There I sat in my half broken down office chair, in front of which was the table where upon once stretched arcs of paper where I wrote down the world i created in my own mind. Now it was replaced by a screen where all I could see was the flawed lines of tatherd ideas and half strung together dialogue. Despite its messy state, i always felt pride when i looked upon the text. Becouse it was mine, and i used to think that that feeling could never be taken from me.
I closed my eyes and grabbed my head, pain flaring up as a migraine set in. In the depths of my mind I know it’s my own fault, but still I cast mean words to the god that might hang in the sky for cursing me with such a blight. I sighed, opening my eyes to once again scan the seemingly never-ending slurry of what might one day becoene a fabtasy book.
Yet there among the aches, and deepths of my thinking, a noise arose. It was small, barely noticeable over the sound of my ancient computer’s constant humming. The sound of metal against metal, a low scrape. Despite my almost delirious state, I shoot up, confusion setting in, mingled with fear. I breathed out, slouching back down over my keyboard. ‘I live in the suburbs’ I thought to myself. ‘Probably just some idiot taking out the trash’. I try to refocus on my task, yet the words just seem to swim past me, my eyes unable to find even a hint of meaning among the humbled words. From hyper focus to no focus, quite typical for myself. I pushed myself away from the table, my chair rolling me back almost to the door. I got up, my back felt stiff and painful, like that of an old man.
I walk out the door, moving across the hallway to the door leading to the staircase to the first floor. I kick the door stopper in under the door, continuing into the kitchen. My back leaned against the kitchen island and my eyes to the window that looked out into the endless abyss that was the forest that stood back to back with my small garden. I can almost smell the wet dirt and crisp night air. It calls to me in a way, perhaps calling fourth a deep-set gene of constant yearning for the outside.
I grabbed a coat from the coat hanger, walking out the back door onto my small raised patio. It is protected from the rain by a large patio cover. Three years ago me and my father spent three days building it. Now I was alone, and him with my mother in the bed of the endless. I sat down on the steps leading down to my small garden, right on the edge of where the patio cover ended and I would be exposed to the rain and wind. Even in my darker hours i knew nature always persisted. For a moment the world felt surreal, like I could just breathe out and drift away into the sky on an adventure away from what we called reality. If I were to just….
I snapped to my senses as rain hit my head, my slumping body almost falling down the stairs. I chuckled to myself, realizing that perhaps it’s time for me to head to bed. I got up onto my feet, throwing one more glance at the ever-pouring rain before going back inside. Grabbing a glass from the cupboard, my eyes feeling like they were filled with lead as I filled the glass with water and sipped it for a few seconds, before pouring it back into the sink.
My tired self half shuffled to the door down into the basement, opening it with a tired hand as I slowly made my descent down the staircase. Entering my room, I immediately started undressing. Exhaustion filled my entire body, my sluggish movements only sped up by the prospect of a warm comfy bed. Yet as I lifted the blanket to my bed, a thought struck me: “Didn’t I leave the door to the basement open on my way out?” My body tensed up, my throat closing up as fear sent a cold freezing blizzard coursing through my body. The before comfy room suddenly felt alien to me, every item seeming to be slightly out of place. I stood still, a perfect silence draping around me like a wet uncomfortable shirt.
I tried shaking the thought off as just my brain being on a sleep deprived anxiety run, yet one detail clung with me: I remember placing the door-stop under the door. I crept into my bed, wrapping the blanket around me. My eyes were turned to my door, a slither of light from the lights upstairs cast upon its half open surface. For a moment I just stared, my eyes not even blinking. Yet as the minutes ticked by, nothing happened, and my tensed up body started to relax. I could feel my eyes slowly closing, each blink becoming longer and longer. Yet as my soon failing eyes began to close for one final time, I did not fail to see the shadowy silhouette that moved against the door.
My eyes slowly opened, taking in the room around me. For a moment I simply lay in my bed, feeling the world around me. A trickle of light shone through my open door. I recalled what happened the night before, and all I could remember was those two seconds before my eyes sealed shut. I shook my head. I wanted to dismiss it all as just a dream, yet I knew it was real. As my eyes once again scanned the room, I felt…. Strange. The world felt… Empty in a way. I sat down in my chair, opening up my draft. I scanned the texts, and felt… Nothing.
I got out of my chair, walking upstairs and in the kitchen, staring out at the forest. The previously mysterious beauty now felt bleak and hollow, like I saw it for what it actually was for the first time. I sat down onto the floor, my back against the wall and my eyes blankly staring into the abyss
Life is simply a lens our consciousness uses to entertain itself. A thin coat covers it that adds flavor to the world. Which makes us enjoy the feeling of accomplishment, the colors of a rainbow and the smells of spice. Yet when that coat is removed, what is left?
Nothing. Whatever got into my house that night took the coat from me, and now all I see is a blank hollow world in were everything that I once cherished im now unable to see in the light i once did.
Something stole the colour of the world from me.