Fear 1-29-2006

The world was silent and empty around me. Where there had once been light, there was only darkness. I knew there had been light, I had the memory. But the memory came faded, a second-hand copy of a first-hand experience. I knew there was light in the world. This world I speak of—what does that mean? I seem to think of images, pictures in my head-that-is-no-longer. A child dances in the sunshine. The words come unbidden, as they have no meaning anymore. The darkness closes in, halting the breath that no longer flows in my lungs. I cannot see—I have not the eyes. I cannot hear; I have not the ears. I cannot speak—my mouth seems to have left me, but where it has gone I cannot say. All around this awareness is cold, though it does not bother me. I don’t know why it should, but something tells me I once would have been distracted by this sensation. Senses—this I remember. To hear, to feel, to see, smell and taste. Yes, I remember! Yet this existence I have now does not provide me with these luxuries. I have not the hands to feel, nor the tongue to taste—though what I would taste in this vast nothingness I know not. It seems black. But I don’t have eyes to see. How is this? I cannot see yet I know. I know I used to be able to see, but I can’t understand how. How is it that one can see? With eyes. Yes, I remember. Yes—now—there is an image, I feel—strange sensation—cold, warm, I am running. Legs. I don’t have legs now. I don’t have anything. Do I exist? I used to. Or did I? Maybe I never did. Maybe all that I remember is not my memories; maybe it’s just made up—something for me to think about during my stay here. Wherever here is. There seems to be me here, this semi-existence I have, an incorporeal thought. Does a thought need a mind in which to exist? Do I exist in someone else’s mind? Maybe I don’t really exist. Maybe I am a thought fabricated by someone with time on their hands. These words I seem to use somehow, in this mind that does not exist, mean nothing to me. Time? Just a way to make existence confusing. Can one live and not exist? For that is what I am. Perhaps I do not exist. Then that means I do not live. All that lives exists, but not all that exists lives. Do stones live? Do they have thoughts and dreams, communications with eachother through their corporeal existence? If I do not live, does that mean I cannot die? Will I spend the rest of my unmeasured nonexistence here, in this place I know not where, thinking for an eternity of that which I do not know, resigned to be, yet not allowed to be somewhere? If it is said I must exist, perhaps I might be able to exist where I might know I exist. I think, therefore I must be. To be, then, or to only think I am being by my thoughts? To live this non-life, thinking of what I am not and what I can never be, to aspire to dreams unknown, or to stop the process of thought and through which become as I cannot imagine, not even in existence? Can one imagine a non-existence? Imagine a life without love, a life without sight nor sound, nor the feel of blood flowing in the veins, nor of wind whispering its secrets into one’s ears. Empty the mind, expand the sight to where it cannot see, then one might come upon this place where I seem to reside. I believe I am alive, yet I cannot prove this claim for I have no proof. I have no witnesses, for none know I am here. I know I am here. But what use is that? What good is it if I am here if no one knows it? I might have all the knowledge in the world but for the asking I have none. Speak, I command that of you. You who do not know me, you who do not know of my existence here in this non-place; this dreamland that seeks to rend me from my flesh. I remember the world, I remember the feel of a voice in my throat, vibrations stirring in my ears, life moving within me. I remember dry sand and wet sea, frozen snow and burning sun. These memories seek to overcome my consciousness and reduce me to a thought, leave the me behind. In this nothingness where I am nothing, where my thoughts mean nothing and my soul dies in nothing, I cannot be. I seek to end this knowing, for to have knowledge of being nothing in nowhere can do only ill for me. This me that is no longer, the me that had awareness once only to find it suddenly taken from me as monsters do to hopes of children, this me is afraid. But I who am here, I who cannot feel the pain of loss, of separation of all that I once held dear, I cannot weep. I cannot shed my nonexistent tear onto a nonexistent pillow in a world that means nothing to me. My awareness fades now, as I seek to be free of the charm that led me here. Where I once had all I have none, where I once had hope I am left with the bitter taste of ashes in my non-mouth. I am nothing, I shall return to nothing. What never existed is never remembered, nor regretted.