Nowhere

The Arrival

I wake up taking in breath fast, as if prior to this moment I was short of it. When I dwell on that thought all that comes up is an unwavering certainty that I was short of breath in the moment, or moments prior to this. I want to tell myself that my fast paced breathing was only result of night terrors, like I had when I was a kid. But when I try to think of my previous sleep like state, nothing shows up. It was as if I never dreamt anything. My only explanation has to be that before my sleep, I couldn't breathe. Like I was drowning and in my dreams I was reliving the memory, but I cannot remember it.

My eyes aren't open. Do I dare open them? This is the challenge I face every morning trying to wake myself from dreams. Do I open my eyes only to see a family that would be better off without me? Or do I go to sleep only to see it again in my dreams. Sometimes I do not know what is crueler, reality, or my own subconscious. This struggle I face everyday of my life. I like to think, at least in my dreams I am master of my domain. I control what I see and do not see, yet it seems I have no control of what I see or do not see. In the end though, the answer I choose is always the same. Reality wins the battle.

I open my eyes.I knew before opening them I was on my left side. Meaning when I were to open them I would see the waves of silky red that is my wife's gorgeous hair. When I opened my eyes however, all I saw was white. Not white hair, not white sheets. Not white walls. All I saw was white. I sit up yet I'm not sure what I am sitting on. It is like a floor but it feels almost as though I am floating. The floor seems to have no substance yet I am sure I am sitting on it. It is not as though my hand goes through it when I touch it, but it is like I am touching nothing when something is clearly there. But this something , this thing, can it really be anything, can it be something though when I touch it I feel nothing? But isn't nothing also something? Is this something that I am touching that feels like nothing actually nothing, or is it something? The better question yet is, what and where is this something that feels like nothing though I know it is something?

Yes yes that is the question I should be asking myself. Where am I? I look around me and once more only see white. It is a never ending field. White is the absence of color and all around me I just see emptiness. As though I am looking into a void, but a void has substance. This is an abstract landscape. Why am I here? What is here? And why does my neck burn like thousand suns?

Then I see it. What it is, I am not entirely sure. But there is something. Something in this vast nothing and that has to be something even if it is nothing. I run towards this something. I run towards this something on a ground that is nothing next to walls of nothing and a ceiling of nothing. I run and run and run when in the middle of this vast nothingness I see something. It is a mirror. Why a mirror? Why in this forgotten land is there a solitary mirror and myself?The only two things here are in some way, variations of myself.My reflection shows me. I am pale. Very pale and my lips are almost blue, like I was sucking on a blue popsicle from when I was a kid. Then I reach my neck. My neck is as pale as the rest of me but there is a deep purple ligature all around my neck. This mirror must mean something.I touch the mirror and my reflection ripples as if it was water but when I touched the mirror it was solid glass. The image in the mirror changes. I see myself dressed as I am currently. I am in a plain white button down shirt and khakis with my gray skechers. My shirt, usually tucked in, is untucked meaning I'm down about something. I am in my bedroom standing on the oak chair. Above me hangs a noose. The way it hangs looks so ominous that it reminds me of my racist grandparents. They used to show me photos of black men being lynched. I always remember my grandma's voice, raspy, with toxic hot breath from all the smoking she's done. She had showed me a picture and turned to me saying, "That is where those niggers belong, and if you ever befriend a monkey, I will put him up into the trees where he belongs." That memory sends me flying back and I fall down. That memory always sends chills and to this day I've never had a black friend because of it. As I was thinking of this memory I never saw mirror me move from his position. Now he is in the corner at the nightstand. He is writing something. He walks back to the chair. I have a weight in my stomach. I feel like I know what is going to happen but I don't want to believe it. Mirror me starts to cry and so do I. I'm sitting rocking back and forth never taking my eyes off of the mirror hoping I don't go through with this. Mirror Me grabs the noose, tightens it, and he kicks the chair back. I watch horrified as he kicks his legs thrashing wildly and then suddenly it stops. My stomach feels heavy and I roll over and feel like I have to throw up. Nothing comes up. I am crying. I look back at the mirror and it is obvious the time of day has shifted. I see a flash of pink. In comes a pigtailed wide eyed beautiful seven year old girl with her favorite pink sweatshirt on. My daughter. Celeste my innocent young girl. The innocent saunter she entered the room with soon vanished as her knees collapsed beneath her and she screamed. There was no noise coming from the mirror yet I still heard the scream. It took me a moment to register that the scream was my own. I couldn't stand to watch this horror show anymore. I pounded with my fists on the mirror. It cracked yet still showed the image. I hit it harder and harder and harder until shards fell out and my knuckles were bloody. I wished it away, willed it, needed it, and then it was gone. The mirror vanished and I sat there in a ball. A mess of blood and tears on a nonexistent existing floor.

I eventually stopped crying. I looked at my hands and the cuts were gone and so was the blood. My neck still stings and touching it is like igniting a fire. After watching mirror me everything came back to me. I killed myself and now I am here,wherever "here" is. From what I have already experienced, this is probably hell. My eternal resting place. But nobody's here but me. Where is this Satan guy? Why am I not burning up in an eternal fire with other souls to repent for my sins? Or is this an even greater punishment for all the bad in my life? Was I such a terrible person that I was sanctioned off into an abstract never-ending corner tortured by images such as what I saw earlier? Was the act that I committed so heinous that I am subjected to this for all of eternity? I can only imagine the ways in which God, Satan, whoever, is going to torture me for ever. Showing my kids grow up without me. My wife fucking another man on repeat over and over. In all the grief I am feeling in the thought of this being my eternal resting place I start wishing for my bible. So it could explain or help me or tell me why I am here. I kept hoping and hoping and hoping, wishing,needing,wanting, my bible and then it appeared. It came from nowhere. Not a sound or movement, it just was there as if it had been the entire time. Right next to me lay my bible. It was undoubtedly my bible. Opening it on the left page was my scribble handwriting from when I was first given this bible by my father when I was six. Every tear and crease was an exact replica of my own bible. I couldn't believe it. My bible. Actually here. What really is this place?