Desolation

(September 2005)

Desolation

          I am utterly alone. I used to believe that such a fact was not entirely possible to achieve, for one was at least surrounded by the mists of existence and of space. But I have been deprived of such a fortifying illusion, and no longer can I reside within its false webs. Before then, I was a forgotten soul, forgotten by society, forgotten by nature, forgotten by myself. Now that I have been given the revealing strand to my abysmal existence, my only desire is to forsake its dark touch.

          It has been twelve years, and I feel aged. My life has been a walking prison, one that pleads to end, yet at the same, hopeless moment, it strives to endure. I recall once that I had been content and willful, but that thin memory is torn and crusted, for whenever I try to draw upon its remnants, I can no longer even wonder what it feels like. What had kept me going, I do not know. I would suppose that it was simply the urge to survive, but I suspect that is not the case. Instead, I believe it is the sole fact that I did not and do not care anymore if I should survive or not; I live because I have no reason or initiative to follow either path along its full route, so I simply walk along both borders, waiting for one to claim and engulf me into submission.

          I walk upon this world in a hopeless manner, for the malevolent spirits of truth that I have beheld and witnessed brought to my light a gruesome reality of otherworldly, demented salvation. Accursed I had once deemed the fiendish truth, I can no longer place such a name upon it despite the fact that its very essence has eaten away the holistic virtues and vices of life.

          Before I completely lost my will, I used to keep a journal as a companion for my waning mind. In it, I recorded many of my harrowed musings. Most were of disbelief and of utmost aversion, while others dealt with precarious denial; yet many days had passed, and those to years, and those thoughts of denial began to lose their wondrous hold upon me. In their place came the sinister emotion of lifelessness. Now, I warily store my thoughts inside my unstable mind, and there, they age and decay until I am no longer able to recognize them. However, memory is meaningless to me; it only serves to reveal glimpses of a past, a past that destines nothing.

          Up in the clear sky, the hanging sun shines bitterly upon me, while the wind sweeps solemnly upon the grasses that teem along the tamed ground. I can feel the radiating warmth of the sun, and I can feel the draft of the wind too, but I know they mean nothing. Bending down, I brush my hand over the fair grasses. Once, I may have misinterpreted their touch as good and gentle, but now they only feel plastic to my touch. The warmth of the air, too, feels staged, covering behind it unknown truth. The warm day appears to me as blank, and I start to see it as darker. I realize that cold winds surge past me and with them, flows the rainwater that the dim clouds above have been pouring in the unlit and overcast skies.

          The overflowing weeds at my feet are dampened with water, and as I wave my opened palm across them, I feel their mask-like dampness. Their sensation was once real to me, and now they only serve as grim realities for what I cannot accept. Every sensation I have ever experienced has posed no real meaning. This used to pain my mind; however, it has become numb in recent years to the spreading sickness of despondency. It no longer matters to me that I am depressed beyond measure, for being in such a state these past years has lent to me the hideous crutch of indifference.

          I cannot look up to another for guidance, for as I have mentioned, there is no one out there. And can “there” be truly defined? Can anything? It is how I make it, want it, but I am not sure if I want anything. But if that were already so, I believe all would be gone. I have not yet reached such a state, but I feel that I am slowly edging toward its indescribable route. I am not sure if I should welcome its path or fear it more than the illusion I behold now. Nevertheless, I think that the grand mirage of time will beckon me through the inevitable route of nihility.

          My sanity is often confronted by the meaningless memories that crawl inside my mind. Sometimes I can ignore them, while other times, I heed their resurrected messages. They come in an almost selective manner, as if they automatically extirpate their own purpose so I can better comprehend them, to view them as a dream, not as something that has actually occurred. By forcing myself to draw out the feelings connected with them, I am only able to pick out strings of emotions that deal with depression, hatred, and fear.

          The memories themselves fluctuate and alter in what they tell. Sometimes a memory will dictate calm and placid weather, and other times, it will conjure images of darkness. And it is not just the environment that varies, but the actual happenings are not constant, but I know each of them hold no opposition toward each other, despite their ostensible inconsistency. Rather, none are true except in their very core, where that man came into place. Of all the things in the dream-like reality of my shifting memories, only he remained consistent.

          Whether it has been twelve years or not, I will begin at the point where I lost all that was valuable in life. My life had changed when I had met that man. Before then, I recall dimly the silhouette of those seemingly bygone days. I recall I had once been a person. Yes, I was simply a person then, one who could feel mortality and grasp at its impossible edges. That was long ago, but I remember.

          Although forgotten, I was at least able to comprehend my standing in the universe as I knew it. I was nobody, nothing when compared to the infinite cosmos. My reality was merely my own, while others’ were their own, each individual, each nothing. In spite of this, I still had something. I had the knowledge that I was not alone.

          Even with this knowledge, I had discovered that I did not feel like I belonged amidst society and its confines, and I roamed the earth in search of meaning. I assume I had undertaken this almost futile quest for many years, but never did I expect it would yield such hideous results that I now know.

          The end of my search must have come when I was about to abandon the unattainable goal. The memory usually begins in the secluded highlands, but it is also takes place frequently in lowlands, oceans, marshes, deserts, at night, at day, in the winter, in the spring. It is impossible to dictate how all these could be so at the same time. Although this is not necessary to comprehend, all are needed to be implied in order to honestly convey the experience. I suppose I must recite it as how it happened most often in my memories.

          I was up in a series of withdrawn and reclusive mountains where stone ridges filled the skies of day and the heavens of the night. It was there that I was ready to leave my objective behind as a lost cause. It was there that I had encountered him.

          He came out of the night toward me. I did not know why at that moment, but I eerily perceived my life had changed when I saw him approach. He sat down by me, and I could not help but stare at him. There was something mystical, something unnatural about the naturalness of this man, and I saw hints of these qualities emerge from him. When I brought this up to the man, he did something I thought was odd. In one memory, he smiled, and I thought that was odd. In another, he held a straight face, and that too was abnormal. He had frowned, looked intently upon me, shut his eyes, startled, grown afraid, stood, laughed, and done countless other things, all of which were inexplicably odd.

          After his reaction, he beckoned me with his hand to draw closer to him. He spoke of strange things that held my attention out of the sheer eccentricity of his queer notions. He disclosed to me that the universe was not as I had viewed it. He told me that he and I were. The two of us were the only entities in the whole essence of existence, that everything about us was merely an interpretation and projection of our wills. Naturally, I scoffed at such an absurd notion, for such a thing was not possible. I told him that if such a thing were true, I would surely be aware of my own presence as being one that manipulated the universe. I also pointed out that I had never just existed for all continuance, for I had been born a finite amount of time ago. At that, the man told me time was but an impressionistic guise we had evolved into being for our own convenience. He then asked me a particularly weird question, for he had asked if my life had appeared infinite, if only to myself; if it currently seemed to have no apparent beginning or end.

          I considered his statement and question, and I answered it as best I could. In my answer, I spliced my disregard toward his radical beliefs. I could only guess as to where this man was trying to lead me. All the while, I easily observed that he recognized my incredulity, and he tried yet again to convince me of the authenticity of his statements. He told me he could demonstrate the powers he possessed, and with that, I could only behold in awe an experience almost too unbelievable to bear witness.

          He did not stand, he did not wave a hand, nor did he incite wild words. He did nothing, yet he had changed everything. The skies above ripped open, revealing the insanity of the cosmos beyond; the terrain had vanished into a pseudo-world of fantastically bizarre qualities; the air drafted itself into void; and time fell into discontinuity.

          Upon witnessing this disillusionment of reality, my mind reeled at the boundless grandeur of it all. At first, I did not know how to respond to its chaotic magnitude, but later, at the same moment, I came to desire the sound world and its laws as I had known them. And with that, I was back where I was. The man, too, was there. I remember I had an impulse to fear him but had withheld that feeling in order to stare in shock at the man.

          The man asserted to my skeptical mind many abstruse things. He said that everything, not just the universe, but including the natural laws, time, existence, people, even our bodily selves, was false. They were all manifestations of our wills. He explained that these were created as a nest for our wills to root themselves, something which could create order amongst nothing; and nothing was also an interpretation we had placed into effect. The world was exactly how we wanted it, and I had already brought this into effect by my will since the beginning. He professed that I had recently altered reality yet again—when he subjected it to chaotic change and I wanted the world back. My will had come into being, sculpting my surroundings back to how they were. He asked me to desire again, to prove I could consciously modify.

          This rush of unknown and frightening knowledge whirled about me as I tried to understand and defy its basis. Seeing my reluctance, the man demonstrated his will again.

          We were situated amidst a society that thronged with people. He forced upon me my own reason, and I now saw that the people were false, and I saw for the first time that they were grotesque extensions of me. The man paused as if to allow me to explore this revelation. Hesitantly, I chose to want, but that want slowly faded into meaningless purpose as I came to conceive of the infinite grasp of my power. I quickly apprehended that if all was my desires, then soon I would have none, for all desire would lose its hold upon me.

          I recall that the man had disappeared, and that I was never able to find him. It took me long afterwards to come to believe that he was yet another extension of my will, that I had unknowingly used him to uncover the truth to myself. But then, he had simply disappeared, leaving me alone, utterly alone. Denial was easier to uphold than acceptance, and for years, I debated and battled with myself about the whole truth of the matter. As time passed along though, I found that I was more susceptible to the ghastly truth, and that I began to not care. Want no longer held any foundation in my life, but reality still existed. I must have had the minute desire for a reality of any sort to thwart the other route. It may be fear that keeps reality, but I do not know for sure. But all I know is that the source of keeping reality is disintegrating by oppressive indifference, for why should I live any longer when nothing exists? Why should I strive to keep myself existent? My hold on instincts that have the urge to survive is lessening; I can feel it happening. Perhaps ultimate nihility, the annihilation of myself will end the purposeless meaning of existence. Perhaps; I do not know, but I will soon find out.