Abyss [ENG]

Abyss

Silence.
It's all that remains.
A silence that is paradoxically deafening, that echoes in the ears and shocks the soul to the core. A silence that muted the screams of despair, the same silence that made you realize how fleeting and terrible is the life of all those who work in this hostile environment. One moment you're there, running wildly from one point to another in this world; the very next, in the blink of an eye, you find yourself lifeless, destroyed by the attack of ferocious bacteria.
But all the questions that you would now want to ask someone - even if you don't know who, whether to your superiors or to yourself - die before they are even born. The fast pace of this cursed life chases the survivors, and seems to want to break this silence that surrounds everything, because life continues to go on, heedless and almost disrespectful of the sad feelings that dwell inside the heart, without leaving even the time to turn a last thought to those who are no longer there.
As if nothing serious is happening, the hectic life stubbornly gets inside the four walls of a lonely room - yours -, in the form of lighter and more familiar sounds and noises, such as the notices left in the mailbox during the day, or the voice mail messages that keep piling up, unaware that there will never be a reply.
Silence is stronger than them, stronger than those daily noises and sounds that at this moment seem more cruel than any blade stuck in the chest. In a struggle that seems endless, several times silence triumphs over those words that, despite everything, continue undaunted to call for a return to that cruel and seemingly meaningless life.

[«Hey! How long are you planning to skip work and laze around? We're super short-handed here! Get back here!»]

Darkness.
There is no light in your room. Even the light coming from outside is smothered by the thick curtains covering the window panes, one of the few points of contact between the apartment and the rest of the world. An atmosphere of total isolation reigns in the room where this pitch-black darkness is the only companion you have left: the darkness slowly replaces that atrocious silence that is the bearer of the thousands of unanswered questions that fill your mind.
Unlike silence, darkness seems almost comforting: it is able to understand your never-ending suffering, which keeps digging into the depths of your soul until it tears them apart. It envelops you like the warmth of a cup of tea drunk on days when the temperature drops a few degrees in this working environment, and suddenly it's able to completely cover the annoying voice calls that keep coming from the answering machine.
Darkness is more powerful than anything... and suddenly it wipes out any source of noise or sound. So time stops, and suddenly the life that continues to flow outside that room seems to freeze: you can no longer hear the quick steps of the erythrocytes carrying oxygen, nor the sharp slashes of the leukocytes beating the bacteria, nor even the complaints of ordinary cells, also tired of that world full of oppression and exploitation.
Silence returns to reign, but this time it's a different kind of silence. It's a silence that makes you think: a nostalgic silence, which little by little is filled with sweet memories that clash with the daily apocalyptic scenarios that dominate this world without hope and - perhaps - without a future.
Memories of bright smiles that at this moment seem so far away, almost unreal, as if they were part of a dream and not of a reality really lived, and that were able to convey a great comfort; memories of advices that only apparently seemed out of place but that hid a great awareness of the dangers that dominate this atrocious world; memories of words of support, able to console and encourage to go on despite everything.
A kind gaze always recurs in these memories that follow one another like frames of a movie: a soothing gaze, that had been able to erase - even if only for a moment - all the terrible things that exist in this world; a gaze that was able to lift a distraught soul, full of confidence and of a strange optimism towards this tragic life.
And yet... why, now, has that look also suddenly turned into something else, full of despair, the same one you have already seen on the faces of your colleagues?
The last and tragic image of that look tinged with terror. An image you are trying to deny with all your might - in vain.
So, in the depths of that silence, the tears start to flow again. All the memories tied to those brief moments of happiness are filled with cracks, which multiply at great speed and become deeper and deeper until those images are shattered: the memories fall to the ground like pieces of glass, pulverizing at the violent impact with the cruel reality devoid of compassion and mercy.
Now, only a deep and unbridgeable despair remains, suddenly looming like a boulder.

Tears.
You have shed many tears - perhaps too many - since you began working. They have always been tears of anguish in the face of the frailness of life: too many fallen because of the insensitivity of this organism, victims too close to you. In this working environment there has never been room for joy, for distraction, for rest: any action that has tried to go against the grain has been destined to have a short life and end in oblivion.
Nothing has changed, and nothing would ever change.
You are part of a world that is able to reset all forms of feeling to zero, to reduce everyone to soulless beings, like those mysterious machines that, from time to time, make their appearance in moments of difficult resolution. Feelings such as affection towards a colleague and joy of living happy moments are naive, indeed: they are useless for this world, where the watchword has always been and continues to be one.
[Work.]
A word that you have listened in every single second of your life, a word full of coldness, completely emptied of those warm feelings to which you were getting used - and of which you had always felt you needed, to be able to get up every time the discouragement afflicted your thoughts.
You still needed all this. Above all, you still feel you need that smile that has followed you throughout your life, ever since you were a child; a smile that you seemed to have glimpsed even in that heroic sacrifice, an expression that had shone like a small light in the darkness in that last act of great brotherly love.
In no time at all, in that tragic moment, there had been no trace of that smile.
It had vanished, along with everything else.

Why were we born into this world?

That question can't be answered.
That loss was too painful for you: in a few seconds you lost a part of your world, the very part that had always brought you out of your bitterness... and you would do anything to go back in time and relive those moments when your smile - along with his, with that of your best friend - shone like never before.
But you already know that this is impossible: you've lost that precious piece of your world forever, and nothing can ever replace it.
That sense of emptiness you now feel in the center of your chest is expanding more and more, to the point of devouring you completely.
Until the point where you no longer feel pain.
Until the point where the tears stop falling from your eyes and the sobs cease to exist.

I've had enough.

The deep anguish you've felt so far seems to have been buried forever, having given way to apathy that has sapped your strength and left you incapable of any movement.
Little by little, a new awareness makes its way into your mind, that of the uselessness of your actions. The enthusiasm, the efforts you put into your work: none of this would be able to change the current state of affairs.
Any action will serve no purpose. This is the bitter truth: the situation will always remain the same.
At this point, all you have to do is to lie still in your bed, with your eyes turned to an undefined spot of the room, and let the world go back to running... but this time without you.

«I'm... done. I... don't want to work anymore.»