For the Story

I live in the asshole of the universe. The very darkest, depraved pit of this world is where I reside permanently. Honestly I cannot even say that I live, I exist, that is all I do. Day by day I merely exist. I don’t move forward, I don’t move backward... I stagnate. I am becoming a smoldering mass of unmovable nothing. I feel like I’m standing, frozen in the middle of everything while the world moves past me in a blur. I exist for now, hoping and dreaming of better days. I am bathed in light while dark shadows dash past me in a confused haze leaving nothing but residual memories. Memories that have no place in this world. This asshole of the universe. Memories have no place in a world where they are not valued, where they are discarded. I realized with this last thought that my internal monologues were becoming increasingly cynical and depressive. Shit. Of course they were.

Snapping out of it I open the small crystal flask I carry with me, I flick the lid open and extend my arm above my head as high as I possibly can. Closing my eyes I recite the short incantation the old man taught me. A whisper, a familiar shiver down my spine, a gust of wind and like a black hole all the memories aimlessly floating in this nothing find themselves drawn to me… my flask… I can feel the buzz of the energy in my hand. As the last one slips in I flip the lid and close the bottle. My heart feels the cold desolate grip of each lost memory, but more than anything I am enveloped by the warmth of contentment, thankful for each memory gained, a memory added where I have none. My bliss interrupted by yet another uncontrolled cynical rant. Screams of “I hate this place”. “I hate this feeling of not moving”. “I hate!!!!”… always with the hate. “Fine… nothing then”. Going nowhere. I feel like I am nothing, I have nothing. Nothing but memories, memories that don’t even belong to me. I don’t claim them, I don’t make them mine. I honour them because those who created them never did. They never knew how, just like I never...nevermind.

I open the bottle again, a low whistle as the old man taught me, and the memories come pouring out. They settle perfectly into place leaving behind but a wisp of a time gone by. I take a step back and once again admire my collection, my cause, my reason. A wall so great it could be a house, one built entirely of lost memories. A wall that, at first glance, looks perfect. Only a couple of memories missing, the difficult ones, the important ones. A wall of memories. Soon I will have found them all and the next part of my task will begin. This perfectly laid out story will have its chance to play out. It will be beautiful and I will have played a crucial, yet greatly unknown role in it. Until that day, I remain here. I live in the asshole of the universe chasing memories that aren’t mine to remember, I search, I find, I construct… I exist. But not for me. For the story.

Every time I look up at this wall its like the moment before death. Or what I imagine death must be like. My entire life flashes before my eyes. Well. Parts of it anyway. I remember so little that each flash is like a new story, one that I will soon forget again. Looking at your life as a bystander, a narrator, it’s not a great feeling. Knowing the flashes are from your own memory, unable to remember most of it. I don’t know. It seems like the life I lived wasn’t mine to live, I have no right of memory to it, I have no right to recall or remember. The memories that flash so vividly through my mind are almost exactly like this wall. Countless memories, not one belonging to me, consume me and for mere seconds become mine. Then like a flash, disappear as though it never happened. I can always remember that it did, but cannot recall the exact memory. This frustration drives me a little madder every day, I often think it is also what drives me to complete this curse of a task.

A crack of the door behind me distracts me momentarily. I know its just Zia, but sometimes I hope for more. Someone else. Just something different than this perpetual disillusioned nothing. It feels so never-ending. My reverie is broken when Zia hands me a package. A small leather envelope type box tied together at the top with black string. I take out the small paper with a handwritten message on it and chuck the box in the corner on top of the rest. I must admit I enjoy the dramatics. Simple orders brought by personal messenger daily, wrapped in identical boxes. Carrying an order. A location. A deadline. Well, sort of a deadline, time is relative anyway.

Everything around me, every feeling, intention, thought… I … its like I can feel each one. Like a sunrise over a desert.. dusty rays playing over the planes. Something not quite tangible. Something just out of my reach. Something which forever eludes me. Occasionally wisps of memories will drift carelessly from the wall and surround me, envelop me, touches light as air swirling around my decaying (maybe) body. Catching me off guard. Sometimes I just sit in front of the wall. Sit and listen to the voices of these collected memories. I can hardly remember it but somehow they make me miss being human. For a while, until I remember how absolutely terrible it is. Feeling. Thinking. Not knowing the answers to any of the questions. Awful humans being completely oblivious to everything but their own little lives. The insignificance of it all baffles me.

When perspective strikes like this, I actually have it good. There’s no one to bother me or piss me off, only the occasional shuffle of Zia’s little feet. Thump thump shuffle shuffle “message sir” shuffle shuffle thump thump… quiet. Sometimes the silence is deafening. Uncannily, just before it gets too much Zia makes an appearance. Another location of another “important one” to collect and another insignificant significant piece of this boundless puzzle. Just enough to keep me distracted. Not too distracted to forget though. This purgatory of the mind, a vicious cycle of tasks and missions, rinse and repeat. The perpetual rinse and repeat.

Sometimes I try and figure out ‘days’. Trying to find ways to count hours passing and determining when is morning and when is night is not an easy task. It doesn’t work in this desolate place.

It was one of my bored days. Waiting for my next “assignment”. Trying to figure out how time works in this place when a memory hit me. A flash… blinding light and then nothing… then a stream of voices muttering… shouting… yearning… begging all at once flood my ears, eyes.. every sense. A voice, soft at first but becoming increasingly louder drowned out the rest of them. A white voice… a voice only comparable to white light… bright, white light drowning out everything else. A whisper… “I hoped… I hoped my life would be” and the voice faded, inaudible for a moment, “..would be like one never ending line. Uninterrupted, unspoilt and unbroken. A continuous flow of everything… everything and nothing”. I snapped back to reality for a moment, trying to figure out what was happening. Who was this? Was it one of my own memories? Someone else cal… my confusion cut short by the blinding voice once again. There was something different in the voice… a hint of… what was it… hope?... desperation?...

“I wanted images and words spliced together as though at random, meanwhile perfectly planned and decided. Beautiful moments of meaningful nothingness. Lost in the unknown, unaware the brevity of it all.

Experiencing everything as if for the first time, every time.

Breathe… Breath… changes into a plea of desperate hope. I hoped my life would be something. I hoped for all that is not superfluous. I hoped for experience and meaning over clarity. Like looking at the ocean through fogged up lenses. Able to make out hazy outlines but no clear image.

A dreamy haze… dreamy haze… haze… A forgotten…”

…the voice trailed off and dissipated, leaving me feeling alone for the first time that I could remember. Sitting in this terribly uncomfortable chair in a room that had never felt this big and empty. My nausea evaporated as I heard the familiar click of Zia opening the door. Another distraction. Not a welcome one this time. I needed time to think about what had just happened… about who had just… My mind was still racing when Zia handed me two box-envelopes. I barely noticed the break in routine. It was only when Zia spoke that I stepped slightly back into reality.

“They said yer gettin close to the end now, said yed be getting fidgety. Best to keep ye busy they said”.

I looked down to the two packages representing tasks that used to make me feel like I had a purpose. As if I’d be contributing something in the big scheme of things. I was beginning to doubt my significance. That’s probably why they kept me alone, so I wouldn’t realize how lonely I am and how useless. I looked at Zia, trying to force a smile. The only words I could find came out as a feeble muttering of “busy, yeah”. Zia’s face twisted into an expression I didn’t recognize, why was he looking at me like this? What was it..? I felt like I shoulve known what he was thinking and feeling but for some reason his expression baffled me. I guess me staring at him made him uncomfortable, because he shook his head, turned around and walked out with his shuffle shuffle thump thump.

The next couple of assignments went effortlessly. Easy, no trouble, no bother. My mind though, preoccupied with memories of that voice, was not completely on the job. I tried countless times to recall exactly what it had said. I tried to call on it. Nothing worked. Another long wait was drawing to a close. I knew Zia would be here soon with another task. I was sitting on the uncomfortable chair in the big lonely room again. I don’t know how it happened but before I could register what was happening, I looked up and saw nothing but white. The faintly familiar tickle of that voice in my ears… as though it had never left, as though she had been speaking inside me the entire time. Like a flood I remember every word that had been said in our previous encounter. Was this an encounter or was I just losing it? Before I could get lost in my own mind her voice of white light broke the dark silence that deafened me. “Forgotten… a forgotten form, but an obscure outline… an outline burnt into my memory… eternally. A blurred memory, no… no… rather… a feeling… or an emotion, yes… emotion. Like a nostalgic blur… one that I can carry with me in my heart… and mind as I travelled the dusty roads into past and future, the roads… the ones that lead me to and from my destiny. I hoped to travel these roads with nothing but a blurry haze occupying my mind… occupying… and … and enveloping my heart. My travellers soul to be perpetually burdened with a vague sense of … at times contentment… and others melancholy nostalgia… melancholy… nostalgia…”

The last syllable echoed through my mind for a while. The room felt empty again. Lonely and cold. What was happening to me? Resting my head in my hands I felt tiny droplets of sweat trickle down my fingers. Sweat? I haven’t perspired in… I don’t even know… with each of these experiences it felt as though I was gaining back pieces of my humanity. I suddenly felt tired. Drained and exhausted by what I could only describe as an ordeal. Fatigue, another experience that had eluded me since the loss of my humanity. Who was the keeper of this mysterious disembodied voice and why could I hear it. It wasn’t one of the memories, I knew this, I had been through them all at some stage… I would’ve remembered. The tone even… it didn’t sound like a memory… it was too hopeful… a declaration… a wish… a grouping of words captured in a sigh of utter futility. The futile wishes and hopes of someone who had long since accepted their fate and their insignificance in this world. Why could I hear it, that’s what I wanted to know.