The Void

At last, the cherry blossoms dissipated — and there it was: the void. Metastasizing, consuming everything around it. They say if you stare into the void, it stares back at you eerily. Recurrence and nausea are common symptoms — it brings forth all the suppressed emotions, you either throw up or.. throw yourself down. “seems like the remission didn’t work after all, huh. how have you been doing? been a while”. I wasn’t a fan of him, always dressed up ecstatically with a soft smile that appeared more condescending than warm. I never understood what he wanted or where he came from, but he emerged from thin air at every beginning or.. the ending. “The beginning marks the ending”, so he would remark while passing a soft chuckle. His mannerisms had a certain class to them, though he acted like a total clown. A classy clown, if chaos ever dressed in silk and grinned like a god — ”you’re doing the internal monologue act again, aren’t you?” he said, putting his arms over his head with his characteristic dramatic flair.

“Why are you here?”
“harsh.” And, he went sulking in a corner.
This void emerged after my return from Omelas, an year or so back. It was a small fracture in space-time, and now it’s roughly the size of an apartment complex. Over the past year, I attempted to submit the void into remission but it has only grown worse and more sinister. Before I departed for Omelas, this place was a paradise. Cherry blossoms, pleasant wind, golden sunlight and rivers, everywhere. Ever since that thing showed up, the trees and the rivers have dried out, the sun hasn’t bloomed in an year. It’s incessant rains and gloom yet there’s never a flood. For the first time in my life, I have no idea how to subvert a catastrophe — and ironically enough, it’s my own home that is in danger. I have saved hundreds of paradises before from the void, but my own is in despair.

“[yaaaawns]. is it over yet?” “What?” “the monologue. i guessed you started again, since you have been staring into the void for a few minutes by now. i must say, you do have a talent for self-indulgence.” I didn’t reply hoping that silence would make him vanish. “the void, huh. it’s perhaps the largest i’ve seen in this world. looks cool”. I glared at him angrily, my home is at its knees, and it’s ‘cool’ to him. “[jumps away]. don’t scare me you freak!” Indulging him was of no use. I lit out a cig, an old friend. Not that it’ll give me any ideas on how to deal with the void, but it’ll make the other guy bearable.

“ah so to deal with the death of your world, you accelerate your own death? how poetic”. He said with his eyes fixated on the rising smoke. “you know for someone who claims to have dealt with hundred of voids, you’re surprisingly awful at dealing with your own.”
I snapped. In one motion, I pulled the knife from my coat and drove it towards his throat. “YOU’RE SCARY, BOY!!” he yelled, leaping backwards in a swirl of panic and laughter. I aimed again, and again — for his chest, his lungs, his liver. Each strike, a miss. “strike one! strike two! oh god, he’s swinging wildly now”. Each remark made it worse, and worse. He laughed through it all — not because he didn’t feel threatened, but because I was predictable.
The last strike, and he disappeared.

It didn’t connect, he was gone, just gone. And then I felt it — cold steel at my throat. His voice, suddenly close, raw, unfiltered. “don’t stress yourself”. He was gone again, only to appear near the void casually. “Can you stop it?” I screamed, as he appeared completely unfazed by the impending doom. My hands were still trembling from the rage.
“why should i?”. He wasn’t mocking me or being cynical — it was a genuine question. It was my paradise, he had no obligations to be here even. And that made it worse. “do you even know what this is?” I stood silent. What difference would it make? I didn’t even know who he was, just an uninvited guest every other month, appearing at any new beginnings or endings. I looked up to meet his eyes.
He was gone.

Until I felt the blade, a sharp, sudden edge carving out my heart as I stood frozen. Then like a ritual of sorts, he drove three swords into it — one after the other — and planted it into the ground like a seed. Strangely, it didn’t hurt at all. Not even a little. The clouds raged, the winds blew harder, the rain struck down fiercely. And then it hit me — it didn’t hurt because I wasn’t the bearer of the pain.

“how’s the epiphany, boy”. He said, appearing beside me again, as casually as if we were about to discuss the weather. “it’s not a void, you know. it’s your world. corrupted. rotting away. better understood as a disease by your kind”. “What caused it?” “you did. that’s how it usually goes”. A second after saying that, he drew his blade and slashed at the heart — already pierced and suspended like a relic. He brought back a piece, pitch-black and dead. The moment he severed it, a part of the void disappeared with a thunderclap. He placed the fragment in my hand. “close your fist.” I hesitated, then took a deep breath and obeyed.

The sky screamed. The winds turned feral. The ground groaned and twisted beneath me — and then, all at once — the city of …Omelas. Whole, or so — it seemed, but looking into the distance, I could still see the void. The smell of old blossoms lingered here. I couldn’t hear the rain anymore — for it was the old song of my life. It was three in the morning and there were we, frozen in time, on the floor of her apartment. A perfect frame, creatures in heaven. Within a few minutes, it was all burning. The walls, us, everything turned into ash. It was the cycle. Within minutes, the embers would fade away and the loop would began all over again. I had broken the cycle and left the city.

Back then, I spent most of the days here in the paradise. When the pain got too loud, I’d vanish into the daydreams. This was the Car Radio to fill in the silence, and part of the worlds I conjured to drown out my own screams. I felt a slap on my shoulder — “don’t get lost, boy”. Before I could speak, he slapped my hand — the black fragment fell from my palm.
And with it, Omelas shattered. The blossoms, the apartment — all of it swallowed in a flash of light and a thunderous snap.

The world was back to what it was earlier, we were in my near-death paradise with the void, the incessant rains, the gloominess all around. For a minute, I felt like I was alive again, only to be confronted with the void — much like how it was during those days, daydreaming away the pain while the rot settled in.

“see the problem now?”. I didn’t answer, keeping my head down. “that’s the problem with your kind.”, he went on — circling around chuckling. “you create — then sulk when your creation bares its fangs”. His lowly chuckles. “learn a thing or two from gods. my kind expects desecration”. He looked at me — this time his eyes gleaming with pity. “the thing about the void, boy.. it doesn’t grow on its own. it’s inherently self-decaying, but it has an insatiable hunger. a hunger for the could-have-beens, the what-ifs”. He paused and then grinned widely —”and you? you’ve been hosting a banquet”. He hacked away at the heart once again, and carved out another fragment of the rot. The void shrunk in size further. “if you’ve left it all behind, explain the rot, boy.”

He walked over, placing the fragment gently on my palm, and his knife on the other. “once again, make your call. close your fist, or carve the rest of the fragments out. it’s your heart, it’s your world. gods don’t mourn the dead, boy. i’m not staying.”
And he was gone. His knife stayed, and so did the void. I had to either mourn the heart, or carve it out.