The view down to the water from the top of the twelfth floor was unacceptably inviting. I simply could not accept it; the urge, the internal push, the lust. I could go in an instant, finish this perfectly reasonable life. I am not sad or depressed or even happy but the beauty of a final jump cannot be overcome. I would be greeted by nothing. While nothing doesn’t exist neither would I; that notion has the commanding power to overcome the divide between reality and philosophical, ethereal thought.
“Hey, what you thinking about?” Sarah asked my favourite question with uncensored innocence.
“Nothing.” I replied with an air of pretentiousness.
“But surely you’re thinking about something?”
“Yes the concept of nothing.” A more pompous answer I could not conceive; this not being my intent but nevertheless having the same, slightly shaming, outcome.
“Oh Aldous doesn’t the water look so inviting.” She paid no attention to my pretension.
“It really does I would love to jump in with you.” She was gorgeous. I was attracted to someone of utmost physical splendour. It shamed me to be of such simple lusts but I think it was a small factor in comparison to the words she spoke and the way she made me think and feel. It was the contrast in our thoughts that that was so attractive: I thought death she thought life all while considering the same question.
“Do you think we would survive?” She asked without consideration.
“I don’t know but there would be something special even romantic about us both leaping to our final demise.”
“ Oh you’re such a cliché!, I would far rather we swam to an island and lived our days out in blissful boredom!”
“An island with a library of books and I’ll be happy.” Again the unintended touch of pretension. Maybe it is t...
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...ttled and the notion of being alone, forever, depressed me to my core. I attempted to fill the hours with an endless list of clichéd cruise activities, they all felt hollow and meaningless; the pinnacle of hedonism. I tired quickly of being surrounded by people, particularly this cruise going set; they all looked as if they belonged in a b roll, over acted, American movie. So I decided to read a book in the relative sanctity of my cabin. Then something dawned on me, not like the shattering of a pain of glass but more like a layer of dust slowly collecting on a book. The realisation was initiated by my need to start taking my medication again. I hadn’t taken my meds all day. The hallucinations always started shortly after I stopped taking them, but she had felt so real. She was the materialisation of nothing. She was my materialisation of nothing. She was nothing.