The terrorization of living. One person thrives while another suffers. This is alright in the eyes of God? Was there ever a chance for everyone to be happy? Or do the wolf packs chase the herds endlessly, a victim bound to fall?
Each moment is a moment of terror, blows of inanity that induce fight-or-flight reactions, propagating the natural order. To put matters bluntly, God does not exist. The terror of life is easier to cope with under these conditions, the survival of the fittest paving the way for the future. For a soul caught by the wayside, caught in the jet stream of progress, floundering in the dilemma of ignorance, his spirit is torn to shreds for his attempt at trying.
The feeling is like a moment in the reality of an alternate world, when one notices a gruesome element of the environment. Maybe water is dripping along the insides of a stone building, and with the turn of a head, one sees the people gathered as they stare; they are mutants, outcasts of the social order, and they can see a person’s every move. Or maybe a vast desert has become all the more inhospitable for a pulverizing wind that won’t stop, where one’s thoughts are continually drawn to the thought of water and comfort.
When the fog of a dream lifts, the sound of traffic comes roaring in. Each four-wheeled domain a rolling entity of agenda, each willing to mow another over in the name of itinerant duty. The clouds keep the sun out and the faces, they meld with the pervasive absence of satisfaction, a ceaseless game that breaks only when the dinner bell rings out its paltry chimes.
A woman walks along the littered gutters of the street, fortune her long lost lover, and the cats in the cans dig for their evening meal. Love had been wrought by the great and mighty voice in the sky, but its smooth silky petals grew worn by streams of corruptive radiation, that force which comes from a vile thought, a cutting, hateful remark. Hurt, she spent some change for a can of food to give to the cats so she could cling to the smallest grain of goodness in her soul. And the people in the windows, five stories up, they watched as their pizzas grew cold in preparation for the mildew that would form.
Then came the rain. It began as a light drizzle that moistened the oily streets enough to create a sheen that brought back memories. That time when we tried to train our dog. The day your bottles were found in the back yard. The moment when I specifically told you, not to jump. The rain doesn’t care about friends or families, or schedules. It just shows up like a diesel truck from out of the distance, its clatter turning pockets of silence into pockets of disruption. Would the fates endow a measure of peace if I offered to feel bad, for as long I could, the rain soaking my head as I sat there in the park, trying to figure it all out?
No, the rain could have stayed away, and everything would have been fine, but because it was there, creating puddles of dirty water, it was therapeutic. Dreams and desires vanished in the sound of cars whizzing through the wetness, a spark of hope crushed like road kill pushed aside, waiting for animal control do its job. Rain was better than love because you knew, you could feel it, the emotions and the glory, you knew it would all go away so that something more dreadful would puncture its way into your world, something that would utterly ruin you; and the people, they would all notice and watch as you made a complete mess of yourself. I told you, I pleaded with you, and yet you wouldn’t listen.
Some say that the afterlife is waiting for us when we die. No one knows what this place looks like. I see trees and sidewalks, mountains and skyscrapers, but I don’t see the afterlife, presumably because I’m not dead. Should I take a leap into imagining what the afterlife is like? How could I? I know the afterlife doesn’t exist. So when I think of death, I think of a vast ocean where all my suffering becomes diluted in the rolling waves. All the things I hoped for are exchanged for oblivion, that state of nothingness where what might have been known, can never be known. I hope that the sooner people forget me, the better. I hated this life. Being alone is a punishment; being rejected makes it worse. Instead of being vindictive, I can only spell out the reality on the page.
“Who are you?” she asked. But my question in return would be, “What does it take to ask a question like that?” The guts, the gall, the inspiration, the confidence. The question she asked seemed like curiosity, but was merely an effect of repetition. With each person we encounter, the need to know drives us, even if the answers are sometimes disappointing.
The blinds block my view of the stars high in the night sky. Beneath me the spiders crawl while out on the street, people passing by in their vehicles travel to their places of importance. Every unit of activity has a measure of importance. I thought about the needs and desires of people, what makes a thing important to them. I was unable to complete the thought. I let it flow through me without trying grasp it, much like the woman whose cloak keeps her sheltered from the prying eyes, a disguise that keeps her sanctity intact. And when the falling acid burns the rooftops, I play songs that make me think, that make me believe, that somehow I have significance, which is such a travesty.
The nightmare speaks of the deepest fear, the reality that marks truth. And truth can be the most frightful thing of all. It bores into the deepest recesses of the human heart and puts it in a stranglehold, until some resolution can purge the terror of that truth. Facts are undeniable, and some facts are subjected to the sincerest attempts of neglect. When the animal, the predator looks one directly in the eye, facts become like the festering rot of truth, where everything is as serious as the death of someone you loved, like no other person in the entire world. And your stomach becomes tight with the pain.
ESSENTIAL 