The Axis of the Universe

On the axis of the universe, there is a puppet, and the puppet is God.  And as the line spikes, the puppet laughs, because our lives can never, ever reach the line of the axis of the universe.
         Or most people’s lives can’t hit it.  But I live on that line.
         The puppet sits under a noose.  That was the first thing I saw.  And it scared me, at first, until I saw it day in, day out, until I became accustomed.  Then I realized that the noose was for me, and I became terrified all over again.
         But then one of the star-girls came, and she whispered, “We’re all condemned, you know,” one of the first things I had ever heard them say.  I felt better then, because I understood.
         I understood everything, living there.
         “This is the origin,” the puppet explained. “There is negative, and there is positive, and there is zero, and there is absolute zero.”
         I had always hated math, but for some reason, that made perfect sense.  At the origin of the universe, it made perfect sense.
         The thing I hated at the beginning wasn’t the puppet, my jailer, and it wasn’t the star-girls.  It was the aloneness.  I was sitting on my own, on a thin penciled line, in white space, until all I could see was the lives I would never touch.  I used to be one of them.
         I was sitting on a hotel bed when it happened.  Just suddenly.  Right then and there, I…
         it’s so hard to say you died…
         I ceased to exist.  I passed on.  And then I was here, right here at absolute zero, where I can touch nothing.
         The star-girls are the ones who fell, the puppet said.  The star-girls believed they would go to hell, and so they did, our hell, the hell of not-living.  There are many diseases of the mind among them, and they share in it, revel in it, in fact, but that is not my concern.  I am not one of them; I am caught here, because the line of my life hit the axis, and that is that. 
         They mutter to each other, but never words that I can hear.  I was afraid of them.  They are the executioners.  They decide who lives and dies, on the line, and the puppet smiles and nods and signs each paper.  You, you, you, you, you.  Occasionally, arbitrarily, the puppet likes someone’s name, picks a certain eye color, plays a little game of fate, and chooses someone to live.  The star-girls do not like it.  They mutter, they feel cheated of their authority.  But what can they do? This puppet is God.
         The puppet likes mirrors.  The reflections are reminders of our…sameness, of our fear of each other, ourselves.  Mirrors can frighten me like nothing else can, more than the noose that hangs waiting above the puppet’s head, more than the star-girls that come and trace the line of the noose.  And stare.  The mirror is how I am, what I have become, and I prefer to think of myself as the child who lived rather than the old woman who sits bitterly and silent in death.
         There is nothing I can do.
         The puppet laughs when I despair.  It is all a game.  I am afraid, unhappy, alone…what does that matter? I sit and stare forward.  I take a walk.  I try, vainly, to sleep.  And I watch as the graph spikes, as the line traces the same pattern, as people scream and laugh and weep and die and die and die and kill and kill and die.  Imagine, that I was one of them.  Stupid, really.  What is there to go back to? A routine; a slow, pounding routine of death.  At least here, on the axis, there is terror (preferable to this dragging life), and there is the sense of superiority: I know the secrets that you do not.  I know they talk of heaven, because I did once too.  The star-girls talked of hell, they dreamed of it, and there was a sense in them of martyrdom.  Some of them have never done any wrong.  No rest for the weary, they say.  Tried so hard, still went to hell.  The fact is, it’s the pessimists who lose in this world.  And we are all pessimists.
         The cynics choose sarcasm, irony, satire.  The cynics can laugh, and the puppet is a cynic.  I am not yet so cold, but if you give me time, I’m sure I can reach that point.  In fact, that’s my goal: to be as hard as the puppet, as brittle, as frozen, and then I will never feel pain again.  My dreams have been reduced to this, and still, I don’t care.  Here in the axis of the universe, it doesn’t matter what you dream.  It doesn’t matter what you do.  Nothing matters at all.
         The puppet knows this; I know this; the star-girls, in their shallow, cruel way (when they are given power, they gain the kind of cruelty that enables them to fulfill their job expectations—they are, after all, the executioners of the human race) realize it too.  But the star-girls laugh, and gossip, or so I imagine, they share their deeds on earth and chuckle.  Look where we are now.  Some of them sigh.  I was such a good person.  I tried so hard.  But I knew I’d be going to hell anyway.
         Woe is me.
         They love to complain, and they eat the sympathy of the others.  It is amusing to watch them pout when they don’t get what they want.  The puppet seems to think so too.  I’ve seen a smile on its painted face.
         It’s strange.  The puppet is looking more and more like me.  I’ve been staring too long at my face in the mirror; I’m painting the images on everything I see now.  Soon I’ll be able to see it in the noose.  I’ve taken to averting my eyes when I see the noose: a superstitious fear.  I don’t know what will happen when it closes on me…I have a feeling, not really logical, but nevertheless strong, that I will become a star-girl, and that is the last thing I want.  So I avoid it as much as possible, prolonging the dread but also keeping my life my own.  I don’t know what else would happen.  There is nothing else for me: star-girl, puppet, or lost child.
         I imagine freedom.  Freedom was such an ideal when I was alive: an obsession.  It was all anyone ever talked about.  Plays, books, stories; all freedom, freedom, revolution, rebellion, escape.  There was never a story where someone chose to stay in prison.  I, personally, am happy in my prison.  I no longer object to suffering.  I have become the ultimate selfish being, and I am absurdly happy in this.  The fact is, selfishness feels exactly the same as selflessness.  On both sides, it is the lack of guilt, and guilt is the worst human emotion.
         Not that I have many of those anymore.  I am not lonely.  I am not angry.  I am only superior and scared.
         The puppet is smiling again.  Another thing I fear: that smile.  It means death.  The puppet is my Grim Reaper, a grinning skull telling me your time has passed.  And the star-girls are looking at me with a polite, idle goodbye face, like a late-night shift at a grocery store.  Thanks, come again.  Bored, feeling nothing for the person, a simple pleasantry.  They don’t care about me at all.
         I’m curiously indignant at that.  The star-girls should care.  They should at least give a thought.  After all, haven’t I given them thought all this time? Haven’t I been wary of them, avoided them, scared of them? Even contemptuous.  I don’t care what they think of me; it’s just that they think of me that matters.  But they don’t.
         It infuriates me, actually, as a star-girl leads me to the noose, pleasantly.  She fixes it around my neck, says, “Good luck,” and pulls—
         and as I fall, I turn to wood
         the sound of me falling is much…harder than my body weight
         here I am, in the universe, totally in charge, at absolute zero of the axis of the universe, with papers to sign, a watch.  Pen in hand, I control fate.  There is no such thing as God…I am the closest thing.
         I am the puppet now, and I do not care who you are.