I do not recognise this feeling. Consequently, I do not realise its implications, nor the way its curling and twisting that simultaneously incapacitates and empowers me.
This horrible pain is the ending that a serpent will ultimately devour me.
I cease the contemplation. It had never bore me fruit in the past, only rough etchings of what life could be outsides the walls of my making.
I take a step in a direction to the left. Perhaps there will be help?
A path leads. I follow.
It leaves me at a cavern; a cold, capricious cadence caping its inviting in-road.
Will this falling be the end of me? Or will there be some other erosion that will plague my ultimate path?
Ultimate. A relative term, I hope. As a stream of ups and downs would have seen me staring as I drowned in its shallow corral.
I have walked for a long, LONG time.
My feet have long since gone numb, the scars of fear and indolence now resting comfortably. Not so much as decorating my feet, but entirely painting them in their sickening hue.
I've wondered from time-to-time, are some people merely mistakes?
Do I not serve a purpose? I don't yearn for anything, not truly.
Doses of human emotion make me seem human, but what am I if not a blank slate?
A veritable nothing-man on a path without end, nothing in site but those very doses, trickling down and hurtling me through the moments I thought important.
I don't seek an end, but I wholly DESPISE my beginning.
What kind of an idea is the nothing-man? I sleep. I blame. I wander.
I do not sleep well.
I blame those who are either undeserving, or unmoved by my efforts.
I wander endlessly. I take every tangent that I can to slow the path.
Nothing can slow the path. It is that last issue I take issue with. Understanding that the only joy I've ever felt is when I am stagnant and repugnant has left me clueless of every road.
Nothing calls to me. No one screams praises or throws rocks.
That's the problem with the nothing-man. Everything is yonder, but it is truly nothing that calls to me.
The cavern is not empty. It appears that nothing is an illusion. There's a way forward and back. But nothing isn't just for show. It tells you things.
Things to do and things to avoid. The nothing-man can walk off a cliff, or he can sit and think for a bit.
The end of the road, perhaps, might be the ideal place for the old friend that once haunted me.
Contemplation.
No. The serpent did not squeeze the life out of me. It went its own way.
Envy should've struck, but I find myself controlling my emotions better, and if only for a moment. I think I am at piece.
Nothing is an illusion. It is not the end of the path; it is just another tangent.
A dangerous one where every nothing-man is called to control himself.
It gives you control, a great deal in fact. More than you could've asked for.
It cannot change much else; it is a brief momentary respite. But it does give you an opportunity.
Contemplation.
Nothing and everything will beset the mind. A veritable typhoon of thoughts and departures inflict the nothing-man.
I am not the nothing-man. Neither are you.
All of us are… given enough time.
We are not in dire straits. We are merely those who have had peace forced on us when we demand conflict, an invasion of the mind that will allow that part of us to become what it needs to.
So says the nothing-man.
So as one nothing-man to another. All I can say is… make peace with peace, it's here to stay.
And give the nothing-man a chance. You can be so much more, and you know it.
Thank you, nothing-man... I'll miss you.