This is the second part of a story, or a spiritual successor to Delorean Gray. Fuck MySpace and the shitty format.
I think I'm going to call both parts together "Taijitu."
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You fall asleep.
Slowly and surely, consciousness loses
focus and meaning. Dreams beckon you onward and welcome you with the
warmth of a thousand hugs. You smile contently and snuggle your
dreams closer, so close that they seem real. They are real. And so
are you.
You step off the plane and onto the
boat. You're on a boat. You laugh hysterically for what seems like a
lifetime. Or was it just a moment? No matter! What matters is that
you're alive. You're alive and you're free.
You stand at the helm and look at your
world. What do you want to do? Your mind races with ideas, your mind
blanks on the spot. No matter, time is your's to slow, to stop. So
you stop it.
You recline on the deck, bathing under
a frozen sun. You sip casually on your drink and wriggle your toes in
the sand. You remember those jars of multicolored sand and wriggle
your toes in the rainbow. You decide you'd like a handful of
Skittles.
You pop them back and chew
thoughtfully. What you want to do? An idea comes to mind. You glance
up at the light bulb above your head, but decide it's just the sun.
You look at yourself. You let go. You
look back down at the world and walk through the forest that you find
yourself in the midst of. You break into a run. You run harder than
you thought was humanly possible. But it doesn't matter, because
you're not human here. You're God. So you decide to fly. You the owl
fly through the trees at a breakneck speed, altering your course with
the subtlest of movements.
You come across a cabin where a group
of friends sit hidden from the outside. You decide to drop in. They
offer you something bright. You ask what it is. They hold up a bag of
sunshine. You laugh and breathe deeply. You cough clouds nine, ten,
eleven, twelve, skip thirteen, and fourteen.
Your friends ask you how you've been.
You think about it and decide you've been all right. They ask if you
want to play a video game. You ask what they're playing. Some zombie
game. You laugh hysterically for what seems like a lifetime.
Just as you're about to sit down and
play, something crashes against the cabin. In a flash, your friends
are up and ready. Something claws at the walls of your mind, of the
cabin.
You start to bar the door, but change
your mind. This is your world.
You explode.
The cabin erupts from around the
handful of survivors. The shards rip through the zombie hordes. These
aren't dead zombies of course, it's just another mutated form of
rabies. That way they're fast. A little less boring. And they need to
be stronger, harder, smarter, better. And so they are.
You leap at them with a sword in hand,
with a gun, with a lightsaber, with nothing but your bare hands and
will(to)power. You cut a path through the masses as your friends do
the same. But winning is no fun and everyone wants that high that
comes with losing. People thrive on chaos. A wise man once wrote; it
is only when we've lost everything that we're free to do anything.
And you're free anyways, so why not
lose everything? You'll just get it back. And if you don't, well,
you'll wake up soon enough. So you let go. Of perception, of your
conscious self, of your prejudices and inclinations. You embrace
nothing.
And you implode. You see everything at
once. You understand without any concept of understanding. You
perceive truth, enlightenment without perceiving. You are cut off
from it, but you are one with the Force. You are Tao. Most people die
before they reach zero. Even math equations can't always make it that
far. But you do. In this world, you can do anything. This is your
world without rules. But all things must end. Something pulls you
back to your reality. Ending...dying...die..die.
Die....die....you can't die. You look
down at the blood pouring from your stomach. There's no pain. You're
numb. You fall backwards onto a bed of flowers. You feel some pain.
But that's fine. You are and that is enough. Your friends make their
way over to you, the zombies are forgotten. They crowd around you as
if funeral bearers. You look past them and up at the tree of life.
You get up. They shake their heads in
exasperation. You wish them farewell and you leave. You're antsy and
you have the urge to go somewhere exotic. You think and close your
eyes.
You open your eyes.
You look around. You are surrounded by
gray.
You look closer and see that the gray
is actually silver.
You look around. You are surrounded by
silver. You look closer and make out images etched into everything.
You see everything in what appears to be nothing. You blink. It
doesn't go away. You frown. This is your world. Nothing controls you
here.
You vocally command the silver to
leave you be. It shines brighter.
You close your eyes and think.
You reach for that truth, that zero,
that perfection. It's so close. And so far. You breathe deeply and
reach farther. It slips farther away. You think. It slips farther.
You race towards zero, but there are an infinite number of points to
traverse.
You ask the impossible.
And then it hits you.
You realize you have no control.
Except over yourself.
You can see the light at the end of
the cave. You reach for it. It dims.
Stop.
You stop. You stop trying to reach,
you close your mind's eye and stop thing.
You accept. Everything, anything,
nothing.
You open your eyes. The world is there
again. Your friends, the cabin, the forest. Everything is etched with
silver lining. You smile. You break into a run, as fast as you think
humanly possible. And then you run harder. The world blurs in your
motion.
You come to the ship. Your friends are
already there. You leap aboard and make your way to the helm. The
horizon burns brightly. You remember a movie from what seems like a
lifetime ago. You toss your compass overboard. You're the only one
who can tell you what you want. Or where you can find it. You hum to
yourself. You look to the horizon. It burns brighter. You take
flight.
Every night you die and every night
you are born again.
You wake up.
You
slowly open your eyes and blink the sleep away.
Sleep....sleep. Where were you? You
think.
You breathe deep and stretch, letting
the fatigue roll down your limbs and out through the tips of your
fingers, out through the tips of your toes. Then you
realize...slowly.....you look around..it's coming faster now....and
it hits you-.
I'm you and that makes all the
difference.