Dot on a Page

Year 53… or maybe 110. Who knows? I lay here in nowhere staring up at the vast and infinite nothingness, the heavy void that looks capable of crushing both me and this bare land. The sky, a grim mirror, is empty, absent maybe. My mind has roamed through every possible thought. It is like counting to infinity, being here. The murder of the world could not justly warrant such a reward. This place makes prison a paradise, makes noise a long-lost blessing. I make sounds to myself to remember that I am not deaf. But what good is hearing anyway? Maybe I am deaf, having nothing to hear. Even death should be brighter than this. I have been driven too far away from the real world that even my memories are fading, and that is the chilliest idea. They are my most precious, well, my only possession. Even they have begun to decay. If I lose them completely, then what do I have? Time ago, while thinking of such things, I would become scared and my heart would race, but it seems time is stealing even my feelings away. Am I still human? Then again, time itself has become an absurd thing, a meaningless notion that has no bearing on me. Since nothing is happening and I do not age, I can even safely say that time is not here. Not even Time accompanies me.

Think, think, think… Why am I even here? I pressure my mind until it digs something up. I can sigh. I have remembered something. Or is my mind just making things up to replace all that has left it? I stand again and look about the dim wasteland. There is no sense in walking. Everywhere is the same. There are no trees, no buildings, no sounds. Before being here, such an empty place would have been impossible to imagine. The old sounds and images I used to cling to so tightly have become vague and distorted, even missing altogether. My mind has been through every phase there is, every stage brought forth by complete loneliness. All but one that is. I am at the final stage, well I hope it is, total collapse. The moment I stretch and ache my mind and I can remember nothing, I will forget that I am human. I will simply die, well so I hope anyway.

Oh, I remember! Yes… I can remember now. But somehow, these memories are stripped of the feelings they once harbored. Three men came in with noise and drove everyone in my house to a panic. They killed my children and my wife and I shot them both. Both? But weren’t there three? Maybe just two… No-one believed me and I was sent here… No, no, no…Was I a terrorist? Maybe. I might have been capable. But why not just prison? Why did they send me all the way out here? Why not death row? What could I have done? Kill the president? Or was it a Prime Minister… Who was I? But why would I have been a criminal? Didn’t I know this would be the result? Where… Where is this place? Another planet? Is this place even real? Is this a nightmare? Am I in a coma or something?

Where was I before this? The numbing feeling of total loss is coming upon me as I feel my very consciousness slipping. What am I becoming? With no emotion or memory left, can I still call myself a human being? An ageless being who is greater than time and feeling… “Ha!” I shout to the void. “I am a god! A god! That’s what I am!” But not even my echo responds. I ponder. I forget what I am thinking about.

What is that?! A light! I look up to the sky quickly as I am almost sure I see something.