Exhaustion

Too many drinks…

Can’t concentrate…

Thoughts strangle me, memories of tonight's fire make me shiver...

I loved to watch how things burned. The things crave for mercy, but the flame- the venomous beast- devours everything. The smell of poisonous kerosene always brought sweet dizziness as soon as I breathed it in. Always… Until now.

Our life is a series of puzzles, which in the end reveal a final picture. I’m still far from the long-awaited “end”. But running away from thoughts is harder now. They crawl imperceptibly and strangle you, making you crave for air.

Shane was the starting point, a trigger. Her curiosity was a tiny flame in a cold, ignorant world. She brought light and hope for the brighter future. After spending hours with her, coming inside my house was like voluntarily trapping myself in darkness. A darkness of misunderstanding, indifference and exclusion between me and Mildred.

Agness.. The night of her overdose. Soulless machines, drinking poisonous blood out of her and replacing it with new fresh blood and serum. She is no one to me. Yes, I married her, but it’s only on the outside… On the inside we are no one to each other. Two isolated figures standing on the opposite banks of the river of solitariness... We don’t remember anything about each other…. Memories turned to dust and dissolved in time, making us heartless and ignorant. The world nowadays is overcrowded with people. We are like cockroaches that run blindly from one place to another. Nobody cares about anything anymore, no one has morals, no one follows rules. The only rule that was followed accordingly was the rule of no books. Thus allowing a “Perfect” society to be created.

People violate each other on daily basis; human life has lost its value. Do whatever you want; society must be happy. Make them drown in propaganda; brainwash them with cacophony of useless and meaningless sounds, images, words, phrases, screams, laughter. No more worries in our perfect society if they are all trapped within a created reality.

Even though law prohibits reading, collecting or having books, some rare individuals go against this. They trap themselves in cages of fear; but fear of what? Fear of being spotted? Fear of being killed? Fear that their precious values will be taken away? Those people are easily spotted and eliminated from our society. Eliminated… by who? By people who are programmed, who have no choice but to do it over and over… by people without feelings, thoughts or emotions? Sadly... I was both.

Disgust enveloped me as mist…. Softly, unrecognisably, it entered my soul, gripping with its senile fingers. But disgust towards what? Towards my job? Towards books? Towards society? Towards our government? Towards fire?.... or Towards myself? I can't explain…

Books…. Books, books, books! Exhaustion from fear of being caught. What do they capture inside? Books are living creatures. They breath, they watch, they talk… How else can you explain madness of those who stay in their houses, aware that certain death will find them in the end? How else can you explain actions of that woman tonight, striking her match just to stay with her paper creatures? Or maybe I should look at things from a different angle? Why do we burn books? Will they truly bring chaos into our society? How can it be even more chaotic? We are drowning in chaos already. People lost their morals, feelings, dreams. All they need is fun, sounds, noises, TVs, cars, and everything faster, faster, faster, faster, push it to the limits. Everything must have limits, right? But do books have them? They are creation of human mind. Does human mind have borders? Or is our imagination infinite so it can evolve until… Until it shatters, creating something irresistible, unknown, prohibited.

Just like books...

Reviews

[barleygirl]

I'm sorry to say, this message did not feel very cohesive to me. I couldn't grasp how all the parts went together to support the main message (or even what the main message might be?) However, the writing is still very well done, with so many good examples to support the struggle you appear to be conveying. The paragraph starting with "Agness" is very powerful & gut-wrenching in it's honesty . . . describing oh-so-many relationships! To me, this expresses the lowest depths of bleakness becuz of the way things are described in totality: everything is this way, everybody does this & that, etc. There are no gray areas & no hope. It's kinda hard for me to read, actually. But it's still very good writing.

[Lyn Anderson]

Great story here -- makes the reader want more. There may be small errors but it is interesting enough that it would take a re-read to spot them. Always a good sign.