the moment) discussed in detail, safety procedures revisited, a sip of water. 

I enter through a small flap at the rear of the tower.
There's an odd kind of chemical smell coming off of the latex – I need to take this home and wash it in the bathtub... – along with the expected olfactory experience of essentially entering into a giant, human-sized balloon. There's still a bit of a powder-coating
There's softly filtered light making its way through the latex walls. It's relatively bright. Nonthreatening.
There's lots of air, at this point.
Standing in there, with the walls loose and pliable, I think, well this isn't so bad.

I look to my right: a heavy-duty, rigid, food-grade PVC tube with a small, clear regulator bite is the breathing device, and I grab that first, before anything happens with the vacuum. The breathing tube is currently very long (too long) for the test phase – the length of the tube means that my exhalation doesn't clear it. AKA, there's carbon dioxide just sitting there somewhere in the middle, waiting poisonously for me to breathe it back in.
This is how you can black out.
This is how you can die.
We don't want that.   
Right now, I hold the regulator bite gently in my mouth and breathe around in – calmly, calmly – reminding myself that there is air in the volume still left to breathe. Lots of air. Stay calm.

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As soon as my tech throws the switch, my relatively peaceful container becomes the centre of a sound-cyclone.

At first, nothing seems to be happening – but this is always a misleading interpretation. Just as I think I have a few moments more to slowly move into a position, the floor is already pressing up, unsettling my balance, and the walls close in on all four sides, hampering my ability to adjust your orientation within the volume. Instinct tells me to stand up on tip-toe, make myself tall and narrow, try to squeeze a little more maneuverability out of things – but this doesn't work because – oh, right – the ceiling is now pushing down on me.

Once I commit to the shape, I freeze, trying to breathe calmly and keep my heart-rate down. Am I fine? Am I fine? Am I fine? is the loop in my head.
Another internal voice tries to remind me that, Hey, you've done this a few times now, it's going to be fine.
BUT WHAT IF IT'S NOT FINE THIS TIME, the first voice inevitably shouts unhelpfully.
Well, we're doing it anyways, is generally the mental-reply. 

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 Even at only the halfway point of air-evacuation, it is very difficult to move: the walls are ballooning inwards against me as the vacuum sucks all the air out. And though the four vertical walls of the tower are perhaps the most visually obvious panels of the apparatus, it must be noted that there is a FLOOR and a CEILING as well that push upwards and downwards against me, too.

The walls, the floor, the ceiling push in harder. It's all happening quickly now. Even in a standing shape, if my wrists are flexed, they begin to fatigue and complain rapidly against the strong pressure of the latex. Every time I leave my hands flexed, I regret it rather quickly – that is, until the air is completely evacuated in the final squeeze. There are two moments that happen before this apex:

The first – 
A moment of false confidence that the penultimate level of suction is actually the 'finish'. Latex touches every part of me that I'm aware of.
I'm utterly restricted from moving.
I can see that there are only very small pockets of air left around my face or hands or chest, and they are rapidly shrinking.
I think – cool. Got it.  
And then, of course, I realize how hilariously wrong I am.

Thus, the second moment:
A split second between that last level of confinement, and the final moment.
There's another level of entrapment that happens as the air is COMPLETELY evacuated from the volume, and it's intimidatingly tight.
The pitch of the vacuum rises as it is forced to work harder.
A moment of dread, where my brain – despite being cool and collected thus far – suddenly shrills that there's no way that we can survive this and that when that latex finally closes in we're gonna – 

... And then it's done.

An odd oasis of calm settles.
I realize that it's happened, and I'm still getting air.
If I open my mouth slightly around the edges of the regulator bite, air rushes in from the small pockets of space naturally remaining in the volume due to my body and its position.

A moment longer, and it's tempting to sag, to sink into the heavy rubber and let the latex do the work. Nice as that may sound, unfortunately it is clear even this early in the research process that while relaxing in a final shape may feel good, it looks terrible.
Ah, circus.

And so, I HOLD. And hold. And hold.
I trust that I can breathe. I trust that I can breathe. I trust that I can breathe.
And then the vacuum shuts off and a reverse GASP of air begins rushing back into the space.

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Arms shaking. Trying not to breathe hard. Forearms cramping ...
The vacuum release doesn't mean I'm instantly able to begin moving out of the shape I've selected. I'm stuck for long, long seconds after.
If it's a handstand or elbowstand shape, it's rough going –

I have no choice but to continue pushing as hard as I can against the ground (the 'ground' being a sheet of heavy rubber that is being forcibly drawn upwards against my hands and wrists, in uneven angles depending on how far forward or backward I am in the volume).
The 'ground' shifts in tricky and unpredictable ways – as if I was trying to balance on a mostly deflated exercise ball.
If I stop pushing, there will come a moment where enough air has entered back into the tower that I will plop unceremoniously to the ground.
So – not an option.

Don't fall don't fall don't fall.
Don't tip the tower over.
Don't puncture the latex by accident!
Dear god, don't face plant ...

Inevitably, up until just the most recent two attempts, many (if not most) handstands and elbowstands have ended in me ooooozing slowly down to the bottom of the volume, into a discombobulated puddle as the muscles in my arms and shoulders slowly say "nooooope".

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At the end, my tech undoes the gasket at the back of the tower and fresh air rushes in. WHOOSH.
I'm gasping for air at the end every time – not because I didn't get enough inside the tower, but because I'm just utterly out of gas. There's something vaguely apocalyptic about emerging from this thing: I have to belly crawl out of this rubbery, clinging envelope, like I'm doing an army drill, or escaping from a dystopian medical laboratory.
An army drill/dystopian medical laboratory that involves an oversized murder balloon instead of mud and barbed wire, that is.

It turns out that this act is a game of endurance in more ways than only the neurological / psychological aspects that I predicted.

In short ... my handstands are gonna be solid after this.

Until next time – 
xx. stay strange & wonderful