Emptiness

He stepped out into the cold light of day, and the sun shone right
through him. Above and behind birds flittered on treetops and
windowsills, cats chased playfully with mice, and children ate
breakfast with aeroplane spoons. Infront the day ahead sprawled like an
empty road. Infront the road was full of cars and people.
He strolled down the pavement towards the bus stop, and an old ladies
gaze crawled its way over him, through him. He felt the gaze as a
rising pain in his stomach.
"What does she see?" he thought in panic.
"What is there to see?" he thought and felt as the rising, dilated
pain thrust further out over his body.
Her gaze was soon averted as the bus approached. He let her get on
first and then carried on up the stairs and asked for his ticket.
"That's one pound please."
He reached into his pocket and fumbled his wallet. His fingers were
shaky and so was his mind. He counted the money out of tens, twenties
and fives onto the drivers' counter.
"One pound" he said to confirm the amount.
"Thankyou" said the bus driver.
"Thankyou" he replied as he was given his ticket, but something was
wrong.
As he took the ticket he noticed the driver give him a funny look.
Yes, a funny look, and once again the hungry emptiness inside him
roared its' deep curse. He hurried up the stairs to find a seat.
"What does that look mean?" he thought, trying to take care with the
implications, but once again feeling the panicking sensation stab at
his insides.
He found a seat towards the back, struggling to avoid looking at
anyone, but just as he was about to bend down and begin staring out the
window, he noticed a beautiful girl sitting afew seats behind. He
couldn't help but stare at her for just afew seconds, but that was long
enough. She noticed.
The sunlight streamed through her golden hair. Her eyes twinkled in
its' brilliance. Her cheeks blended seductively into her nose, softly
bringing her milky complexion together. He noticed her lips, and the
way they formed so sweetly with her chin. In the seconds that he
glimpsed her, a single image filled his mind. An exquisite picture of
senses and feeling overwhelmed him. He imagined her simple smile of
pleasure, happiness, as he gently kissed her neck.
He had let his eyes wander, even if for just afew seconds, and now he
would pay for it. The stabbing emptiness inside him had been tamed,
stroked, into purring with ethereal delight at that single thought. But
now, as his simple dream faded in a slow, slow instant, the real
expression on her face shocked him.
She noticed, and she huffed indignantly, looking away at something,
anything. On her face was a look of disgust.
He sat down very quickly and his eyes soon found the moving
nothingness outside. His fingers soon found his mouth, his insides soon
felt their customary painful turmoil, but also his mind now went to
work.
"What's wrong with me? What's wrong with me?"
The rainbow of his experience filled him, but he could find no answer,
not even a hint. Every door had two more behind it. Every turning had
another corner he must investigate. Everything moved, never still, as a
circle spinning endlessly around.
"What's right with me? What's right with me?"
This proved an even tougher line of inquiry. His mind began telling
him it was foolishness to ask such questions, but the hole inside him
wanted to know. It was as a black hole, sucking in his faculty of
control.
If he had had someone beside him then, a mind reader perhaps, even
just a talker, then perhaps the questions would have abated.
"Who am I?"
But the circle span faster, and in the middle there was nothing.
Emptiness.
He was invisible to himself, and so he could be nothing but a
nonentity to others.
At the next bus stop he got off and walked home to safety, the womb,
where the bare walls could reflect his emptiness back at him and make
him a very small something.
"Anything's better than nothing" he thought as the sun streaked
through him.
"I'll go and get a job tomorrow."
Later, as he sat in the womb, he substituted the word "job" for
"life".
"Tomorrow, always tomorrow."