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Darkness.  Total darkness.  So black that it looks like there is light hiding somewhere.  This place can send shivers down your spine or put the biggest grin on your face.  I have both.  Here the sound of a beating heart is the greatest comfort in the world.  The only thing you have to let you know you’re still a part of this god-forsaken place.  Life.  Here you can really see how screwed up peoples perception of reality is.  Dreams.  Wishes.  Hopes.  Everything that keeps the population striving for something better or to keep what they have.  Me, I am just here.  I have no dreams, no hopes, no nothing.  I come here to get away from everyone’s so called "reality".  To release and let go.  To just sit back and see everything for what it is and what it is not.  Now and then my life falls into this reality we base our lives on.  But most of the time I’m here in this dark dismal place.  Beads of sweat begin to run down my face.  I taste the salty water that lies on my lips.  My walk turns into a run, but I do not get tired.  Here nothing is what it seems.  Faster and faster I go.  I cannot see anything but I feel the air brushing against my face and drying my sweat into little crystals.  I trip and fall.  Falling.  Falling.  Faster and faster and faster.  I fall forever it seems.  Then SMACK!   I hit the bottom.  I open my eyes and the dark is gone and the reality is back.  There I lay on the floor under the kitchen table in my apartment on the corner of Saks and Mc Bean.   Not fully understanding how I ended up there, but it happens every so often.  I am shaking from head to toe.  Every limb in my body is tense and sore from my recent trip to the darkness.  I vomit on a near by chair.  Pulling myself up from under the table I gather enough balance to make it into the bathroom to take a shower.  While drying off my eye catches the digital clock sitting on the night stand next to my bed; that has been made for months but never slept in, it says 11:22am.  Days go by, even months and it seems like hours to me.  Sometimes minutes.  I walk back into the kitchen; which by now the whole room smells of vomit, and I pop a bunch of aspirin in my mouth and wash them down with tap water.  A knock at the door makes me jump and drop the glass of water on the floor.  The glass shatters and sprays the floor with tiny glittering pieces.  My body tightens and I feel stuck to the ground for a moment.  A second knock unfreezes me and I walk through the living room and to the front door.  "Mr. Stone good-morning!  How are we this morning"?  A tiny little woman barges through the door and starts making her way into the kitchen.  "Rough night last night"?  She says with a smirk when she sees the vomit and glass.  She walks over to the sink with her stubby little legs and her black and white uniform.  Her hair is pulled back today and tucked away inside a bun.  Regina.  Regina Ratcliff.  The woman I hardly know, but seems to know everything about me.  Well, almost everything.  "Are you not going to the office today"?  She looks at me hard and deep, as if she is trying to read my up-coming thoughts.  "Yes.  Yes I was leaving just now.  Sorry about the mess, no need for you to clean up my mistakes.  I'll do it when I get home".  She starts to push me out the door, “No, no, no.  I will have this place all cleaned by the time you return and I'll see you on Thursday".  She shuts the door right as I cross the thresh-hold.  Off to work I go like a little child on their first day of school.  Not ready for anything and everything to come.  I own a big magazine company that I started when our reality inspired me.  I used to have so much involvement in this company.  It was my life.  Now I just go up to my office and sit there never going out of my way to make fake conversations.  You know the ones where neither party really has anything to say and the answers to the questions we have the least bit interest in are usually one word.  I hate those, but like most people I was a common victim.  Smiling and laughing when expected to.  Wanting everyone to like you and the people who don't working so hard for their acceptance.  That's part of reality.  Giving a damn about what others; even those you don't know, care or think about you and your existence.  I was one of those zombies.  Following everyone's illusions of the way things should be and the way they must stay.  Years of carefully planted reasons and idealistic delusions tearing at my brain all at once.  Society makes everything and everyone that surrounds them.  Yet when there is a problem with their "creations" they look upon it with disgust and bitterness.  Society is so quick to try and bury a problem they created and blame it on another problem they contributed to.  This world we live in is all screwed up.  I try to stay far away from everything real and crucial, because in the end everything you have is a lie.  Waiting outside my apartment building is a black car; I was never really interested in what it was, with its captain holding the door open for me to enter.  On my way to work I can see all the people who walk blindly around this earth.  Not knowing the greater aspects of anything.  Just wrapped up in their little existence.  When we arrive my little captain jumps out and runs around the car, but before he could reach the door I was already out.  His voice runs after me,  "Have a good day Mr. Stone"!  But I keep on walking.  Twenty other fake "hellos" and "good-mornings" hit me before I even reach the elevator.     While in the elevator I think of countless ways to kill yourself.  Not that I'm suicidal or anything it's just something to keep my mind pulsing on my trip up 40 stories.  When the elevator doors open banners and signs jump in at me.  Stalker, they all read in different fonts, colors, and sizes.  The name is perfect, considering I named it after all its readers.  My magazine is just about celebrities and the lives they live.  We tell it like it is and go so deep into their lives that the people reading it get hooked.  They want to know more of everything and everything if possible.  It's always been strange to me how celebrities can make people go completely insane.  This whole kingdom I built all started as a kind of experiment really.  I was just so fascinated on the fascinations with certain beings people hardly knew but were so willing to give their right arm for them.  The human mind is the most intriguing thing on our little planet.  Everyone thinking about ten million different things all at once.  How a simple thought can change existence as we know it.  This was my fascination, and it destroyed my whole world.  I walk straight past everyone who's mouth looks like it is about to spit out any words in my direction, but I wasn't lucky.  "Hey Kale, my main man!  How's ya holdin' up this morning"?  A heavy man with rancid sweat smell puts his arm around me and walks me to my office like a terrier on a leash.  Earl.  I say nothing.  "Oh what's wrong?  Cat got your tongue"?  He starts to laugh hysterically; an occasional snort comes out here and there.  "Awww come on that was funny", as if it was some kind of award winning joke.  I go and sit at my desk and turn my chair around.  "Sorry", comes out of his mouth.  Just the sound of his voice made me hurt inside.  Pain.  This is probably a man who is one of the few descent people left.  Me, I am anything but descent.  I have not felt real emotion in a long time.  "I'm sorry Earl", I turn around,  "I've had a bad....."  But he's gone.  There I sit alone and locked away in my own silence.  Hearing nothing now but the muffled voices outside my door.  This reality is already starting to eat at my spine.  I want so badly for my mind to stop and my darkness to comfort me.  But before I could reach my destination my door cracks open.  "Hello", I call out from my desk.  There is no response.  "Oh come on if your going to open the door just come in".  A thin face pokes around the corner.  "I....I...I’m sorry Mr. Stone.  Are you busy"?  "No.  Come in".  It's a woman I've never seen before.  It must be a new secretary.  She pulls her body from behind the door and starts to talk about phone calls and papers.  I just stare at her bewildered.  I don't think I have ever seen anyone quite so beautiful.  Her face pale with bright ocean blue eyes and dark black hair that falls above her elbows.  Her nose is rather large, but it adds character.  She turns around and I can see a tattoo of some sort peeking out of her skirt on her right hip.  "Will you bring those papers to me", I ask so I can get a better look at her tattoo,  “so I can sign them"?  She picks them up and walks gracefully over to my desk.  From here it looks like a symbol of some sort.  A crescent shape moon with dots and writings from a different culture perhaps.  "So your new here", I say with a smile.  "Ummmm, no I've worked for you for a couple months now.  I think three or four".  Months.  Days.  Hours.  Minutes.  She slowly walks backwards towards the door watching me like I’m an animal who is ready to pounce on it's pray.  "I'll just leave these over here".  She sets some papers on a chair and disappears behind the door.  My desire for the darkness is on fire.  Later that day words came and went around, circling the 40th floor like a destructive cyclone.  I walked out of my office and to my surprise silence was all that could be heard.  Walking past the many faces I employ not one fake anything came from the ocean of bodies.  Instead I got confusion.  Fear.  Curiosity.  All the looks one could give about the news making its laps around.  "Uh-hum, Mr. Stone",  a struggling voice said, “could I have a word with you"?  A man rose from his seat and began to walk to the elevator.  I followed like an ant following the scent of food.  When the door shut I looked at him looking at his feet searching for the words inside his head.  He hands me a card.  I look down and it's one of those "help" cards.  You know the ones that basically say that you need help.  "See I know you are a strong individual.  You had to be to start this company.  But you have begun to fall apart and your business might, too.  My brother owns a person to person clinic.  He offers help in all areas, which ever yours could be I know he could help you".  The doors to the 1st floor open and without a single word I walked away from him and his card that is now lying on the floor.  I found out later that the b***h whom I thought was a new secretary told people while in my office she experienced very odd behavior and felt threatened by me.  Odd?  I feel like the only tuned in person here.  Sitting in the car on the way home my hunger was turning into starvation.  Starvation for my escape.  My way out.  My relaxation.  My so-called Disneyland.  People who don't know don’t understand.  That little piss ant with his brothers’ flashy little card probably felt like a new man.  Reborn.  Probably because he felt as if he did a descent humane act by trying to help a person with lost guidance.  This is all theoretical of course, but all close minded pricks are like that.  When I reach my serene little corner I know I am so close to everything I consider holy.  My utopia.