Fragility of Perception

When we’re young, the world belongs to us. There is nothing that lies beyond our reach. We’re immortal. We’re all – powerful. We’re the Gods of our own tiny realities. 

Worries?
Pffft.

Not for me. I’m too young for that. I want what I want. And there’s nothing you can say or do that’ll change that glorious certainty of youth.

It’s a phase. We all go through it.

But then, as we age, the world begins to assault us in all its cruel detail. We begin to notice the things that happen. And how they shouldn’t be happening. The perfect world we imagined begins to be streaked by grime. We’re troubled. But they worry lasts but a moment. As always, the young have no time to ponder on things that they cannot see for themselves.

And then we grow older. We learn, we learn how to understand the things that happen around us. The world isn’t as bright and carefree as it once used to be. In fact, if you took the time to look at it, the world is pretty damn fucked up.

And then, we decide, we can change it. We put away our worries, comforted by our convictions. The world won’t be so wrong, when we grow up and change it. Time flies.

We’re older now. We’re at the prime of our lives. We’ve learnt all we need to go out into that wide world and begin moving and shaking what we perceive as imperfections.

And the world bites back. We discover, to our dismay, that logic doesn’t apply in this tarnished, dirty mess we call life. People won’t change just because you explain to them the error of their ways. Righting the wrongs of the world becomes harder, because some people prefer being wrong. Not everyone has it in them to be good.

We’re hit hard by this realization. Until now, the challenges we’ve faced seem hard, but it always seemed like we could make a difference. We never considered the prospect that some people are content to stay in the dark. And though we don’t know it, some part of us begins to truly understand that there is evil in this world. We just don’t allow ourselves to fully see it. Lest we lose what separates us from it.

We try. We fail. We try harder, we might succeed.

But in the end, you realize that somewhere along the line, the flight became less about doing what was right, and more about doing what we had to, to survive. The world is rotting slowly. And we realize that in the end, we can’t make a difference.

The truth of how minuscule you are on the scale of things seeps in. And slowly, your need to champion the cause of good falls away. Your priorities have changed, without you even knowing it. You lost the fight a while back.

You just didn’t let yourself know it.

And then age begins to take you. The ocean of sorrow that the world is begins to weigh on you. You find it harder and harder to care. About anything.  You might have a family, you might have children of your own.

But a long long time ago, it became less about what you want, and a lot more about what you were obligated to do.

You provide for those who depend on you. The rote of life becomes easier to bear. Soon it replaces whatever semblance of life you had before. And you know the worst part? The one which terrifies me?

You’re absolutely fine with it.

And life goes on. Day in and day out.

Until you die.

You spend your last days wondering if you ever stood a chance. In between the senility that has robbed you of the will to live, you think of the choices you might have made instead.

You regret the things you didn’t do. The roads you chose not to walk. The choices you made by refusing to choose.

And you die.

But not me. I’m not like the rest of you.

I’m going to live forever. Death shall never take me. For I am young. And the world lies in the palm of my hand.

I won’t make the same choices you did. I refuse to let myself make the same mistakes.

I will make a difference. Because, I am truly different.

I will change the world.

And I’d die before I let the world change me.

Fin

A Thousand Worlds

I’m in New York City as I write this. I’ve never been here before. And it’ll be a damn long while before I come back. But in the short while I’ve been here, I’m already sure I want to spend as much of my life as I can here.

Do you want to know why?

It’s not because of the preconceived notions that you might hold in your head. It’s not because it’s the Big Apple. Not for the incredibly hot women. Not for the reddish haze of the sun as it dips below that incredible skyline. Not for the humongous pizzas.

Not that I mean to deride any of these things. They ARE good reasons to want to live here. Many decisions have been made for less justification. But the reason I want to live here?

It’s the same reason many complain of. You get a lot of people talking about how city life pushes a person to cynicism and apathy. Pastors and philosophers opining on the heartlessness of a system so godless, immoral, and illogical it defies definition.

And it’s bloody well true. I know that. You know that.

Living in a city like New York needs you to harden yourself to certain things. To render yourself emotionless in the face of sights you couldn’t handle otherwise. It’s the same with any metropolitan city. If everyone broke down on seeing a poor crippled child begging for change, the world wouldn’t run as it does. And that’s not evidence of an ideal world. It just affirms what everyone already knows.

The world is fucked up. But that’s a whole another topic. I’ll get into that another time. Not right now.

But anyway, I’ve digressed quite a bit. So I’ll cut to the chase.

The reason I want to live in New York, is because of the people.

People in the Big Apple are, distanced, from each other. There’s a boundary everyone places around themselves, a line in the sand they draw at some indeterminable time that they retreat behind. A refuge to shelter them from the madness of life.

I can walk in the midst of a thousand people in Times Square and feel utterly alone. I can look at the people around me, converse with them; laugh and smile at the gimmicks of the world, but deep down, I know that just like me, they’re hiding behind their lines. Looking out from that glass box they built to keep themselves safe from the storm.

And this doesn’t bother me one bit.

Why?

 This knowledge leads me on to a greater truth. That makes me believe that this world has more to it than I shall ever know.

This truth is my reason to live.

New York is home to 10 million people. Maybe more. A census is only so accurate.

And each and every one of these people, has lived their own lives, walked their own paths, and made their own decisions. Whether to good ends or bad, is irrelevant.

When I’m in the middle of a crowd, I cannot help but look upon a random bystander, and wonder about the story of his/her life. What has he done to come to this place, here and now? What did she have to face to bring her this far?

I’m quoting something that regrettably may be paraphrased, but it serves to summarize what I mean to say.

“No matter where your life might take you, you spend the entirety of it, inside your head.”

Within each of us, exists a lifetime’s worth of thought, memory and experience. We’ve all lived our own lives. There is no explaining the story of your life to someone. It cannot be done. It is impossible to achieve total empathy with anyone. If it could happen, the world would be a better place. 

But it cannot, because at any point of time, you can never fully understand what drives a person. You cannot hope to every fully grasp what makes them who they are. Simply because you have not lived their lives.

We all carry a world within us. Not just a world, a universe that no one will ever know or understand. We are creatures of the flesh, subject to lusts and longings that our bodies impose on us, but within each of us, lay a tapestry, painted by our imaginations, and limited by nothing.

If ever some God or 4^th dimensional being, capable of seeing beyond the flesh, looked upon us, what would they see?

If I am to hold any faith in existence, I hope they would see us for what we really are.

The light of a universe. An infinite point of light, within each of us.

A thousand, thousand worlds.

Damnation

What a fallacy life is. What a hopeless joke.

Well to clarify, I choose to relate life with consciousness. The ability to make your own decisions. To choose what is, and what isn't good for yourself.


Yourself.
What does that mean?
To exist. To think. To breathe. To desire. To dream. To Live.
An animal has no identity. Because it cannot (as far as we know), make any choices to affect it's own well - being in the bigger scheme of things. As far as animals are concerned, there IS no bigger scheme of things.
Humans are elevated beyond the level of animals simply because, unlike animals, they seek to carve a niche for themselves in this world, through the means of their own identity.
But why bother? Honestly speaking, there isn't much we have to live for.
Though this may be unacceptable to many, it is possible to explain the rationale behind every human act of kindness, compassion or altruism. How?
Through pure selfishness.
An example then.
Philanthropy.
Charity.
What drives a person to them?
By accounts, there is a feeling of upliftment, of some unexplainable satisfaction gained through aiding the world.
I have an explanation. Selfishness.
Essentially, Charity and Drug - Abuse are two sides of the same coin.
They both make you feel good.
And we both know how much every human wants that. That feeling of satisfaction and meaning.
So there you have it. Every thing good about the human race, sprang up from the same part of your brain that drives a drug addict to shooting up.
Kind of puts a spanner in the whole scheme of things doesn't it?
Let's have another example. Because I just can't get enough of them.

Friendship.
Love.
Society.
Things every human needs and wants.
Honestly, do I need to say more?
We bond with other human beings solely because of our inability to be alone. Every noble aspect of friendship and love, takes it's root from a purely self-serving point of view. Humans cannot survive on their own, hence they commune with other humans. It's not something that we can look in the face either.
If we could that would redeem us in one way at least.
But humankind, in it's infinite wisdom and foresight, has gilded love (both platonic and non-platonic) with the trappings of another form of altruism.
It sickens me. This inability to accept the truth. But that's another issue entirely.
Onwards..

Have I convinced you? Or do you require more?
Fine. One final proof. For those of you who still choose to remain without belief.

A mother's love for her child.
The single purest thing in the world. Romanticized by poets, venerated by the pious, celebrated in song.
Maybe this one thing, might remain uncorrupted by the taint that every human bears?
Wrong. Nothing more than evolutionary necessity. Hormones and pheromones.
If you don't believe me, look it up.

So, what have we learned today?
Human beings are self - serving in every aspect of their lives.
There is no such thing as love, because love springs out of it's very antithesis.
Everything that you believed was a lie.

Thank You.
Have a Nice Day.

The Killing Joke

Warning: This is not for those who sway to the optimistic or realistic set of mind. Everything I choose to state here, is but a personal , momentary, perception of the world. A fleeting fancy for me, even, but worth considering nonetheless. Those of you who are cynical, nilhilistic or psychopathic, green haired, and endowed with a blood-red Glasgow smile, read on.

§----------------------------§

Have you ever wondered what it would be like to know, and to understand, the true pointlessness in your life?

No?
Well, don't let me keep you. The door's that way. Hit yourself with the doorknob on your way out.

But if you have, I have something to share with you.

The world is shrouded in pointlessness.

An infinite universe, extending out into the far reaches of existence, as we know it.

The cold, dark, null.

With us, as a sole exception.

Or are we?
Depending on your belief in things, either everything came down to an all-seeing, all-knowing, bearded man with absolute cosmic power, made Adam, (and his seemingly lesser half, Eve), naked as babies, and stuffed them in a rather large garden, that lacked in nothing, euphoric to the human mind.

*facelaptop*

Or maybe we're just a massive mistake.

One thing after another. An event that snowballed in the most epic of proportions. Evolution. So if that puddle of slime finally coalesced into a pink meatsuit, such as yourself, it wasn't by the direction of any God. Or any guiding entity.

Simply put, we're just a big joke.

Hold on. I can hear what you're thinking. I do that sometimes. Anyway, linger a moment to ponder upon yon wise statement.

If all we are is just an epic coincidence, a series of events, unfortunate or not is quite another topic, then what is life, this false blending of colors that we see, but a joke?
And, if I haven't made myself quite clear, this isn't a joke of the humorous kind. The opposite, infact.

It's a much more morbid sort of humor. The kind you feel when you're on Death Row, and you've got a smile on that face again. The kind you feel when you're a cancer patient, and you're tripping out on crystalmeth with not a pain in the world. The kind you feel when you're on your deathbed, and you know that nothing you ever did, will make a difference to anything, and you smile.

Ha.

We reach, we scratch, we crawl, we bleed, and we betray, to attain power, wealth, fame and position.

For what?
Ambition?
Recognition?

Self-Satisfaction?

By whose standards? Not your own.

Achievement in this world, is but the expectations of your father, handed down to you. And his father to him.

This cycle goes on all the way back to the first man who ever stood a moment to think, "What is the point of it all?", and shit himself in fear of realization. Instead, he created things of distraction and deception. Hollow images to make the world seem more real and less pointless. Thus we have the system, of modern society.

EVERYTHING YOU HAVE EVER DONE, OR EVER WILL DO, IS A LIE.

Why?

Because in the end, it served no purpose. Ayn Rand wrote, paraphrased and summarized, "Everything is a tool. A means to an end. What lie does a thing live, if it serves no purpose?"

Hence, everything that you are, is a lie.

You serve no purpose in living. Not in an universe that tends towards non-life.

You effect no lasting changes in a world that will outlive you, in a blink of an eye.

In a single moment of this world, the memory of you after you die, shall be forgotten and dusty.

Your Life. Is a Lie.

And what is this if not dark, dark humor?
Humor so grim it makes you want to tear your eyes out.

You now realize how little a shit the world gives about you.

And this, is the funniest joke of all.

Why?
Because we are made to live it anyway. Because most of us cannot bear, not living even this, pale shrouded lie.

So weep tears of blood, and betray everything you ever stood for.

Indulge in every dark fantasy your twisted mind could ever conceive. Go beyond the bounds of mortal men in the lengths of your depravity. Ravage your body and mind in self torture, to make the world scream.

Why?

It's all just a joke.

§----------------------------§

Another Beautiful Day

The sun peaked over the horizon, molten light spilling over, transforming the darkness of night into an ecstasy of red-gold warmth.

I opened my eyes as the world lit up around me, and took in a long slow breath of mountain air, sharp, cold, and enough to send a rush to my head. As I stepped out of my tent, my first act was to peer down into the chasm that lay in front of me, earth torn away as if by a Titan in the first days of creation, the jagged maw rising towards the sky, surrounded by the frosty caps of the Himalayan mountains.

As I moved to fish my canteen out of my tent, the wind blew through the grass fields in front of me, ruffling my hair and rustling the long stalks, sending the crystalline dew into a frenzy of movement, each drop a diamond, cut and polished.

I unscrewed the canteen and took a long swallow. As the spring water, salty from the earth, flowed through me, it sent the feeling of ice forming on my insides that only cold water (or copious amounts of mint) could do.

I stepped close to the chasm, and felt the breeze on my skin and the warmth of the sun on my face. I smiled.

It was another beautiful day.

P.S. -Given an option I wouldn't write stories like this, but the Empath threatens me with my own sense of monotonous repetition, thus I am forced to. As far as I'm concerned any good story has one of three things

1)Death

2)Insanity

3)Addiction of any kind.

But I figured I'd try the fluffy bunny rabbit approach for once to see where it got me.

Do Comment.

To Take The Pain Away

He stood underneath a gibbous moon, it's sickly light casting a ghoulish pallor on all it touched. The night seemed gray and dead, all vitae drained. Everything that was good and pure, turned defiled and unholy.
He looked up at the stars and raised the knife in his hand in a sardonic salute to them. The deathly half light seemed appropriate. He breathed in.
It was time.
He walked across the lawn, brown and dying, to the the front door of a house in ill-repair. He opened the door and his eyes took in the darkness and the crossed the floor to the stairs.
His eyes drifted to the portraits he knew hung on the walls. He did not pause as he ascended, but his fingers ran themselves over moments of time captured and crystallized from a life that seemed as distant and dead as the moon did tonight.
He set his feet on the landing and before he turned, he looked for one last time at the life he had known. After he walked on, he did not look back.
He walked in a room , the walls patterned with clouds and barnyard animals, painted a faded sky blue. He looked down at the occupants. A woman, haggard from a life of hardship, her face prematurely lined. At her side were two children. Twins, beautiful in their symmetry and their youth, purity embodied. One of them stirred and opened her eyes. She looked at him through the veil of sleep, confusion in her eyes, emerald green in hue.
"Daddy?"
"Shhh honey, Daddy's here."
"I can't sleep."
He reached over and smoothed her tousled golden locks.
"Hush little baby don't you cry,
Daddy's gonna make it all okay,
And even if he couldn't buy you that diamond ring,
Daddy's gonna take away all your pain."
As his lasts words faded into silence, she closed her eyes and turned over.
He looked then, upon his family, for the last time, drinking them in. He inhaled, and raised his knife.
And then the killing began.

Dead or Alive

Something I wrote a looooong time ago, for this contest on an online game of mine, never submitted it but here it is. Won't really have any relevance to anyone who hasn't played the game but I decided to throw it on here anyway. Enjoy(or not, as your prerogative goes)


First we kill them, then we raise them.
That was the creed of the Undead Legion. They were an unstoppable force, for with every enemy they killed, the Legion grew.
This battalion of Lord Zamorak's army was led by General Vazerka, or as he was more commonly known, the Bloodspiller. He was perhaps the most fearsome thing not alive on the face of Gielinor. And as he surveyed the bloodstained battlefield, the Bloodspiller knew it.
As he strode across the battlefield, a fleeing soldier, driven insane by the horrors he had witnessed, his cheeks caked with the blood of his brethren, ventured into the Vazerka's path, and as he beheld the horrifying sight of Vazerka's 7 foot tall skeletal body, wielding a flaming battleaxe, his eyes widened in terror.
Needless to say, it was the last thing he ever saw.
As he walked on, Vazerka mused, “My warriors do not bleed. I may have just delivered justice. How ironic."
He paused as he saw a mounted knight lead a small company of soldiers towards him. Vazerka smiled, as they surrounded him on all sides. The knight leading them said, “Die in the name of Saradomin foul creature!” As his allies growled their assent, Vazerka said, “I see the light now, I repent for my sins, will Saradomin forgive me?” The knight's face twisted with rage and he charged, swinging his longsword. Vazerka, his grin never wavering said, " I thought not." and swatted the human's sword aside with his bony forearm and plunged his battleaxe deep into the knight's neck, killing him instantly.
As the knight's body slumped down to the ground, Vazerka inspected his steed. He was a handsome specimen; white coat, lovely brown eyes. He looked around, the soldiers were standing stock still, astonished that their leader had been dispatched with such careless ease. He said to them, “You mind if I take him? A man's feet tire after a century or two." They did not respond. "I'll take that as a yes".
He mounted the horse and drew upon the power granted to him by Lord Zamorak himself.
The horse's eyes went from brown to black, black as dark as night. His beautiful white coat withered and the flesh underneath shriveled and burnt away, exposing his bones to the night. Vazerka looked to the soldiers again "Thanks.” He grinned once again, and as he did so the soldiers felt a chill around their hearts and they knew then, that death incarnate was smiling at them. They dropped their weapons and fled.
As the ghastly mount beneath him snorted, Vazerka patted his back and said, "Easy boy. We've got a lot of work to do."
His skeletal mount whinnied. Vazerka smiled and said, "I know, I enjoy it too."

Sanity?

Sanity?
An illusion. A fable spread by those who seek to impose order on the chaos that they shy away from. For will not a drowning man do the same? Reach out in his desperation, clinging to anything that offers the slightest hope of survival? Undoubtedly so.
So come, sit still and lean back, for now you shall learn the truth, shaded so gray by the lies of those who fear it. This is the tale of a man. Not a special man. All in all, he was but another face in the crowd. Which just goes to show how close to the brink we all stand.

Dr. John Doe, Ph.D., Psychology.

John sat at his desk, turning the bronze paperweight over and over. Staring at it. Staring at nothing.
" I'm getting nowhere."
His efforts had proven fruitless. His research had ground to a screeching halt. And there was only one place left to turn.
" Goddamn it!" He threw the paperweight across the room with all his strength and it crashed into the mirror hanging on his door. Needless to say, the mirror shattered, and the Doctor was left looking at a million fractured images of himself.
"Goddamn it." He said once more, this time his voice resigned.
He picked up the coat hanging on his chair and shrugged into it. He left his study and made his way through the halls of the Weyland Insanitarium. It was strangely quiet this night.
As he walked, he found himself recollecting the last few months. He had spent them researching one of the greatest questions that psychology posed.
What was insanity?
An affliction of the mind? Loss of ability to comprehend reality? So many answers considered and discarded, so much bloody time wasted.Only one thing left to do then. Confront the real thing.
As he reached the holding cells, he asked a passing orderly, Jake something, "Is Mirk in tonight?".
The orderly's eyebrows beetled in consternation. He answered, "Yes, but why?..."
His only response was to turn and keep on walking, leaving the confused orderly in his wake.
He faced the door and hunched his shoulders as he placed his hand on the doorknob.
"This should be fun."
He opened the door, and stepped in.
-----------------------------
Haddon Mirk. That was the patient's name.
The most intriguing case the Doctor had ever come across. Mirk had been institutionalized after he had killed his wife, his son and his daughter, two years ago.
By eating them alive.
But unlike what most people expected on reading his chart, Mirk was not violent, raving, delusional, sadistic, murderous, malevolent, monstrous or anything else they might have thought. Indeed by all appearances, Mirk was sane beyond belief. Therein lay the enigma.
But the reason Mirk was being treated was perhaps the ghastliest that the Doctor had ever seen. And he he had seen 'some crazy shit' as his younger orderlies put it.

He closed the door behind him gently, and as he turned around, he found Mirk sitting on his bed, twiddling his thumbs with a smile on his face, as if entertaining a guest. As always, his hair was perfectly combed, his face neatly shaved, his demeanor
perfectly normal. No one would suspect the monster that lurked within.
"Hello Mirk."
"Hello Doctor.", Mirk replied, his voice level.
"How do you feel?"
"As sane as always."
The Doctor paused at the ambiguity of that answer. Then he shook his head and took a seat on the bed next to him.
"I want to ask you a question. Is that all right?"
"Perfectly."
He paused for a second, to throw away any last doubts, and asked, "What is insanity?"
Mirk cocked his head and blinked.
"And here was me thinking you were the doctor."
"Answer the question."
Mirk sat in silence for a while, seemingly content to let the doctor stew in his impatience.
"Well?"
"An easy question, an easier answer."
"Well, I shan't hold my breath for anticipation."
"Sarcasm doesn't befit you Doctor. Indeed some may argue the benefit of angering the seemingly insane."
John held his breath as he realized that perhaps he had taken it a step too far. Mirk was, after all, insane. No telling what he'd do when provoked.
"I apologize. But I would appreciate an answer."
Mirk looked mollified.
"Why all of a sudden?"
"Does it matter?"
"True."
The silence held sway again for a while.
"Are you sure you wish an answer?"
"Positive."
"Very well."
And with that, Mirk exploded into motion, the seemingly frail limbs a blur as he reached for the doctor's neck.
"What are you doing?", the words came out as a croak.
"Giving you an answer, Doctor". The voice that emerged from Mirk was almost bestial in the madness it hid.
Mirk edged his face towards the Doctor's head. He opened his mouth, and as the Doctor tried to scream, he sunk his teeth into the Doctor's eyes and bit down.
The Doctor screamed. He screamed from the terror, from the pain, and from the realization of his foolishness. And as Mirk let go of him, the pain rendered him almost catatonic.
Mirk knelt next to him. He whispered in his ear.
"You wanted to know."
And then he began. Whispering into the doctor's ear, every excruciatingly painful detail, of how he had killed his family, of how he descended into his madness, and how he had embraced mankind's oldest legacy. Insanity.
The Doctor felt his mind being pushed over the edge, with the last thought that truly belonged to him, he thought,
"I asked for this."
And with that he began to laugh, the blood running from his eye began to choke him, and he felt weak and near dead, but he laughed. And still Mirk whispered into his ear, no longer an enigma, but a brother to embrace.
----------------------------------------------------
The Doctor walked into his office, his coat blood spattered, his face ravaged and bloody. And in his hands he held a nametag "Jake Dylan, Orderly". He walked towards his desk and picked up a recorder. He switched it on and spoke into it.
"Sanity? An illusion..."
And all around him were the screams of the dying and the insane.
----------------------------------------------------

Just To Get High

His chest heaved as he gulped in air, the sweat dripping down his face ran into his eyes, he blinked and cursed at the sting. He fell backwards onto the wall, and sank onto his haunches.

"Man, that was too fucking close."

He reached into his pocket and pulled out the wad of cash. As he counted the bills, what he had just done struck him with adrenaline fueled clarity. He had broken into the store, knifed the clerk and sacked the till, and for what? 30 bucks?. He had crossed the line, or more precisely run screaming and yelling past it for about a mile before taking a look around.

"Holy Shit."

His body told him to run, to succumb to the most primal of all instincts. To flee.

And so he ran, his heart thudding in his chest, disregarding his previous exhaustion. His mind raced as frantically as his body, seeking answers through the panic-ridden haze his thoughts had become. "I killed someone! I friggin killed someone! What the goddamn hell was I thinking?"

Even as he asked this question, the answer came to him.

" I needed it. "

All questions, of morality, or otherwise, resolved themselves. He had needed it, that was all. All that really mattered anyway. With that, he stopped running, and caught his breath. He turned, and moved with strides purposeful, no longer panicked.

He knew where he had to go now.

----An eternity later----

He leaned back. and blew out. The smoke rushed from his lungs and he smiled through the haze that ecstasy could not begin to describe. He looked at the emptied syringe lying next to his hand.

He kept on looking. He raised his hands in front of his face, and the sight and sound of dried blood suddenly rushed at him. His chest seized, and out of the mire a thought came to him.

"Was it worth it?"

And just like that, the blood staining his hands disappeared, and he relaxed as the high took over once more, stealing away whatever chance he had.

Through the slur of his thoughts, just one emerged, and crystallized, as clear as day.

"Totally."

He raised the cigarette to his lips and breathed in once more.

Nothingness

As he gazed into the mirror, his eyes seemed distant, as was his mind. It roamed through the memories of a life filled with but one thing...Nothing.

A twisted paradox, and the most wrenching of ironies.

He had spent his life watching, as people had struggled through existences that seemed meaningless in the extreme. Words without purpose, actions without conviction, lives without meaning. That had characterized everyone and everything around him.

And how he had searched. Searched for a glimpse of purpose in that barren land, void of hope. And how he had failed, and with his failure, the last dregs of hope had slipped from his hands. And he was left alone in the void, bereft of purpose,of meaning, and detesting the feel of that which he felt the most, Nothing.

His eyes drifted back to the present and came to rest upon that which had robbed him of the will to live.

He picked up the gun and felt his fingers slide over the smooth steel, as cold as death.

He put the gun to him temple, and with nothing but apathy driving him to death, as he had lived his life, he pulled the trigger.

As the life faded from his body, his eyes remained fixed to the mirror, unable to take themselves from what had stolen their light.

For he saw nothing.

The Fire Burns

He stood before the blaze,victorious. Terrible in his victory, fearsome in his insanity. He had proven his point. The fact that all who might accept it lay dead and smoldering couldn't make it's way past the haze that shrouded his mind. Even if it had, he probably wouldn't have cared, for all that mattered was that he had won.

"Inferior was I? A man of lesser intellect? Someone unworthy of your time?" His rage grew with every word, his nostrils flaring, his eyes widening, "Have you no more insults? I doubt it.Because all you can do now is BURN!" he screamed.

And as his words echoed in the chamber of his mind, he felt cold horror creeping up his spine. As the haze lifted, he realized what he had done, the monstrosity he had become, for the sake of wounded pride. The flames beckoned, offering purgatory and oblivion both. He answered their call and threw himself forward. And as the fire consumed him, he laughed at the futility of it all.

For the fires still burnt.

Paradise Lost

He watched as the light, molten gold , faded to grey.
He watched as the gates, the gates that had been his to command, swung shut on his tormented soul.
He fell through the air, as paradise blurred and reality, horryifying reality burned at him.
He fell through the air, his body broken, his wings burnt, his soul twisted.
He screamed, as the fires of purgatory seared the remnant of him to nothingness.
He screamed, not for the pain that he felt, but for the pain of paradise lost.
Pity Him, for I am he.
Call me Ishmael.