After Hours

It is hardly surprising my mind is beyond any possible repose. A new swarm of blank affection teemed within, shutting the lids of my eyes only after they have been strained into seeing the first morning light; new avalanches of fear stripped my soul of motivation, inducing a fatalism which saw nothing but a void in tomorrow, the time before which should be spent in rest rather than work. Callously, these same emotions twined and mingled until love struck a fear within the deep confine of my soul, as too was ignited a solace of love and warmth of old conversation in times when fear engulfed the world around. Hell never seemed as cold as today.

There never was a real objective to what I lived for. Academia seemed like a shallow contest of memory, giving young men and women work so they can be paid in demands; any hopeful romanticism spelled doom in letters ever increasing in clarity with each try; and all living outside of toiling at a desk was filled with such vacuum of purpose and morality that disgust clogged my mind at the mention of it. Life was a shame. It was a shame filled with empty greed which was sought out of necessity to survive in a world of monotony. Every exciting opportunity, as lacking in moral spine as it may have been, was a dear devilish friend of the soul deprived of colour. The fear which gnawed at my shoulder was no longer exciting or dreadful. Instead, it blended into the grey expanse in which my conscience dragged the bulk of its weight around.

All speech, all manner of goals, aspirations, praises and scoldings fell into this expanse. Like snow in a heatwave, they quietly condensed into uniform droning. Life became no more than sleep, bound to have its episodes of dreams and nightmares, yet solemnly flat despite great strides.