Here I Am

Here I am, alone.
    Not much to say, but talk to myself. These strange words ringing in my head, that I mouth out loud, these words that I read in my mind, trying to give constant assurance.
        It's gonna be all right. You can get through this.
    But the words have no effect. How long I've been here, I bother not to think of. All those times I try to move, but find nothing in this Nothingness moves, except perhaps my train of thought. Which repeats like a broken record, a piece of it lost, that piece I need to know what happens next…
    It's like that record is like the timeline of my life. Not being able to find what happens next, the same old words repeat, like a child repeating the highest number he knows, trying to remember what came next.
    1, 2, 3… 3… …3…
    It's gonna be all right, you can get through this, all you have to do is… is… …is…
    But there is no one for me to ask. I used to think there were. I'd see flashes of dark-lit images of people talking, laughing…. I bother not to reach out to the images. I know that they are only fooling me, making me think I am not in such a darkness as this. I cannot move, cannot win against these bonds that hold me. I can't even see them…
    Besides, I tell my self; 'How can I listen to advice from one who does not know my pain?' These people in the flashes before me, just out of my arm's length, are laughing. They are having… fun. I do not know fun; they do not know pain. How can their advice possibly help me. They walk away, leaving me to myself and these things that keep me.
    I have tried, tried again and again to stand up, to be able to walk into those flashes of hope. Something holds me back, what is it? What, oh God, is it? Why can I not banish it? Why!?
    Perhaps it is the Bible coming to spite me. That I didn't pay attention in religion class, and fell asleep to a dream, this Nothingness. "And there shall be the wailing and grinding of teeth" it says.
    Is this hell?
    Maybe I was never alive, not as I know it. Maybe I was alive, and died. This consciousness perhaps is the hell
I'm condemned to, maybe I really didn't go to sleep to this nightmare, and I what really happened was that I woke up to it.
    The words, they become voices. They are voices now, in my head. The words fading, of no use, they disappear in the Nothingness. These new voices talk to me.
    "Why don't you get up?"    "Why don't you try again, to stand up?"    "You've tried so many times before, what stops you from getting up again?"
    I smirk, then laugh humorlessly. I'm going crazy. Laughing, laughing madly, my unheard voice echoes, the sound waves reverberating back to vibrate in my own head. The laughter does not even reach the flashes before me.
    God isn't helping me. God won't help me, I've already turned him down. This is hell, surely. No one can save me then, if God Himself could not. I've told myself before, I'm dreaming. I'm really alive, or maybe…
    I thought excitedly, maybe this is purgatory…?
    Yes! Yeah, this is just purgatory! I've finally lost my worthless life and now am going to heaven!
    Then the facts hit me cold, mercilessly.
        Why are the flashes there then?
    Why can't you see, or hear, or taste? You think you see, you think you hear; but you're just going crazy.
    Don't compliment yourself, you idiot. You're not going to heaven.
        What's left for you is hell.
    Suddenly I feel an intense heat behind me. I look back, and the first thing I notice is what had been holding me
down.
        Chains.
    Chains, cold chains though they pull me closer and closer to a raging inferno at their source. I am terrified, horrified. The chains pull me closer and closer to the fire. Yet the chains feel so cold…
    I give up pulling. Who am I fooling? I was weak in the last life, what changes that now? I can't pull these hundreds of chains. I stare at one of the chains.
    A piercing pain rips through my skull. An image, a memory of me.
    I blink, and the memory is gone in an instant.
        I stare at another chain, to have that same pain saw me to pieces as I'm sucked into another memory.
        It finally hits me what the chains are.
    They are sins.
        Then the fire is hell for sure.
                Whatever.
    I can't fight it; I say to myself as I'm pulled closer and closer to the deathly flames, fear subsiding. It's my fault, as usual. Take the punishment, deal with it, face the fact that you can't do anything right. Story of my life. Wow, to be taken out of life, to this Nothingness where I can't mess anything up. There isn't anything to mess up.
        Bliss.
    And the fires fade. They seem to be fueled by my fear. By the time I had become unafraid, they stopped. The chains stopped moving. The Nothingness turns gray. I smile.
        I like this color.
    And in front of me the gray burns away, its dull color melting into an acid white that pierces through like the sun through rainy clouds.
        I like the rain.
    What is this white light that hurts my eyes and my grey? Then I'm appalled.

    It's a girl.
        A beautiful girl, a goddess. She stands there, so holy that it’s ironic. She's wearing pants with many pockets, her jacket tied around her waist. I realize something that confuses me.
    That's my jacket. And my pants. She's even wearing my favorite shirt. I always wore those…
    And she looks incredibly good in them–
        Hahah! I'm still a pervert in Hell. Funny. But this girl, her brown hair blowing in the wind I can't feel, she stands there, still like she didn't hear me laugh at all. I stop laughing, confused. I call out to her. For some reason instead of saying "Hey!" a name comes out of my mouth. I don't recognize the name, but I feel like I should…
    I call the name again, the letters feeling soft and comforting on my lips. What the heck…?
    She does not hear me. She continues to stare upwards, in awe at something I cannot see. She does not hear me.
    I cannot understand. I try to reach out to her–
        These chains, these unmovable chains.
    I cannot move. I can't reach out to her…
    Crawling forward, ever inching forward, the chains that bind me try to hold me back. They are so strong, they are so big, dark, and hold my heart. But I struggle and strain to hold her hand. To touch her shoulder so that she might turn around and notice me, that she might run to me, being free of chains, as I am not. Perhaps she knows how to remove
these chains…
    She is free of them herself. Free, pure. She is not another one of the flashes, I know. All around me now is those flashes; the only real thing I can grasp is the sight of her, standing before me. Maybe she knows how to take off the chains, because she is bound to none…?
    I find that I am actually moving, I'm really moving!!!
        Then I freeze, pale.
    Will she see these chains? Will she run at my sins?
        So pure a goddess, free of chains. Will you frighten?
    I feel empty, a sadness to painful overtaking me. She is so good and just. I am a demon. What right do I have
to look at her?
        Are you kidding? I'm too creepy, too unsociable. What would I say? I'd probably freeze up as usual, keeping cool though on the inside freaking out, trying to figure out what to say. Hahah. Any girl runs after seeing me smile. Kinda creepy, I guess. Eew.
    Oh well. If she runs away, all the better. Why keep her there where I could see her, where she would torment me by just standing there?
    But I cannot move. My mind tells my body to move, to inch forward. And I come to almost morbid a realization. That now I'm telling my body to do what the voices have been telling me to do.
    "Why don't you get up?"    "Why don't you try again, to stand up?"    "You've tried so many times before,
what stops you from getting up again?"
    And I understand. "Get up, get up! Your goal is before you, why can't you reach out and take it? No one sees it but you, touch it before someone takes it away!"
    And with newfound strength. I stand.
            I actually stand.
    But the joy is beyond me. Any joy I could feel will be with that girl if, no when, I get to her. I do not even notice I have stood up, and I'm staggering, toddling…
    …walking…
    Anger, my strongest weapon aids me. These chains cannot bind me. These chains cannot hold me. I made them! I can fight them!!
    The anger does not possess me, as it does most people. I control it, I manipulate it. I am in control.
    I am walking towards her, these chains doing their best to hold me, but they cannot, because unlike me they have no heart. They are mere objects. They can only give one hundred percent.
    I can give two hundred percent.
        The girl turns her body more; her body is facing me now, looking almost right at me. But no, she's looking at the same thing that holds her in awe, which seems not to be me.
    I can give two thousand percent. I can give two million percent.
        Nothing will stop me. Reality does not bind me anymore. This is Nothingness.

    A chain behind me snaps.
        I feel the snap. I feel it in my bones, in my blood.

    I can give three million percent. I can give four, five million.

    More chains snap. They are the weak chains, the small chains. No matter. Each small victory is another inch towards Her.

    She is smiling now, smiling.
        Smiling.

    I can give an infinite amount of percent. I can give whatever it takes to get there.

    Chains snap as each muscle in my body strains, sweats, works. I am determined. For the first time I have ever known I am truly giving every single ounce of power I have.

    All but four chains are left. They bind each of my limbs, but though they do not snap they cannot stop me from moving forward to Her. She is so close…

    I am getting tired. I am getting… exhausted. My trump card seems to be working overtime now.
    "What!? You're slowing down? Don't stop! You said you would give your all, you said you'd give whatever it took!"
    "I… I'm tired, I–
    "You nothing!"    The fire is no longer behind me. It is in me, strengthening me. I no longer care that this fire may be the devil himself. I will reach Her. This will be a happy ending.

    It seems though the universe doesn't like me having happy endings. The chains get heavier, forever heavier. I strain against them, trying to reach my goal, for once I want to actually reach my goal…

    A new trump card rises in me. The anger fusing with it. Happiness.
        Songs, laughter, excitement. They boil like a geyser. One I can ride, one I can hold, can place behind me to push me forward.
        Movies, shows, books. They edge me ever closer, ever closer. I'm so close, the girl seems to be actually looking at me. She keeps a blank expression on her face.
        The feeling I get when life is going good. The hilarity of a joke. A girl's smile. I push harder, harder…
    She looks at me. I swim in those beautiful eyes of hers, somehow unafraid of them though before a girl's eyes could kill me, I'm so shy…
    I gain strength in those eyes. I gain confidence in those eyes.

    I'm so close now, so close…

    She smiles at me. I feel like the greatest human being in the world. I finally made it.

    She touches my shoulder, and I sigh. I notice something.
        The chains are gone.
    She turns me around, the gray-blackness gone. I'm surrounded in a white, a lovely white that makes me feel great. Or perhaps it’s this girl be my side…
    She puts her arm around me; it feels so assuring its unreal - she points up and smiles at me. I blush, and place my arm around her shoulder. I look at where she's pointing.

    My eyes dilate, widening as I see…

        as I see…

 I wonder as the pain recedes where my heart is. Was I born apathetic? The ability to care is much associated with love yet my drive to succeed differs much from my failure to love. In my desperation and long journey with no seeming end I have been able to temporarily accept a fake love whose birth I cannot explain except that I created it. What happens when because of a man's deficiencies he turns to others for help when really it makes himself worse? What am I to do? These imaginary deadlines approach me, these imaginary duties, hobbies, and prayers occupy me, and I am growing increasingly aware and afraid of how much of my life is made up by me.

"No one understands" and "Why is everything decided for me?" Either the first is true and the latter false, or vice versa. No one can understand because one's entire life is dictated by oneself. Or, everyone understands you but yourself which is why your life must be governed for you. I have found myself somewhere in a third versa where it is not that I do not understand, but that what there is to know does not exist.

Love? What is love?

And that every judgement I make on others is a judgement upon myself - not an exterior application of inner appearances upon the images of others but that my own actions cause reactions that are perfectly understandable yet bring me no new meaning of life.

Life? What is life?

As all this happens I can already see the chains forming upon my hands. Upon my feet. And to my inital horror there is a metal clasp and chain links rattling against my chest. My heart beats defiantly and lets me know that it has not yet been captured… but my skin is giving way. The blood stains the metal angrily, defending my heart. I look, aghast, as if it is a grasping hand reaching into an anthill to retrieve something obviously of high value, while millions of insects swarm. What is so important inside my chest? This fleshy fluid organ that is somehow supposed to symbolize an impossibility? You can have it.

For God is love, and God is Truth. Truth is God and Love as well. Is Truth Love?

If so, where is my truth? Why is it withheld from me? Again I believe in the existence of a God - the existence of a Truth - the existence of my Life. I begin to pull the chain from my heart. I want it back. You can't have it.

It's mine.

Mine? Truth / Love / God mine? No. I want it. But if I can't have it, then you can't have it. A dead kind of anger, not the furious kind but the apathetic kind, seeps into my heart. The bloody chain recoils

Chain? It was never a chain. It really was a hand! I look up as fast as I can…!!

It's her.

All of a sudden I am given my new meaning of life. It no longer feels as if life is controlled by me - it is meant to be shared by me and her. But faces blur, the chains holding my hands and arms quite easily become hands themselves. I fight them! I want to rip them off of the arms of those people who are holding me back from her! I turn my head back to see her and gain reassurance in that beautiful face of hers- She got it out! She got this heart out, this heart of mine that gives me so much pain, and I am struck with confusion.

Sure, you can have it, but I kind of want it too…

I look up to her face, that innocent smile. That face of hers cannot be described in words, and it would be possible to pass this dream onto you, for it is mine, but the only way I can best describe it to you would be like seeing someone wearing a diamond mask. I was still sure it was her, it had to be! The way she holds her heart in her hands… I realise why she wants my heart! She wants it to- !!

A searing pain undescribable reverberates from the core of my body as she clenches her fist around my heart.

The blood spurts out and the fleshy organ jerks and convulses, bleeding like mad.

As I begin to lose consciousness I can only choke out, "Why…"

I lose strength and once again I am reverted to the state of the Dream. That is, mind racing but body broken. The hands pull me back and I am pulled… no… I let them pull me back and I pull myself back. Bleary, as I watch the girl squeezing the literal life out of me fade, I look up to see who was holding my arm.

It's a friend. A good friend.

And for the first time in this dreamscape I see a real person from real life. I turn my head, slowly, wondering if I move slow I can live longer due to the less usage of what blood I have left, and I see another friend. They turn me around, and they walk away.

No… where are you going?!?

Silence.

Footsteps. Footsteps? There was no sound until now. I do not open my eyes. But i feel my head pulled up into a lap, and I force them open.

"Your eyes are red."

It's her. I've never heard her voice before. It is calm, a bit playful and cheerful, like her grin. She's not the impostor before who took my heart. Yet… I am hesitant. I already had my heart taken from… no… I already gave my heart to find it only brought me pain. Even if I had two hearts it feels as if I have no more to give.

She smiles at me, and there's no mask. It's real, it's skin. Of course - at the risk of dying from muscle use - I move my hand up to her face. She helps me while my arm is halfway there, and I caress the surely real and soft skin. Then her smile softens shightly and she puts down my arm over my chest. She reaches below
her bosom around her upper stomach and… with pain, struggles with something.

Oh no.

I try my hardest to get my hands up, my vision failing, to push her hands in. The dainty fingers already had grasped her own heart and I push it back into her core. With one bloody hand she puts my hands down, and with a final cute grunt her hand holds her own heart. As gory and disgusting human hearts are, not to mention the hole in her chest, I am struck with awe.

And, she leans forward. I take a breath in and intake her scent. (Yup, still perverted in Hell). I feel a beating from my chest.

What the hell?

She finishes placing her heart in me and she leans back up. I feel the strength, more than ever before, come into my body. My muscles return. The gift of thought is given back to me. As soon as I can I pick myself up to see how she's doing. I look at where the hole in her frontside was - there is no more. Her hands are not bloody - rather, they seem to be somewhat cleaner than before. And a new chain forms, its end on my chest
and its clasp on hers.

What?

I realise that the Chains were never sins. They were, simply, attachments. I gaze at the chain, wondering what kind of memories I would see. The other chains I was freed from gave me memories…

"Silly."

I look up at her in confusion.

"You have to make the memories first."

I then notice, above the chain clasp on her end, hanging on a necklace is a key. Behind her, a pile of chains.
The locks were all open. I look back at her, and though she was the one to unlock me does not mean my effort to free myself from them was not meaningless.

Aside her, are friends. Valued friends. They also have keys. More that unchained me. I look at them, and they can see the gratitude apparent on my face. They smile back at me.

"Look."

At her voice I look to where she's pointing - downwards. I look down at my chest.

There's a set of keys on my necklace.