The Neverness.

1.

It wasn’t until the last bells of noon began to sound, that I awoke, alone and confused. At first, I didn’t think it possible. The definite image of her body beside me felt irremovable to my skin. My skin, heavy with thick summer sweat and her imagined scent. Her scent, a bouquet of fresh summer rain. But, as my deadened hand moved through the endless amount of sheets to reach her, there was nothing but more and more sheet. And within each thread of that sheet, complete emptiness and despair.

Loneliness was the first word to snap in my thoughts, as I stood, still hearing the bells strike and the birds sing though the windows, that were left open all night. The bells seemed to be screaming with every thud of the hammer, “loneliness, loneliness.” And then died away, only to be replaced by the silence of a hushed breeze beating it’s way into the room. Alone. With no one, nothing. Not even a trace of memory spread about the room. Nothing. Nothing but the Algerian whiteness of the walls staring back at me and my newly abandoned self.

“There are better things to do than dwell...” I said, shaking my head. I feel ill. I feel as though a great wound has been opened up along the side of my body and everything is falling out.

The mirror mocks me from across the room. I hate the site of my face. I can see it playing with my reflection, as if wearing a smile. My misery is a thing to be laughed at. I can hear it laughing quietly to itself, now, saying “I told you so.”

It’s begun to rain.

And, now I can smell her presence in the absence again.

“No more pain,” I think to myself, “sleep, and when you wake again, leave this place.” The sheets go round my body covering every inch of skin. I don’t want to be seen. Not by the walls, the mirror, the books, the rain. I want to be nothing inside a room swollen with so many something’s.

She’s been gone seven days.

I sleep and hope to forget.

2.

“I don’t know how I should exist for you.” She says, looking at me with her earth bare eyes. Her fingers are curling in and out of her palm, she does this when she’s nervous or scared. I want to hold her in this moment forever but, it will inevitably pass like so many others.

“As you are.”

“Really? Because you don’t seem to care too much for me the way I am.”

“That’s not true. Stop it. You know, this subject is absolutely absurd. How many more times do we have to go over this? There’s more love in my heart for you than I’ve ever had for anyone else.”

I look away. I know it’s wrong to look away, but if I give her my full attention things will grow worse.

“I don’t think that’s saying much. You’re not a man of feeling or even a man full of heart.”

“Thank you, really, thank you.” I say, and smile bitterly. “I think I’ll leave now. “ But, I don’t leave. I just move closer to the fountain, looking for all the possible exits within the park and watch as people come and go, wishing I were one of them. We used to be so happy here. Was that so long ago?

Once, in this park, on the bench she so angrily sits upon now, she said to me, “Your breath smells like Christmas,” and kissed me. Now, she no longer kisses me. I’ve ceased to exist for her and she, for me, or so I tell myself.

Behind me, I hear her fumbling with her things. Looking at her self in her tiny mirror, plotting what she’ll do next.

“I can’t do this. I don’t love you.”

3.

The rain has stopped. But, it’s still gray. I dread the way that sky always makes me feel.

There are puddles on the floor from the rain. When I look at them, I can see an evening light rising and the damp curtains curl in the ripples created by a heavy breeze. She is in every one of those ripples. Her curves dance for me. They make me think of Van Gogh’s “Cypresses and Stars.” The only portrait that was to ever find itself stuck to her wall. She is moving so beautifully. The only dancer of my heart. It’s hard to stop looking at that spot on the floor, without wishing I were with her, threaded so tightly together, there’s no room to breathe. We’ve stopped breathing for one another, though. How have I gone on existing? Poorly, if at all.

I’m asleep, now and dreaming.

“Sing me to sleep, boy.” She say’s. “I’m so tired and need to sleep.” Her arms push under his. He’s not me. He has hair like Christ and a long bald face. They’re asleep now. Asleep. I’m watching them, knowing he’s not me. I don’t know what to do. He’s not me. She’s let her hair down and it’s going all over him. It’s not me there. Not me. I feel a pushing in my stomach and my eyes are starting to hurt. Everything turns gray.

There I am, I can see me. I’m alone and crying. There are rose petals all around me and little yellow birds weeping and screaming. They’re coming from the furrows made in my wrists. I see me and cry for the me crying, thinking of her and her forever gone, golden skin. I’m looking at myself looking at them, in bed and in love. She’s not letting go. There are furrows in my wrists with little yellow birds and rose petals slipping out. I’m not waking up.

“Sing me to sleep, boy. I’m so tired and need to sleep.” She say’s, but not to me.

The thunder wakes me, alone and trembling. I don’t wanna go back to sleep. It’s all gone for me.

The bells have begun to sound. It’s morning and I have to leave. I have to put on the jacket and tie my father brought over and try hard not to let her mother see me like this.

Abandoned Fiction.

The Diary of Babel
(Translated from the lost book of Quintus Pascal)

I wake each evening laughing wildly (for no apparent reason, it seems), until I've reached the point of recognition- that, yes, now I've woken up; and immediately freeze and begin to tremble with embarrassment and fright. But, since I sleep alone, no one knows of this peculiar act. You may be wondering, "waking in the evening?" Yes, I sleep through the days of my life due to an ill habit I was never able to break as a child. So, I'm constantly going back and forth- waking in the morning (if ever I'm that lucky!), the afternoon, and ultimately (as it's been the past six months, or so it is written in my journal- I note almost everything there) the evenings. None of that explains the mad laughter I wake to (nor why I'm always drenched in sweat - a fact I gladly omit). Trying to recall the dream that proceeded waking is useless. Memories do not stick with me, due to a disease I contracted as a child. The name I can't remember- surprising, no?

So, this is the case. Uncontrollable laughter without any root. Whether or not this is of any importance escapes me, or matters little to me. I've never cared about what others have found interesting or "important."

Deserted rooms seem to increase the situation, I think. I live alone. Well, almost. My room is filled with books and music- at the moment, I'm enjoying Opus 132 by Beethoven and have been reading, quite irregularly, the poems of an obscure French poet. Yes, I've been called pretentious! Yet, that's of little importance also. How is all of this adding up? I ask this question and return to where my first sentence began. Remember, my memory is faulty. Ah, yes, laughter. It happened this evening when I rose, though, what has been sounding like laughter for the past six or so months, now sounds close to weeping. The two sound almost always the same to my ears. Laughter and crying. Do I wake up crying? That could explain the sweat. But, why do I cry, if that's actually what I'm doing?

Strange, considering I'm the happiest I've been in years! I think. Am I happy? It's irrelevant. Happiness is fleeting. They tiny little yellow bird I could never catch. The woman I could never love. Love? Little yellow bird? What is all this? What was it I was trying to say? The waking. Of course, the waking: laughter and tears. Did I mention I'm now staying in a Parisian hotel? Hotel Utrillo, after the manic painter. At least that's what it says under the painting on the wall. The colours are strange here. Everything is a yellow tint within the room.

So, once more, the room is yellow, a disgusting yellow, and I wake up either laughing or crying. This is leading nowhere. Where should it lead? It should lead to a steady conclusion. Let me return to the beginning and take notes. Then, perhaps I'll be able to calculate, if I'm able to, why this is happening and for how long.

Notes:

10.16: "Today, Madeleine left me. She says we no longer have that common touch between us. She says I'm better off with out her. Better alone. Better among the things..." She never finished her sentence. Just cried and ran off.

11.20: Finding strange notes around the house from a woman I've never met. They mention "love" and "forgetfulness." I can't understand them or why they make me ache from head to foot.

11.22: Came out of a foggy dream and woke in a hospital. Doctors entered and immediately proceeded to question me on certain things that one could clearly deduce was a botched suicide attempt. I was less than helpful in procuring answers to their questions. "But, who has tried to commit suicide and why am I here?"

1.09: Found pills in the cabinet with my name scribbled on it. A tiny note taped on each reads with a sense of urgency, "Take daily! They'll help you." It looks to be my hand writing. Unsure.

1.30: Moments full of loneliness. Feeling erratic. Nervous. Going to leave the country to see her (the woman who keeps writing to me. The woman who begins each letter with "We met almost five years ago, on a rainy French morning. I was nervous and you seemed lost. I wore my long green coat for you." And end with a similar sort of mantra, "Try remembering."

2.9: Paris. Cold and hungry. Alone. A note on the desk reads, "Go to date: 1.27. There you will find mention of a woman by the name of Allerga. You've come here to see her. If you turn a few pages back, you will notice that on 1.23, you wrote: Oh, how badly I'm in need some sort of tenderness. A glance. A touch. Something to fill the hollowness that grows daily. Allegra has asked me to come, if I can, to that place we lost one another. She's written the address. 50 Rue De Roi du Sicile. Finally, tenderness waits for my hand!"But, though the note appears to written recently, there is no mention of it in my diary. Nor is there mention of a time when I should be there waiting. The natural question is: when do I go? Should I wait each day until a woman approaches me with familiarity?

2.27: White hospital room. Blood splattered about my clothing. They speak a language my mind has trouble translating. Tired.

There's a piano playing from the window opposite mine. The room is yellow and my eyes hurt. They are raw from exhaustion from all the moments of refusal. "No, I won't sleep!" It's snowing and the piano is drifting in through the cracks between the windows. I'm alone. What did I want to say? I'm tired. I should sleep.

My notes don't seem to add up. I have to continually go over them to keep fresh, which of the two incidents (the abandonment and the failed attempt at suicide) could lead to such an uncontrolled act. Perhaps they are both responsible or maybe neither. I don't know. It's useless. I've never been a brilliant detective, nor will I be in the future.

I wake up crying, not laughing. At least from the notes from the days gone by, that's what I've concluded (or what has been confirmed by the woman staying next door- who has politely asked me to keep my "sobbing" to a whisper). My eyes are black. My skin is pale. And, now I know, I no longer want to know. I'll rid myself of this book and exist as if not existing. Waking with tears and living with the cloud of forgetfulness. I'll feel for this book because it is the daily habit my skin's picked up. But, after a while, the cloud will consume the habit. Then, all will be nothing and the same as everything.

"I've seen the eternal footman hold my coat and snicker and in short, I was afraid."

Scraps of Fiction.

It’s too much of an awful thing to think that no one will see me sitting up, here in darkness, like a criminal forced to ponder his sins, knowing the rest of the world sleeps and won’t notice his longing for repentance. There’s no one to wake to see that I’m sleepless, full of worry, full of ache. No one to see how cluttered this room is in darkness or to notice the smell of decay growing worse from summer heat. For a while, I sit, thinking nothing, chewing the sides of my cheeks, before realizing what I’m merely doing is siting, thinking of how I’d like to think nothing, dismissing moments of peacefulness and chewing skin. This is absurd! But, I can’t sleep. The night is around me and no, I can’t. Or, I won’t. I wonder how I look here, how someone might see me: a shadow within shadows. No, there’s a little light from the moon entering the room. It goes across my skin and adds shape to a shapeless night. When I try to dream up how I might look here, I see a man with burnt shoulders and a gaunt stony head, who appears to be waiting for something or someone who may never show.