I woke with a sudden jolt, and tried to sit up from my laying position, but my body didn’t seem to react. Still panicking, I looked around slowly, everything was black. I waited for a little bit, hoping my eyes would adjust, but to no avail.

Where am I?

As I continued to wait for my eyes to adjust, something caught the corner of my eye. I looked to down to inspect further what it was, only to be surprised that it was actually my hand. That didn’t make sense, I thought, looking down lower, and realizing I could see the rest of my body just fine. Why is it that I can see myself so clearly and yet not see anything else? It was though I was trapped in a bubble of oil, with no light of any kind even remotely seeping through. As more and more questions began to clutter my mind, one particular made itself clear:

How did I get here?

This question stopped all my other thoughts. How did I get here? I paused, trying to remember my last few minutes more clearly. The first thing I remember happening as soon as I came to be wherever I was, was that I awoke jarred, anxious about something that happened prior to my arrival. I dug further into the crevices of my memory, digging for what happen before, it couldn’t have been more that a few minutes ago, why was it so hard to remember? What caused me to become so distressed? My body began to feel heavy and my mind began to go fuzzy; I began to feel like I was going to pass out. I stretched my arm out in front of my face, hoping to grab onto something, to steady myself, knowing full well there was nothing there. I watched as my outstretched arm began to blur into the darkness as my vision faded and my body went unconscious…

Flashbulb.

The thought ignited my mind, once again animating my body awaken. I remembered; I remembered what happened before I got here. It was a sunny afternoon, and I was walking down the city street on my way to…I don’t remember, but I was happy, and enjoying the sunlight on my face and wind blowing past me. I walked off the corner of one of the streets, feeling the heat from the warm asphalt underneath my shoes reflecting onto my legs. A little after halfway across, something caught my eye, upon further inspection, I noticed it was a nickel. As I went to pick it up, I heard a screech of a tire, and looking up, saw a car speeding towards me. I don’t remember exactly what happened next, but I do remember two things for sure: I remember looking up at the sky, but I wasn’t standing. The sky was so blue and beautiful, and the feeling of freedom it gave off made me want to fly into it, and at that point in time, I did feel as though I was flying. The next and final thing I remember, was a sickening crumpling sound, although I don’t remember where it came from. Even though I didn’t blink, as soon as I had heard the sound, I came to see I was lying on the asphalt. This surprised me, I didn’t know how I got here, and I didn’t feel the heat coming off of it like I had just a few seconds prior. As I laid there, I saw the car that had been speeding toward me swerve around the corner and disappear down the road. I tried getting back up, but my body wouldn’t respond. I tried looking around for someone, but there was no one on the street at the time aside from me, and as I peered around, suddenly feeling dazed, with the little peripheral vision I had, I noticed a puddle forming near my head. It wasn’t rain, it was too sunny for that, and it was too viscous to be gasoline from the car. Was it oil from the car? No, it seemed about as thick, but it wasn’t the correct color, of which this liquid reminded me more of a deep red wine.

Was it blood?

Upon thinking that, I realized how fuzzy my thoughts had become, I couldn’t form any ideas, or come to a conclusion about the question I just asked myself. Everything seemed to start spinning and blurring together. I tried to say something, anything, just to try and get some words out of my mouth, but nothing came. I began to feel very tired, my body was heavy, I needed to sleep. I slowly closed my eyes and exhaled…

I opened my eyes, I was once again within the confides of my lightless world. The memory was over, but I was able to put the put the pieces together.

Did I die?

It was the only thing that I could think of. I kept asking myself over and over again, hoping to find a different possible answer, but nothing else came to mind. I began to feel my body, if I had been hit by a car, I would have some damage on myself right? As I searched, I found no sign of trauma, not even a single scratch. I touched the side of my head, where I had seen the blood pool, but the only thing I felt was what I would have normally felt, my hair and head, nothing out of the ordinary. The put me at some ease, but even though it relaxed me a little bit, the more I thought about it, the more it just felt like denial. Even though I didn’t seem damage, it didn’t explain anything else. It didn’t explain the memory, or where I was…nothing made any sense. The more I thought, the less answers became clear, I looked around again, for a sign, a light, an image, anything that could point me in a direction, give me an idea of what was going, but there was nothing. Just me, floating along in this void of atramentous space. I brought my hand up to my face, and examined my palm, slowly curling in my finger one by one, and then releasing them all at once. I studied at my hand a long time, looking over each crack and crevice, examining the grain of the skin, the furrows that made my hand unique, that made me, me.

This is real.

There’s no way it couldn’t be. As I had stared at my hand, I rubbed my fingers together. Everything looked too real, felt too real. There was no doubt in my mind. I looked up, staring into the never ending darkness. I was dead, I was really dead. Even though I had come to that conclusion, even though this felt so real, I couldn’t help but feel disbelief. I continued to stare of into the distance. I was dead, everything I had known up to this point vanished in blink of an eye, as the body I had once called home lay on the road in a small town in the middle of nowhere, drained of all life.

What now?

The thought snapped me out of my trance. What now? I didn’t know. What was left for me to do? There was nothing here, just me and the darkness, nothing more, nothing less. I had never really considered myself a spiritual person, let alone a religious one, but as far as I knew there was no afterlife ever mentioned like this. This was definitely no heaven or hell, nor did it seem like any other type of ulterior existence that I had learned of. It was just me, alone, in this ink black expanse.

Was I going to be here forever?



It dawned on me. Had I done something wrong while I was alive? Was this my punishment? Punishment from a god I wasn’t sure whether or not I believed in? Was that why? The questions continued to pile up. I couldn’t keep up with them, there was so my things to think about, so many questions to answer. Well, there was time now. The original question came full circle. Forever huh? Just how long is forever? I guess I was about to find out. Forever alone in this unknown world of darkness. The thought stayed with me as I drifted along in my journey of isolation.

Take a deep breath…

I closed my eyes for a while, focusing my thoughts, trying my best to sort the clutter of my mind. I began to chip away at the thoughts running through my mind. I thought back to my memory, to the world I had so quickly parted with. What was happening right now? Had my body been found? What would they do with me? I paused…how would my family react? I suddenly felt a wave of sadness fall over me. I hadn’t thought about anyone else up until this point, and it dawned on me that me being here didn’t only affect me, but rather everyone I knew, my friends, my family…everyone. I imagnined a scene at my front door, a police officer standing in front of my parents, explaining the situation, watching my mother lose her balance in disbelief, and my parents breaking down shortly after. It made my heart heavy, I didn’t want that to happen. I thought about my friends, and how they would react to it. It was something that was going to be tough on everyone, a time when the people around me needed me most, because they would never get the chance again.

I’m sorry.

And yet there was nothing I could do, nothing except apologize for an accident I did not cause, and could do nothing to prevent. I felt sadness slowly beginning to turn into anger, but pushed it away. There was no reason to put negative energy into it, what was done was done, and nothing could change that now. I once again stared off into this black void, thinking about how one small moment had impacted so many lives. In doing so, I began to realize something felt off. Even though I was floating in this darkness, everything about it had seemed real, except for one thing, but I couldn’t put my finger on it. I quietly lay there, trying to put my finger on what it was. And that’s when it came to me: silence. I paused for a second, and listened, but there was nothing. I tried to say something, and even though I felt it in my vocal chords and slowly progress up my throat and out my mouth, no sound came out, as though there was no air, no way to transmit the frequencies of my vocals. I closed my mouth and nervously swallowed. It was such an eerie feeling, not one I was used to or had thought of prior. I had been so trapped in my own thoughts up until this point in time that it hadn’t bothered me, but now it did. I began to panic, all of a sudden I need sound, to hear something, anything. I tried moving around, screaming, tapping my clothes, and although I could feel them, and the reverberation of my hands hitting them, still nothing. I started flailing my arms, completely panic stricken, completely unsure of what to do.

Tick…tick…

What was that? I looked over to my left hand, I had heard something as I had flailed my arms past my head. My watch; I had completely forgotten about it. The watch had been a birthday present from my family for my birthday just a few months ago. I didn’t wear it all the time, but though it would have been nice today. To think…as I sat here slowly losing my mind, my family still came through to keep me sane. I smiled bittersweetly thinking about it, it was also the last thing I would ever have connecting myself to them, to the outside world…to being alive. I held the watch up to my ear, feeling my body ease as I heard the sound of ticking go through my ears. It was quite funny really, up until this point, I had never been to fond of the sound of a ticking clock, it always represented my life passing by in an audible form, which was something I prefered to push away from my mind as often as possible. But now, with the fact that I no longer had a life to live, and that there was no other sound in this realm to keep me comfort, the sound had begun to warm up to me. The ticking softly drumming in my ear, it’s melodic rhythm keeping me at peace.

What time is it?

It hadn’t occurred to me before, especially with the fact that I had forgotten about the watch up until this point in time. But this lead to another thought. I put my hand back down toward my side, hiding the watch’s face from view. What was the point of knowing? After all, I was dead, dead forever, what point is keeping track of time in an area outside of time? Let alone forever…but I couldn’t help but still feel some interest. I decided to peek at my watch: 12:05. My eyes widened, that couldn’t be right. Last time I checked my watch, it had been no later than 3:15…had I already been gone 9 hours? That didn’t seem to add up, I couldn’t have possibly been here than more than a few minutes. I stared in disbelief at the round face in front of me, as if it was playing a cruel joke on me, had lied to me. But it stared back, and I watched as the second hand continuously ticked by, no slower or faster than usual, at the same speed it had always ticked before, and at the same speed it would continue to tick forever. Just like all the other times I had second guessed the reality of what happened, I couldn’t help but come to the same conclusion: it was true, there was no reason for it not to be.

So what now?

I rubbed my hands over my eyes; I wasn’t entirely sure. Was there any point to being here? But even though I thought that, it was still the existential question. How had that question changed from my previous level of reality to this one? It hadn’t, the only difference was that I now had to answer that question myself, with my own answers, and with my own discussion. But would there be any point to it? Even if I found enlightenment here, how would I pass it on? I couldn’t obviously, as there was no one or no thing that I could pass any information onto. So did I just give up? I didn’t want to, even though at this point in time I was physically dead, spiritually and cognitively I was still very much alive. I would do my best to keep myself as active as I possibly could, and hope that something may come of it…

Time passed…

In my now unlimited amount of spare time, I began to think about many things, and in doing so, not only did I begin to learn more about life, but I began to learn more about myself and this situation as well. The simple things came first, things like understanding that in this state of unending comatose, I no longer needed sleep, nor did I ever feel hungry or thirsty. I began to come to better terms with what was going on, my acceptance to this state I was in, and so on. As more time progressed, I began to think more openly about reality, and how certain standards no longer applied to me. The first to go was time, seeing as I already had an adverse ideology to it, and as of now, it was no longer significant to me. The watch on my arm was just a way of remembering what I was, where I had come from, and from time to time, a consolation of when I needed to remember even the small things, such as how important sound actually is even though it is normally taken for granite. But even as I began to grow so much in however long it was now that I had stayed here, I felt something still eating away at me, something that still tied me down to the world outside of this Cimmerian cell.

I’m lonely…

Although as my time in this void had progressed, and the necessities of the human world had slowly begun to vanish from my thoughts, talking to others, interacting, being around people was still something I truly missed, something that was still hard for me to cope with not having access to. I still had the memories of friends, of my family, and everyone else in the back of my mind, and when I would be lost in thought, a phrase might come to mind, or from the few times that I would still look at my watch, and these memories would come roaring back to the front. Originally, these thoughts consoled me, helped me get through this endless passage that I was no trapped in, but now as time had progressed, these experiences were more detrimental than good. They made me long for those feelings of collectiveness, of being part of something, feelings that I had come to realize I wouldn’t ever have again. These feelings made my heart ache, and although I wanted them to stop, deep down I knew that I still wanted them, still wanted something that connected me to the outside world…something that made me know that at one point I had actually lived outside of my now black reality. I constantly fought with myself over these two conflicting ideals, sometimes to the point where my mind would ache, and my body would feel sick with stress. But what was I to do?

Why not make imaginary friends?

I don’t know where the idea came from, and I had mulled it over in my mind numerous times, but every since the thought was first whispered in the back of my thoughts, and even up to this point, I still didn’t like it. Imaginary friends? That was the stuff of children and the mentally ill, it was not something I wanted to be apart of. But by what standard was this thought? Sure, in the real world, one my age or older with an imaginary friends might be looked at as bizarre, but where I was now, there were no social structures, no concept of what was considered right or wrong, so what difference would it make if I fabricated as false identity? One that I could talk to, to discuss ideas with. Everybody has a voice inside their head already, whether it’s to remind them of something, to push them towards a goal or settle their nerves, or to act as a conscience, what was the problem if I just decided to visualize this voice as an actual person? These positive thoughts continued to swell within my mind, to the point where the collection burst, leaving one single unified thought:

Why not just give it a try?

I paused, letting the thought reverberate in my mind. I placed my hand on my forehead, thinking deeply about it. Where had all these thoughts come from? I never had liked the initial idea, so why was I have some many thoughts against it? But even more so, why was I having so many thoughts that seemed to be directed at me as though I was being talked to? I chuckled silently to myself, my own thoughts directing me to make another personality? Maybe I was already insane…I lifted the hand from my forehead and shifted my body weight to a position as though I was standing up straight. I looked straight ahead, half joking expecting another person to appear, half attempting to make one do so. But nothing remotely changed. I sighed, of course it wouldn’t be that simple, I still wasn’t even sure if this is what I wanted. I stared ahead more intently, focusing on a single point. I tried opening my mouth to speak, only to realize I had forgotten that I couldn’t in this zone of silence. Closing my mouth, I decided to speak to this pseudo entity I was creating with my mind. I began to think about what to say to it, and slowly thoughts began to conceptualize. Slowly I began to compress the thoughts into a voice, and once again tried to speak.

What are you doing?

Before I could even get the thought through my mind, I felt a rush of other thoughts flood it’s folds, drowning out everything I had thought in the last few minutes. It was as if the thoughts I had really wanted to think had been dammed up, and just before speaking, the dam broke, taking with it any ideas of making an imaginary being to converse with. What was I doing? I looked down at my hands, clenching them in irritation. Imaginary friend? Is this the point I had regressed to? I beat my fists against the outsides of my thighs in anger. What was the point? Why was I doing this? Why was I here? All these emotion filled thoughts that had been trapped for so long began to seep out of me. I couldn’t believe I had actually thought about having a fake consciousness to talk to…was I really that close to going insane? I looked up, I could feel tears rolling down my cheeks. There was no one out there, real or otherwise, and I wasn’t about to begin hoping for one now…

More time passed…

It’s funny how much time can pass when you’re not paying attention to anything. Here I was, in this darkened void, trapped for eternity, in a state of mental depletion. I had begun to realize that over the course of my time here I had slowly begun to change. I had begun to forget things, had noticed a decrease in cognitive thought and an increase in dead times, times where I had absolutely no brain function whatsoever, to the point sometimes where I would even lose control of my senses. These times would scare me, I suddenly snap out of them, not remembering anything, almost feeling as I did the first time I came to enter this place. But the worst side effect I had come to notice over all the others: I was beginning to no longer care. I no longer cared about thinking, nor did I care about the dead times or the loss of my senses…anything. Normally this would scare me, but now, after being here so long, it just…didn’t.

Nothing matters anyone.

I smiled sadly to myself at the thought. It was true though; what about this place…about me…mattered anymore? I brought my hand up to my forehead, once again tracing my arm with my eyes. I saw the leather strap around my wrist, my watch, I had once again forgotten about it. I flipped over my hand to inspect its face, the time read 6:47. As I examined the watch closer I noticed something odd, the seconds hand was no longer moving. Slightly confused, I brought the watch up to my ear. There was no sound. My watch had died. I slowly started to chuckle, which eventually turned into a full out silent laugh. I had outlived my watch, outlive time itself. But that’s when it struck me, the watch had been almost new when I passed, and so had the batteries…how long had I been here now? 2 years? 5? I was stunned, could I have really been locked up in this place…for years? How much had changed on the outside? Did the people out there still think of me? Remember who I was? Or did those thoughts die with the batteries of my watch? I slowly grabbed hold of the strap and loosened it with my hand, removing it from my wrist. I brought it up to my face. I already knew what I was going to do; the watch was no longer a comfort to me, it was just a symbol of my sadness, a symbol of what was lost forever. But even knowing this didn’t stop the slight shake of my hand as I slowly released it from my grasp. Silently, it began to drift away from me. Instinctively my hand reached out for it, attempting to grab it back, but I stopped myself, and watched as it slowly faded away and out of my sight forever.

…goodbye.

There was nothing left for me here now. As time progressed further, everything began to rapidly increase; my dead times, my lack of thought when I tried to think, and most of all, my lack of care. It eventually came to a head when I once realized that the last two sense I had, my sight and feeling, had disappeared. But even worse that this, was that they no longer mattered to me. Why should they? I no longer had need for them…hell, I no longer had need for anything, why in fact was I still here? Why couldn’t this all just end? The thoughts repeated in my head, cycling over and over again, and although my fit of irritation eventually subsided, the thoughts did not. Whatever was left of my existence in this realm remained, but slowly began to disappear. But I didn’t care, I hadn’t cared for a long time. What difference did it make? What was left of me now made no difference, not in the reality I had lived in, or this afterlife I existed in now. Nothing mattered anymore…nothing mattered. It finally came to the point where that was the only thing that ran through my head, it was no longer even a thought, my mind could no longer process those. The only thing that was there was that single image: nothing matters. My mind began to go hazy, and I attempted to close my eyes, knowing full well it made no difference whether I did so or not. It didn’t matter. Nothing mattered.

And then there was nothing.