2 Cylus 700
He'd been walking for longer than he cared to remember, not that he could have had he taken the time to try. It was a steady, endless cycle: one foot in front of the other, then the other in front of one foot and back. Progress couldn't be measured in the vast and empty expanse of blackness that spread out like some vindictive rug woven of spiteful fibres who wanted nothing more than to obscure anything and everything that might have given an indication of passage.
Nothing.
Over and over his feet hit the ground but left behind no trace. No tracks. No small speckles of damp circles from where his sweat collided with what he was certain had to be the earth if the earth had lost everything about it that made it what it was. There was only forward. If it was even "forward" at all. Whatever it was, there was no "stop" nor "rest" nor even, truthfully, "fatigue". There was just the motion, one foot after the other.
But it gave him time to think. To contemplate. To consider and wonder and wish and want and all manner of useless, trivial things. He wanted to rest, but he couldn't remember what exactly that was or how to do it. He wanted to run, but he could only manage a single, steady speed. He wanted to shout or scream or even whisper just to reassure himself he still possessed a voice, but he couldn't quite recall the words to say or how to say them.
Again and again and again. Over and over and over.
There were, at times, the vague sensations of passing by something, of missing an opportunity or event or community gathering. By the time he realised it, of course, they were long since gone if they'd even been there at all; he began to wonder if that was what life was all about. But he couldn't quite get a handle on the fact of the matter, which was the point in and of itself, and, eventually, he tossed it away like all the rest.
The black expanse seemed to shift every time he did that, but he'd seen things before; they were enough to supply doubt aplenty when it came to separating knowing from not knowing. He wasn't sure he could do either when he was being honest with himself. But he'd been having trouble with deception lately. It had been a long couple of months. Or days. Or years. Or minutes. However long it had been, it had been long enough he was getting irritable.
Or had he been irritated the entire time?
He couldn't remember the last time he'd felt that way. The more he thought about it, the more he realised he'd never really felt that way at all. What was irritation? Anger? That was simply a synonym. What did it do to the body? To the mind? To the soul itself? Did he have a soul if he'd never been irritated? He doubted it, not out of self-deprecation but rather self-assurance. Without a soul, he didn't need to rest, and that was comforting in its own way.
Under the weight of certain misery, the knowledge that it shouldered all the better for one's own deficiencies warps that which should be a point of shame and embarrassment into something celebrated. That all under the caveat that celebration was even possible. It wasn't, but it didn't change the slight surge of energy he felt purely out of the principle of the matter.
Did he have principles if he didn't have a soul? At what point was a lack of a soul a burden and not an investment in one's own continued but slightly marginalized suffering? Most likely somewhere around half, and he could tell he wasn't quite there yet. Still steps to go, as it were.
And the more he took, the more he felt nothing - or rather, the longer he continued to feel nothing. It was like ice, except it wasn't cold, and he was entirely aware of himself. Of his body. Of his thoughts. Of the little hairs on the crinkled skin of his knuckles when they weren't taut with strain.
Was he dead?
He wasn't entirely sure what it meant to be alive in the first place, and if he'd forgotten it stood to reason perhaps he was the opposite of what he'd failed to remember. Was death the opposite of life? It sounded right but if the world functioned solely off of what sounded right, it wouldn't be. Did one suffer after death? Was he suffering now? How did he die or was he in the process?
The process of death. Dying.
One foot after the other. Nothing on all sides. Empty. Empty. Empty.
Perhaps that's what it was. Perhaps the emptiness wasn't merely symbolic but genuine. He was dying and reliving his life. That was what the dying did, didn't they? But then, he supposed his memory might should have been a bit keener if he were to engage in reverie. Instead his head - his mind? - felt too spacious. Felt too full of emptiness, a paradox but fully felt empty all the same.
If he were, in fact, dying, he wanted to know why, at the very least. Death by blindness, perhaps? The emptiness was very clearly there, sharp and in focus, something he most definitely needed his eyes for. Death by travel? But then his legs would not have held so strong and firm. Already dead?
Already... dead?
Had he embarked upon his final journey without realizing it? Or had he known, initially, what it was he was meant to do and only forgotten along the way? That seemed likely enough given that he had no knowledge to really base it off of. If he'd started willingly and simply forgotten, then was it not in his best interest to willingly finish what it was he'd started? There was honour there, he assumed, but he couldn't quite remember what it was honour did exactly.
It certainly wasn't edible, he knew that. Nothing was. That was clear given his lack of a stomach. That stretchy pouch he'd left behind before he could even remember - only, he could remember the stomach itself, which meant he could remember before he'd left it behind, but not leaving it behind or anything that had led up to that point.
He wanted to grit his teeth in frustration, but, instead, he took another step. He wanted to scratch at the thin, silver scar that ran down the centre of his torso to check if he'd lost any other bits or pieces of himself along the way, but, instead, he took another step. He wanted to sit down, if that were even possible, and sleep and dream about something other than the only thing he knew, but, instead, he took another step.
Dying must be what this was. He was dying. He knew he should have been scared, but, instead, there was a sort of calm that crept over him as the certainty set in. Knowing was much better than not knowing, he knew that now. His death was fast approaching with each step, but the journey itself he understood to be endless. He was dying but would never die. It was a strange revelation, one he didn't know exactly what to do with.
Could he be dying if he never actually died? Was there something else it could even be?
Had he his memory, he had no doubt he could name it - within reasonable doubt, of course.
He settled on dying without ever being dead. The length of it didn't really bother him, considering eternity allowed him to be a bit long winded. Or long minded, given he'd yet been unable to even open his lips to produce a sound. Not even his feet moving one after the other after the other after one made a single scuff or scrape or plod. He existed without existing. He lived without living. He died without dying.
It was a predicament, surely, but one without any solution. One without any end. One that he was confident he'd never be able to reconcile for a sheer lack of tools available to him. He simply continued onward. Leftward. Rightward. Direction was meaningless when everything was nothing and all looked exactly the same amount of empty.
He was resigned, as much as he could be, to his fate. At some point, a choice had been made. Perhaps it had been a mistake or, even worse, a risk taken, and it had ended with him there, now, walking forever. He wondered how long forever lasted when he was the one who had to last throughout it. They said - they, them, those who were not he but who possessed no true voice of their own, the collective consciousness of what it was to be alive or dying or both - eternity lasted one second longer than whatever one was able to expect, but as he crumbled into dust, he realised it was just the opposite.
He'd been walking for longer than he cared to remember, not that he could have had he taken the time to try. It was a steady, endless cycle: one foot in front of the other, then the other in front of one foot and back. Progress couldn't be measured in the vast and empty expanse of blackness that spread out like some vindictive rug woven of spiteful fibres who wanted nothing more than to obscure anything and everything that might have given an indication of passage.
Nothing.
Over and over his feet hit the ground but left behind no trace. No tracks. No small speckles of damp circles from where his sweat collided with what he was certain had to be the earth if the earth had lost everything about it that made it what it was. There was only forward. If it was even "forward" at all. Whatever it was, there was no "stop" nor "rest" nor even, truthfully, "fatigue". There was just the motion, one foot after the other.
But it gave him time to think. To contemplate. To consider and wonder and wish and want and all manner of useless, trivial things. He wanted to rest, but he couldn't remember what exactly that was or how to do it. He wanted to run, but he could only manage a single, steady speed. He wanted to shout or scream or even whisper just to reassure himself he still possessed a voice, but he couldn't quite recall the words to say or how to say them.
Again and again and again. Over and over and over.
There were, at times, the vague sensations of passing by something, of missing an opportunity or event or community gathering. By the time he realised it, of course, they were long since gone if they'd even been there at all; he began to wonder if that was what life was all about. But he couldn't quite get a handle on the fact of the matter, which was the point in and of itself, and, eventually, he tossed it away like all the rest.
The black expanse seemed to shift every time he did that, but he'd seen things before; they were enough to supply doubt aplenty when it came to separating knowing from not knowing. He wasn't sure he could do either when he was being honest with himself. But he'd been having trouble with deception lately. It had been a long couple of months. Or days. Or years. Or minutes. However long it had been, it had been long enough he was getting irritable.
Or had he been irritated the entire time?
He couldn't remember the last time he'd felt that way. The more he thought about it, the more he realised he'd never really felt that way at all. What was irritation? Anger? That was simply a synonym. What did it do to the body? To the mind? To the soul itself? Did he have a soul if he'd never been irritated? He doubted it, not out of self-deprecation but rather self-assurance. Without a soul, he didn't need to rest, and that was comforting in its own way.
Under the weight of certain misery, the knowledge that it shouldered all the better for one's own deficiencies warps that which should be a point of shame and embarrassment into something celebrated. That all under the caveat that celebration was even possible. It wasn't, but it didn't change the slight surge of energy he felt purely out of the principle of the matter.
Did he have principles if he didn't have a soul? At what point was a lack of a soul a burden and not an investment in one's own continued but slightly marginalized suffering? Most likely somewhere around half, and he could tell he wasn't quite there yet. Still steps to go, as it were.
And the more he took, the more he felt nothing - or rather, the longer he continued to feel nothing. It was like ice, except it wasn't cold, and he was entirely aware of himself. Of his body. Of his thoughts. Of the little hairs on the crinkled skin of his knuckles when they weren't taut with strain.
Was he dead?
He wasn't entirely sure what it meant to be alive in the first place, and if he'd forgotten it stood to reason perhaps he was the opposite of what he'd failed to remember. Was death the opposite of life? It sounded right but if the world functioned solely off of what sounded right, it wouldn't be. Did one suffer after death? Was he suffering now? How did he die or was he in the process?
The process of death. Dying.
One foot after the other. Nothing on all sides. Empty. Empty. Empty.
Perhaps that's what it was. Perhaps the emptiness wasn't merely symbolic but genuine. He was dying and reliving his life. That was what the dying did, didn't they? But then, he supposed his memory might should have been a bit keener if he were to engage in reverie. Instead his head - his mind? - felt too spacious. Felt too full of emptiness, a paradox but fully felt empty all the same.
If he were, in fact, dying, he wanted to know why, at the very least. Death by blindness, perhaps? The emptiness was very clearly there, sharp and in focus, something he most definitely needed his eyes for. Death by travel? But then his legs would not have held so strong and firm. Already dead?
Already... dead?
Had he embarked upon his final journey without realizing it? Or had he known, initially, what it was he was meant to do and only forgotten along the way? That seemed likely enough given that he had no knowledge to really base it off of. If he'd started willingly and simply forgotten, then was it not in his best interest to willingly finish what it was he'd started? There was honour there, he assumed, but he couldn't quite remember what it was honour did exactly.
It certainly wasn't edible, he knew that. Nothing was. That was clear given his lack of a stomach. That stretchy pouch he'd left behind before he could even remember - only, he could remember the stomach itself, which meant he could remember before he'd left it behind, but not leaving it behind or anything that had led up to that point.
He wanted to grit his teeth in frustration, but, instead, he took another step. He wanted to scratch at the thin, silver scar that ran down the centre of his torso to check if he'd lost any other bits or pieces of himself along the way, but, instead, he took another step. He wanted to sit down, if that were even possible, and sleep and dream about something other than the only thing he knew, but, instead, he took another step.
Dying must be what this was. He was dying. He knew he should have been scared, but, instead, there was a sort of calm that crept over him as the certainty set in. Knowing was much better than not knowing, he knew that now. His death was fast approaching with each step, but the journey itself he understood to be endless. He was dying but would never die. It was a strange revelation, one he didn't know exactly what to do with.
Could he be dying if he never actually died? Was there something else it could even be?
Had he his memory, he had no doubt he could name it - within reasonable doubt, of course.
He settled on dying without ever being dead. The length of it didn't really bother him, considering eternity allowed him to be a bit long winded. Or long minded, given he'd yet been unable to even open his lips to produce a sound. Not even his feet moving one after the other after the other after one made a single scuff or scrape or plod. He existed without existing. He lived without living. He died without dying.
It was a predicament, surely, but one without any solution. One without any end. One that he was confident he'd never be able to reconcile for a sheer lack of tools available to him. He simply continued onward. Leftward. Rightward. Direction was meaningless when everything was nothing and all looked exactly the same amount of empty.
He was resigned, as much as he could be, to his fate. At some point, a choice had been made. Perhaps it had been a mistake or, even worse, a risk taken, and it had ended with him there, now, walking forever. He wondered how long forever lasted when he was the one who had to last throughout it. They said - they, them, those who were not he but who possessed no true voice of their own, the collective consciousness of what it was to be alive or dying or both - eternity lasted one second longer than whatever one was able to expect, but as he crumbled into dust, he realised it was just the opposite.
