Speak Nonsense

            The smile is sickening. The glass would probably crack soon from it. I wipe it off my face. There's no need to get into troubles that aren't worth it. I leave the bathroom, leave the razors on the cabinet and leave the pills on their bottles. There's time for that later.

   A lot of things could happen to someone. A lot of things couldn't happen to someone, too. Like happiness. Sadness, too, and a whole lot of things that could be stuffed back to hell. Or back to Pandora's box. Pithos. Whatever. I blame that woman for everything.

   Then again, what would happen if she didn't open the pithos? Maybe I won't be here, right now, contemplating random things that makes no sense. Maybe I won't be here, thinking of things I'd like to think about before I try to off myself. A lot of things won't happen. I don't really like the way fate works.

   It's like Schrödinger's cat all over again. Whether she open or not open the pithos affects the future. She has no knowledge whether there will be something inside or not. Looks like instead of killing the cat, the poison ends up mutating it. And that werecat ate the whole mankind and vomited it out again.

   It's strange, what the brain does to distract itself from remembering its doom.

I walk to the balcony. Only a gray, dark sky greets me.

 

IV

In this valley of dying stars

 

I cursed. It was seven thirty and they won't be letting anyone in at eight. I won't make it in time.

   The phone rung. I ignored it, trying to run faster. It was nearly impossible with the amount of people in the streets. I was like an atom�"moving 500 metres per second but colliding too much to get anywhere. Apologies was like a chant under my breath, something I didn't bother caring about. The phone rung to accompany it.

 

   I reached the hospital. Running up the stairs, down the halls, stopping in front of the door. My brother, still in his suit, shook his head.

  'How is she?'

  'Why didn't you answer my call?'

  'Too busy. How is she?'

  'I've been trying to tell you.'

  'Tell me now.'

  'She died. She died just one hour ago. They just brought her out. The funeral's tomorrow.' His eyes shone, and even if he wasn't bawling, or on the floor clawing at it and yelling from the unfairness of this all, I knew he felt the same. It was just one of us needed to be strong. And I let him fill that role.

I didn't know whether my sight disappeared, or the stars blurred, but I looked out of the window and saw nothing but black clouds and pouring of the rain.

 

   When one wants to die, destructive habits doesn't matter anymore. They just contribute to the inevitable. I run through everything I know, but I can't seem to find a fitting metaphor. Perhaps it's just something too morbid for nature to try. Taking a drag from my cigarette, I let my thoughts drift.

   I wonder when everyone seem to associate stars with hope. Perhaps it was since the ancient times, where they think that stars hold all hidden knowledge and are the gods. Maybe those information are passed down by collective consciousness. There is no need to question things like that. It just happens.

   It's a bit like fate. Collective consciousness and all the rationalising of universe is science, therefore fate must at least slightly resemble science, slightly being the keyword. I wonder who arranges fate, and how humanity acts. I wonder what makes him consider people acting like I do�"thinking of offing myself. I wonder if he knows the way I will die. I wonder if he knows I'll be trying to fly.

   The smoke I exhale disappears into the night without leaving any trace of ever existing.

 

II

Let me be no nearer

 

   I had a considerably good future. A job I liked, even if it didn't truly cover my passions. A nice family who still accepted me. A decent life.

  Decent was enough for me.

  I could have made it better easily. Find a job that would give me higher pays for doing something I love. Find someone, maybe. I didn't know why I didn't do that.

  Perhaps it was just a fear of change. Balance was always lying on a thin thread, breaking as soon as a feather lands on a side. One miscalculation and everything would be like a star edging too close to a black hole. Sucked into nothingness. End of everything.

  I guess I didn't consider the other option could wield the same results, too.

 

    As a man of science, I did a terrible mistake in the past. I walked on the path just fine before I wobbled and my eyes failed to capture the world as it was. There, I failed to consider the two sides of the coin, the duality that should never be forgotten.

   I guess that is where I started to fall.

   Do you know how when you do something for twenty eight days in a row, it will become a habit? One day I forget to uphold my habit and everything just falls apart. One day my vision swam with emotions and everything went spiralling down. Life is cruel like that�"all the things that will bring you down are addictive.

   Glancing down, I feel shivers running down my spine. Whether it was thrill or fear, it doesn't really matter.

 

I

As the hollow men

 

  'I'm going to die soon, so don't come to my apartment next week.' My brother looked up from his papers to stare at me. I sipped on my coffee quietly. Everyone in the cafe seemed to be in a good mood except for us.

  'Do I need to call the police?'

  'I don't think so. It'll be easy to see that it's a suicide.'

  'I see. What makes you feel the need to commit suicide?'

I pondered over that. Many things, I guessed. Everything needed to end sometime. Even atoms, the very things that created everything, die in the end. They turn radioactive, slowly losing themselves. This should be the time I decay. My core was unstable.

  Radioactivity was like reincarnation. Perhaps it was more than just dying, ending. According to the First law of Thermodynamics, energy cannot be created or destroyed, only changed. I shrugged, taking another sip.

  'I'm making space for someone else to live. Death gives room in this world for another, you know?' He stared at me, eyes wide with... disbelief, perhaps. Over my words, over the sheer queerness. Over me, even. Our relationship revolve around strangeness, sometimes mockery. Lies and harshness was a daily thing. He had his feet on the ground and my head on the clouds. We collided like atoms inside the sun.

  I wondered if he took my words to heart, or he chalked it up to despair of the moment. I was always the whimsical one of the family.

 

   Chances is a game that scientists try to rationalise but failed. Take weather, for example. No one in their right mind would trust the weather predictions. Sometimes I think it's just nature's way to stick the middle finger to the scientists for ever trying to break them down to numbers and words.

   Sometimes, however, there's something that surely will happen, no other options. For that to happen, you'll have to increase one option's probability so high it will eliminate the other option. There is a chance I'll live through this so I will make sure I won't.

 

   I guess this is where I wonder why I'm trying this, why I'm trying to end this all. I'm not sure why either. Perhaps I played Russian Roulette and the game ended on me. It's a game of chance, too. A game of luck. And my luck has pulled me down, down to the abyss, where everything is a reverse. Perhaps the abyss is filled with antimatter. In that case, I should be done with the second I entered it. That is exactly what I intend to do.

 

III

This is the dead land

 

  I bought pills. Sleeping pills. Claiming I was suffering insomnia was not hard with bags under my eyes. The pharmacist eyed me sympathetically and gave me the bottle, telling me instructions I would not follow.

  I was knee deep in a quicksand. The more I struggle the deeper I would be. I simply didn't try to convince myself that I was not depressed, that this would pass and that someone will come and pull me up.

  Clinging to hope would make it harder to accept falling.

 

   Flicking the cigarette butt away, I stand up. Dawn is breaking on the horizon, almost impossible to see. It's three in the morning. The time where humanity are on its lowest, the time where devils run in glee. A strange belief, but it seems to fit anyway. My time is nearing, I should prepare.

   I'm eating up all my hydrogen on the last stages of my life. I don't have enough left to make more helium.

   I walk to the bathroom, to the sink, to stare at my reflection in the mirror. It is pitiful. I stand there for one hour before opening the cabinet.

 

X

At five o’clock in the morning.

 

Perhaps it would be funny to die at the time where a new day starts.

 

   Feeling drowsy, I stumble to the balcony once again. My eyes are starting to close. I stand on the railings. Then I fly.

   When the ground is starting to close in, everything went dark.

Author's Note

The poem I used is TS Eliot's The Hollow Men, although it'll be too much if you don't know it. The numbers are just to show where the line comes from, not the order of the past memories.

Regarding the abyss/antimatter and how he should cease to exist the second he came into contact, antimatter causes an explosion when exposed to a matter. One gram is as potent as the atomic bomb that destroyed Hiroshima; weight of one grown man would probably destroy the world.

Reviews

[Egress]

Thank you for bothering to review :D Great points-- I'll make sure to check it and rewrite the parts. The brother was indeed someone I have yet to expand upon. Thanks for pointing out his behaviour!

I love science as much as I love psychology and symbolism. Most science can be associated with certain symbols or feeling, and I try to combine them here. I'm glad you seem to like it!

[C.F. Boehlke]

-a couple of mistakes in terms of switching tenses, mainly in the italicized flashback sections

I really like the paragraph where she contemplates the stars, fate, and what any god might think of her behavior! The character had depth before this point in the story but this paragraph made her real to me. It showed me more of how she thinks!

"Whether it was thrill or fear, it doesn't really matter." great line!!

When the MC tells the brother that he is going to commit suicide in the next week, I see what you are trying to do with the lack of reaction on the part of the brother. Maybe you could add a little depth to his character by not only revealing that he doesn't take it seriously, but by having him react to the MC's grandiose statement about making room for other people to live. I feel like that's a dramatic enough statement that the listener would react in some way.

Also, did the conversation between the brothers over coffee take place after the death of the person they both knew (who I interpreted to maybe be their mom)? If so, I feel like the brother would react more strongly to the thought of losing another loved one. Just food for thought ;)

You seem to have some sort of scientific background and it's intriguing! A lot of writer friends of mine with a passion for science, or even employment history in the sciences, seem to stick with science fiction, which this tale certainly is not. Anyways, it was an intriguing and enjoyable read!