~Short Story~

*Graphic Content Warning*

I once knew comfort. Though in hindsight it was never so. Just a certain numbness that was easy enough to maintain. It was a monotonous tedium but alas it was easy in a certain sense. I had no need to decide, I felt not the burden of that responsibility. I did not need the truth for the wine was of much sweeter taste, a far more intoxicating drink than that bitterest truth. Oh truth, thou hast eroded mine comfort, poisoned my ignorance, the wellspring of my bliss.

Now should I choose to drink in that tainted bliss is surely to perish in spirit. Yet I now thirst, a deeper desire than that I have previously known. It aches within me, and now I fear to drink in this sweet elixir of which I have fancied. Though still, I want of it more than before. I want with such dark conviction that which now I know I must have not. Oh, such woe is mine, to desire so plainly that which once cured yet now known to poison.

A choice then, to partake again the wine, to drown thine self rather than face that horrid truth. To live a coward, a fool in mine illusory comforts? To kill the last embers of a great potential life that still desires to burn within. Alas though I fear that truth, with every atom in mine being. A fear that cannot be now truthfully expressed in write nor speech. It is not a fear born of any physical suffering nor torture, far deeper into the darkest depths of mine soul it reaches down. It shakes the very ground I stand, the essence of all I believe myself to be.

To face mine greatest fear or choose to die comfortably numb, eternally a slave.

I can offer no judgments to those who choose comfort in their vice. To be held secure and stable is a great pacification. Though I find I cannot offend the gift of this life granted unto me. I will not douse the heat I feel in my heart, that rouses this mind and wakes this body. Rather I choose to feed this tiny flame with all that I am. To plunge this being into that void, the brightest and darkest. Nothing and still somehow everything.

Clinging to the edge for but a moment I relax my grip and fall.

Here a moment’s glimpse of peace as I find myself free of mine vice and so find an escape. No more a slave, but now adrift, freefalling down, down, and still further down. Falling and falling without any sort of a tether. With this sudden realization, a cruel panic wraps sharp icy fingers around my being and begins to squeeze. Tighter and tighter, colder and colder. Slowly so painfully slowly crushing all the empty space within. A final breath escapes these lungs in a painful wheeze, though I try with intense desperation I cannot now draw in another. A heart now thuds painfully in this chest, its echoes fill this head. It’s as if each beat is smashing against this skull. Each time the heart thumps it exerts an unimaginable pressure in the skin, through this face pushing out. The eyes feel ready to escape the confines of their sockets. Still tighter and tighter I am gripped in such a powerful force of panic as I flail deeper and deeper into that unknown void.

After suffering this for a seemed eternity I feel I cannot stand the building anguish a moment more. I close these eyes and surrender myself to what seems an imminent death. In an instant, the panic releases my being. My lungs begin to draw in the deepest, fullest breath I have ever experienced. Tears of relief and an unexplainable joy well in my eyes and flood down my cheeks. The peace I glimpsed for such a brief moment returns in an overwhelming abundance I could have scarcely allowed myself to dream such a possibility. That’s when I hear the voice. It’s not a scary voice, but rather one that is inexplicably both a loving father and a tender mother.

 “Now let go.”

I obey this command without question, now fully at peace. Exhaling my lungs, I let go fully. In this action, death finds this body and gently with great care takes it back from my possession. I now watch as the body floats out before me in the blackness of the void, I can see it so clearly. Yet it’s different now, no longer mine it seems to be less. As though a light that once burned was extinguished.

Turning gently, they set the body flat before me and I watch as it begins to decay. Slowly the skin darkens then shrivels eventually opening around the bones. I witness as crawly creatures and unseen bacteria begin to consume the flesh I collected over a lifetime. Wriggling and writhing the skin sinks and falls. Those old bones separate from the muscles that once animated the body and soon stand alone. Laid out the smooth white bones seem to almost shine before me. Soon enough they too crumble and turn to dust.

Once again, I heard the voice speak.

“That wasn’t so bad?”

I spoke in a whisper.

“It was wonderful.”

I made no attempt to cover the unmistakable awe in my voice. It was more than just awe though; it was deeper, more complete.  Something closer to understanding, a certain indescribable knowing. That woeful burning itch that once coiled within me seemed sated. Here there was no one to be, nothing to forgive. In this space, I both was and was not. Everything and nothing all at once. Describing such a state seems folly as the words would only confuse.

The voice spoke once more, the sound all around me, within me said.

“When you’re ready you can try again.”

“I’m ready.”

I said speaking very light and calm.  

“Learn as much as you can.”

And it was so, the void gave way to light.

The End