Nothing is Here

Nothing Is Here
A short story by AJ Peaslee

I thought she didn’t love me anymore. Whenever we talked, she wouldn’t pay any attention to me. This was the same with my friends and family. It was almost like I became an outcast to everyone and know one had told me why. Why did everyone suddenly hate me? I even went to my job, and the workers didn’t even see me. What the hell happened to me! Had my life gone into one big stupor or was the world suddenly in a state of insanity? My brain swam about like fish to a man’s lure. WHAT the hell was wrong with me? Or maybe I should say them. When I thought back to the days before this incident, I realized that nothing had ever gone wrong, at least nothing I could remember. I also noticed strange messages all the time, on my cigarette pack read:“ dearly beloved, we gather here today”. It was scrawled in black chicken scratch pen, and my clock never changed from reading 5:34. I sat in my large leather computer chair, dwelling on this most depressing matter. The phone rang and I picked it up, and it was my best friend cairo. I spoke, but he didn’t hear me and he eventually hung up. Was I invisible? Or even worse….dead? Even food or drink didn’t taste the same, it didn’t feel real at all. Perhaps this was an endless nightmare that I would soon awake from, if it was, it could end anytime now. I loafed around, waiting for my wife, Emily, to get home. When she did I asked her if I could make her dinner and she just sighed and walked into the bedroom. I followed and asked why she didn’t hear me, which proved to be futile, as she ignored me again. I stormed out of the room, raving and ranting, hating life as it was. I sat outside in the brisk cold and just stared at the slow falling snow. Strange, it’s been snowing five days straight, although it never piled up too bad, it just snowed and didn’t stick. A tear came to my eye, and I wanted to cry on someone’s shoulder, a somebody that wasn’t there. Know one to hear my screams and prayers.
Things began to go ballistic and and take a far darker and worse turn. I awoke in my room, of course my wife wasn’t there. I went to go brush my teeth, when I turned the faucet on. A grimy brown liquid poured out the jet stream and it looks utterly hideous. I quickly turned it off and went to the kitchen. I hadn’t noticed earlier, but there was no sun outside. The clock said 5:34 am, and the sun should have been making its haste over the trees. It was only darkness and nothing more. I was scared to death and went to the front door, I opened it and a blinding flash of white light struck me. I awoke, in my room, again, to see the sun shining thought the small cracks behind the blinds. The clock said 7:20 am and, of course, the faucet was normal. Was it all one big dream? My wife had work anyway so she wouldn’t be here. Was I in such a twisted state of mind?! To think everyone despised me and couldn’t care for my life??? I let out a deep sigh and walked to the kitchen to make breakfast. The fridge held eggs, bacon, milk, and various other things. Bacon and eggs sounded damn good right about now. After I cooked the food, I went to the coffee table to eat. It looked delicious. I took a bite of the creamy white and yellow egg, to find out, there was no taste. Maybe it was too early, I took another bite and still no taste. I dropped the fork in a state of awe. My head began to feel light and blank. My hopes had just came to a crashing halt, like a man without a seatbelt, my mind died. I sat on the couch, smoking a cigarette and feeling useless again. Then something came to mind…..the number on the clock…….5:34!

Damn it all to hell! 5:34 was the time I was suppost to meet Emily at the airport to go to Paris! I didn’t make that flight, and I remember that four days ago was our anniversary. That would explain why she would be so mad at me, but it didn’t explain anything else, not the other people or things that suddenly became horrific. Was my life all just one shallow ending to a story? NO! I refuse to accept that, I will find out what is going on. Talking to everyone in the world isn’t going to help me, I need to discover what is going on myself.

I then sat at the coffee table, pondering and swimming in my own logic. I smoked cigarette after cigarette thinking and wondering. I tried to remember why I didn’t make that flight, but it was useless, it was like someone put a black curtian over that memory so I could never know its truth. I stormed out of the house, speed walking up the road in a fury of fire. As I walked by a garage, I saw my wife’s Pontiac sunfire resting inside, one whole side was demolished and it looked like the “jaws of life’ had its way with it. Had my wife gotten into an accident this morning? I began to panic and ran inside to see Michael, the local mechanic, and an old friend working inside. I started shouting at him and he didn’t notice of course, but then he looked at me and finally spoke. I was in a state of awe, someone finally heard me!!! I looked at him and asked why the car was here and he said this…

“How?! Your….No way!!! Your not suppost to be here, its not possible!!! I don’t belive in damn spooks, but I’am looking at one, actually talking to ONE! Your dead! My god, how are you still alive? I don’t understand this! You got into a car accident going to meet Emily at the airport……at 5:34.…” Michael stuttered with fear.

I turned white as a ghost, was I truly dead? No… it couldn’t be… but it explains everything….no…NO! I don’t want to be sitting in the earth rotting and being used as maggot feed! I ran as fast as I could with my black ladden lungs to Floraling Graveyard and amongst the tombstones, was my name….”Dearly beloved, we gather here today over Axel Treans grave today, he will be greatly missed.”
THE END