Awareness

lettuce

Sometimes I look to the stars and find myself wondering if the monsters lingering beneath my bed were nothing but a fantastic dream. What really matters? The truth, or our belief? Too often we reach out blindly, groping desperately for substance, for significance, for the smallest modicum of meaning in anything at all, only to find half-eaten remains in a hollowed-out shell. The insides of a human are so tortuous, so messy, that in a sense we may never untangle them. In a sense we are destined to forever remain intertwined in a series of unending paths that bend and morph and ultimately lead to nowhere. 

Now let me tell you a story. Not that you have much of a choice in the matter. 

That's what you came here for, isn't it? 

Part I: We Know Rain

When I walked into the room, I was met with a sky full of blinking, artificial stars and a mouthful of burning anxiety. 

There's so much I want to say, yet when I open my mouth to speak the very essence of any sort of definitive idea is lost and all that emerges is a jumbled mess of confusion, pitifully uttered attempts at inchoate words. 

The substance of all my thoughts, feelings, wonders—it writhes and thrashes in an attempt to converge into one complete idea—an attempt to mesh haphazard edges into polished marble, to shear overgrown branches into a neatly trimmed house plant. An attempt that inevitably and indubitably ends in vain. 

In the corner they're tearing at each other's throats. 

Words striking so maliciously their reverberances more closely resemble those of clashing swords, faces twisting to such vicious, disfigured contortion they are barely recognizable. 

Why have we become so foreign? 

In the middle of the night, I'd sneak past their room and tiptoe downstairs. There in the darkness, surrounded by the whirring sounds of static machinery, I made my peace. I'd sit in the center of the lightless room, the weight of the gloom slowly settling down, pushing inwards around me in a stifling comfort. 

I marveled at how the darkness could make what was familiar suddenly so foreign, and pondered what could possibly accomplish the opposite. What could make the foreign familiar? 

Beyond those little escapades, every day was the same—get up, eat. Go left, right, sit down, repeat. Of course, I took solace in the little things—the way shadows moved in sync with the trees that swayed above them, a lone straggler lagging just a little behind in a line of ants, together yet alone—but mostly the days just dragged on and on and on without end. Eventually, everything became a mindless routine, just background noise for the vivid imaginations that lived within my head. 

In another world I was a ruthless assassin armed with a dozen flawlessly hidden knives, perched and perfectly balanced upon the edge of a rooftop. In another world I was a passing breeze, or perhaps a bird or a watchful cat lounging beside your window as you step out of the warmth of your home into the street, where all things continue to rush on to all eternity. In another world I am free to simply be—I am free to wander, limitless and forever.

It was an escape, really. Each day I woke up just a little more disappointed by the bounds of reality. That is, until I found myself under the rusty blue tarp right beside 307. It was a peculiar little corner cut out of sandstone and slabs of broken concrete. 

Even in the pouring storm the air was eerily silent, as if a string of nothingness had been pulled taut at that very point in space, just about to snap. I had to ask myself—what in the world am I doing here?

The truth was, I did not know. I neither knew my place in the universe nor in this particular moment of time. Still, this time was different, for I saw a meaning. 

There was no aspect of true novelty—I had witnessed the scene many times before—and yet within the pristine droplets and murky surface of the opaque sky I discovered such perfection that I could not help but bathe in its pure, unadulterated beauty and take some for myself. 

You must've been playing a cruel joke on me that day, for the moment I took a step forward, the world ended. 

And then there was nothing.

Part II: Destroyer of Worlds

When the man walked into the room, he was met with a sky-full of blinking, artificial stars and a mouthful of burning anxiety.

None of that was relevant, however. The moment he passed through that doorway his entire being was suddenly encompassed by an inexplicable sense of doom that simply overshadowed all other matters with an undue urgency.

It took him a while to pinpoint the source of his unease, and when he did it didn't lighten in the slightest. 

There was nothing inside the room. Absolutely nothing. 

It was eerily silent, as if a nonexistent string had been pulled taut at that very point in space, just about to snap. 

He had to ask himself—what in the world was he doing here?

It occurred to him then that he did not know. He didn't know who he was, where he was. Or what he was.

In fact, he didn't know anything at all.

It took him a tad longer to notice that his mouth was, in fact, on fire, and this realization resulted in the intensification of an agony that he hadn't even known was there. Moments later he felt his entire body being ripped apart, engulfed in invisible flames, and yet he could not die. 

Why? he asked an unseen God. Why must I suffer? What have I done to deserve such torment?

His screams were not heard, and it was then that he realized he'd left the oven on.

Part III: Eight Words and an Open Casket 

Rejoice with sunken eyes 

at the sunken sun.