Friday Freewrite

I walked a long way yesterday.  Walked right out of my head and into the black beyond.  Have you ever been there?  Not to my black beyond, I mean, but to yours?  Well they might be the same one I'm really not sure.  No one ever talks about it.  Most people probably don't know it's there.

But it is.  It's the reason we're scared of the dark.  Scared of what follows behind.  Scared of what comes after.

Because we already know: we carry it around with us in our heads all the time.  In the back, in a small unseen corner that never gets dusted there is a door.  Mine's large and wooden with big iron straps on it and a large iron ring for a handle.  It's a very heavy door and it's only meant to be opened once.  You know when.

But this is me we're talking about and I've always been too curious by half about what goes on in my brain.  So there I was poking around where I shouldn't be and I found this door in front of me.  How very odd.  Right at the limit of my brain, right at the curving wall of my consciousness I find a door to...what?  How could there be a door at the edge of me?  Where would it go?

Surprisingly it wasn't hard to open.  I just had to really want to go through it--but then, most people probably don't ever want to run out on themselves so their door stays shut tight and unnoticed in their undusted corner.

I think it's been calling to me lately.  I used to shout at it--or it would shout at me, I was never sure--'what are you?'  What are you?

Recently it's been a bit different.  Something's been calling back 'Come here.'  Come here.

Yes.  I'm coming.

Through the daily worries and joys I'm coming.  Past the shoulds and the should-nots I'm coming.  Past the buried emotions and the rock bottom instincts I'm coming.

Come Here.

I'm at the door.  I'm coming.

Come Here.

I'm here.

Here.

Oh God it's so dark it's so empty there's light above me and I think it was the door I came through but it's such a small patch of not-dark now and I think I'm falling further and further away and am I breathing I can't tell anymore if I'm breathing maybe I don't need to breathe anymore I've fallen right out of my body is my body breathing is it all right how will I ever get back how will I ever get out of this black beyond the black the black oh God it's so empty and I'm so small I'm getting smaller I don't know how I know but I'm getting smaller the black is taking everything away and soon I won't be able to go back there'll be nothing left of me

That's it.  That's what the black beyond is.  It's nothing.  Forever.  And you wonder why we all dream of falling and falling and never hitting the ground until BAM!  We jerk awake in our beds and tell ourselves it was just a dream, just a nightmare.  It wasn't real.  It couldn't be real.

We don't know that what we're really experiencing is time in reverse: a memory of what is to come.  The black beyond is stalking us in our heads and we don't even know it's there.

Don't go there.  Don't find your door whatever it looks like.  Don't wish to see what's on the other side.  There's a price if you want to come back.  A price to pay that you might not want to.  Because the price to pay to come back is to come back and live forever with the knowledge of what's inside waiting.  There's too much truth living in you now for all the lies and fakery to fit.  There's no place you fit anymore.  But there will always be the door.  Always the black beyond.  And when you finally dissolve into it maybe it won't be black anymore.  Maybe it won't be empty.  Maybe.

Friday Free-write: Eternity

In a hollow world there waits a hollow key.  Their hollow quality is prized by connoisseurs who are full of nothing full, and therefore are too empty to eat any more.  They've grown fat on the emptiness of ages where nothing happens because why bother?  All loose skin now and tight stomachs craving just another bit of ennuitic desperation.  Because why not?  What else not to live for? 

I had a dream where I lost my ring and when I found it again it was only a twisted wisp of wire--nothing like I knew it was.  A small loss, except when you account for the fact that I'm always losing rings for one reason or another.  A broken chain, a broken promise, a broken ring.  I break them all and forfeit surety of mind but it's just a dream, isn't it?  I haven't lost it all, have I? 

Duality requires function. 

I'm afraid of endings where the ending means I won't be coming back at all and then one day I'll look at me and wonder where I came from.

Separation Anxiety

~(singsong tone) She's being lazy, she's being lazy.
--I believe the correct term is uninspired.
~Lazy.
!Are we talking about something?!  What is it?!  I want to talk!
~Save us all.  It wants to talk.
--I believe you assigned Enthusiasm to the female gender.
~Who cares?  I can say anything I want.  It's not like She's going to do anything about it.  Lazy bum.  Do you know what she really wants to be doing right now?
--Her thoughts seem to incline towards watching Star Trek: Voyager.
~I told you so.  Lazy!
!Lazy!
~Thank you.
!Lazy!  Lazy!
~I already said thank you, you're not getting thanked twice.  I've already used up this year's quota.
!Lazy!  Lazy!  Lazy!
~Will you cut it out already?
!Lazy!  Lazy!
~When you say it that many times it doesn't even sound like anything, you're completely losing the point--
!Lazy!  Lazy!  It's fun to say!
>You do realize that this is the signal of the decline of life as we know it?  If She can't even be bothered to write her own posts about interesting--
~Ha!
>or uninteresting things, what's going to happen?  It can't be anything good.  She's probably deathly ill and too weak to write, or maybe she just doesn't care about life anymore and she's giving up on the whole shebang--
!Lazy!  Lazy!  Lazy!  Lazy!
~Or she's lazy.
>Oh no, it has to be something worse than that.  She's abandoning us, you see.  She's making us do her work for her and she'll go off and find better things to do than spend time with us and we'll be left here endlessly talking about nothing and nothing and nothing...
~You are far too depressing.  Get a life.
>But I can't!  None of us can.  Don't you understand?  We're completely dependent on her for everything.  Without her we're nothing!
!Nothing!
~Oh no.
!Nothing!
>Why does she keep saying that?
!Nothing!
>Tell her to stop, she's upsetting me.
~Everything upsets you.  Breathing upsets you.
>Breathing is upsetting!  What if it stops?  We'll all die!
!Die!  Nothing!  Die!
>Make her stop.
~Heh.  You ever try to get Enthusiasm to stop anything?
>Well maybe if you explained the state of my nerves--
~Seriously?  You think explaining will mean anything to her?  She's got a terminal case of goldfish syndrome.
--That is not a real syndrome.
~Shove off.
>Goldfish syndrome?
!Die!  Die!  Nothing!  Lazy!
~It would take far to long to explain.
--This is not a real syndrome.  How could it take a long time to explain?
~I'll cut it short for you by telling you the only thing you can do if someone has goldfish syndrome is either wait them out, or change the tune to something you like.
>I don't understand.
!Die!  Lazy!  Lazy!  Nothing!
~Step right this way for an astounding demonstration of skill and derring-do.
--It is impossible for us to step anywhere as we are merely--
~Hey Enthusiasm!
!Enthusiasm!  That's me!  Lazy!  Lazy!
~What do you think of spoons?
!Spoons?!  I like spoons!  Spoon!  Spoon!  Spoon!
>Aaarrghggghhh!  You made it worse!
~Heheheheh.

Never in a month of Tuesdays...

Hello March, good to see you again.  Sort of.  Well, at least you're better than February.  Except for your habit of throwing that last blizzard at us every year.  Although this year it was kinda pitiful.  Do you mind if I use that word?  Pitiful?  'Cause it really was.  Barely a flurry.  Didn't even stick over a day. 

I only say this because I'm concerned for you.  Back in the day you were the terror of my sister's party plans.  Because sure enough, no matter when we chose to have her birthday party, you'd send one whomping blizzard to crash it and ensure that it would have to be postponed.  Every year.

So what's up?  Feeling a bit poorly, are we?  Not quite as up to snuff as you used to be?  Or have you caught one of those nasty bugs doing the circuit?  That really nasty stomach bug--or maybe that cold virus doing an understudy for the flu?  He hasn't made much of an appearance this year either.  Huh.  Maybe whatever you've got is catching.  Stay away from Spring then, if you don't mind.  I'd rather she didn't have to delay her annual pilgrimage because you were too impolite to carry a hanky.

We haven't talked for a while, March.  Anything new in your neck of the woods?  No?  Same old, same old?  yeah,well, me too. 

What?

You think I'm stuck in a rut?  Who're you to talk?  Every year it's the same deal.  They even gave you a saying because you're so predictable.  'In like a lion, out like a lamb.'   I mean, every year there's the blizzard, the wind, the cold that just warm enough to make things drizzly but still cold enough to be mean.  When do you ever mix it up and pretend to be September, or July?  Never, that's when.  So don't you tell me I'm stuck in a rut.  Tua raeda en fossa adhuc immobilis.  And it's been there a long time.  Getting kinda moldy if you ask me.

What?  You can't remember your Latin?  This is really an all time low for you, isn't it, March?  You were named after the Roman god of war, and you can't remember your Latin?  Jeesh, age is really catching up to you.  What are you, nearly 3,000 years old?  I'm surprised you can even remember your name. 

All right, all right, I'm sorry about the age dig.  And the latin dig.  (it means that your carriage is still stuck in the ditch).  You're still a better month than February.  No no, I mean it.  I hate February.  Worst month of the year.

Friday Free-write: Something to Come Home To.

Far far away under golden trees and auburn skies, there lived a small family.  They sang to the dawn each morning to tell it hello, we're glad to see you again.  The dawn was glad to see them too.  It never liked being far away but it only got to spend a small time with the family.  After dawn was day and dusk and night, and only then did dawn come around again just in time to hear singing as it came up over the horizon.  It wasn't much, but it made him soar.