from my story book Paradox of fiction
Like a heart.
It pulses.
Expanding its volume only to shrink it again.
Like lungs. Inhale and exhale.
At first, the new bottle of Jack seemed like too much. Now it’s empty. Not a drop left, and there’s nothing you can do about it. Life’s the same way. Boundless one moment, strictly confined by rules the next, and eventually… just empty. Do what you want, do what you can. The vast world you once traveled has shrunk to a single blinking light on your phone.
Waiting to see if it’ll blink again. Waiting to see if someone wants to talk to you. Far from everyone, yet within reach of data networks. You want them to know you’re alive, too. Even if you’re at the very bottom of their list, you’re still on it. And that makes it all the harder to bear. They know you’re here, but it’s as if you’re not. You’re ready for any question, ready to reply, to ask, to engage. Grateful for the moments they remember you when they need help. But really, they don’t need you as much as you think.
Fool.
Will the light blink again?
You’re wasting time waiting. At least life isn’t endlessly long. Like everything else, it expands at first, only to start shrinking, contracting. Everyone has their own Big Bang, their own tiny, big universe. Yours is already shrinking. As fast as it can. Ending in an implosion. Collapsing selfishly into itself. How easy it would be to throw the phone against the wall, but… the naive hope that someone might need you stops you. What if, in that split second before it shatters, the light blinks again?
You’re trapped by your promises and your code of honor. Reduced to mere material necessity. And when you look around at your closest circle, you see their worlds have changed too.
We don’t talk anymore. Everyone’s eyes are fixed on the screens of their modern bibles. You subtly hint at how absurd it is, but the responses are always the same.
Just a second. So you wait. Instead of smashing their phones to the floor or cutting the router’s cable—anything to show them how much you miss real conversation—you wait. You can’t do it to them. They wouldn’t understand. You’d take away the world they’re content with. A world built from words like maybe, someday, we’ll see.
You remember a time when you went for walks in the forest, on trips, a time untainted by emotional emptiness. How you’d quietly slip out of the house while they slept, to sit in the still-dark woods, savoring the moment when the sun kissed the treetops. Sitting on that stone, on the high bank of a stream, you’d wonder how long it had been there. How big and deep the river must have been hundreds of thousands of years ago—wild, reshaping the landscape, dictating life around it. That high bank was surely once its bed. Ruthless and mighty, the river had carved out the world you loved sitting in so much. But now, there’s no river. No forest. Just a tiny trickle where grandeur once roared. A stream flowing quietly through the remains of its former glory. The trees are gone. The morning birdsong lives more in your memory than in reality. The small joys of ordinary life have disappeared. The good days are gone. It’s time. Time to find a new, beautiful place to set yourself free. Clear your head. Let it think about new things. Plan again. Anticipate. Look forward to the day and how you’ll spend it—even alone. Be of use to yourself. It must be possible. If they don’t need you, accept it. Stop asking why and start asking how. How to rid yourself of naivety. Naive stories from naive films filled with naive heroes preaching, All’s well that ends well. Understand that the end is a new beginning. The beginning of anything. The beginning of another life, no matter how short.
Try to become a strong river again, one that started as a tiny stream.
Be who you once were. Yourself.
Find the right moment to catch the right wave, riding it with adrenaline to the finish.
It’s time to stop waiting.
It’s easy to say… start over… differently… better. But how?
A blank wall, as empty as his head. No inspiration, no ideas, no interesting topic—just the itch to write something. It’s too cold for Jack, and he’d freeze downstairs before even managing to write the first word.
He remembered he still had some glass at home… the last one. Somewhere. It had to be somewhere. Maybe an idea would come with a hit from the pipe. Frenzied rummaging through pointless collections of everything imaginable. Constantly moving unnecessary things around made it impossible to remember where anything was. There it was. The last one. New and unused. He remembered how he had told him where to buy the glass. He couldn’t help but laugh. An amateur posing as a professional, stocking up on glass pipes like they were loaves of bread. Maybe there wasn’t anything unusual about buying it. Producing the filling seemed far more natural to him. No time to choose—he grabbed the one on top and loaded the glass barrel. The end glowed red. Inhale.
Even though he’d cut his cigarette consumption from a hundred a day to forty, holding this in was still a struggle. Reload. His lungs had adapted by now. He had to hurry back to the warmth of his room before the chill set in. He put on his favorite song for inspiration. The absolute favorite. Opened the text editor, closed his eyes, and waited. The song ended.
Nothing.
Another song. Still nothing.
UTB. Nothing. FB…IG… Nothing.
How the hell do they do it? Or is it just bullshit? No thoughts or ideas came. From what he could write about, he couldn’t squeeze out a single word. From what he couldn’t write about, he could fill a library. But he had to respect the boundaries.
Weed isn’t daiquiri.
“It’s not Cuba… it’s as cold as a seal’s ass here,” he thought as he lit up and hurried back to the warmth.
With one subtle reminder, the first wave of the tsunami hit.
Don’t move.
Don’t get up.
Wait.
Close the laptop and set it aside, just in case the urge to stand overwhelmed him. He wanted so badly to get up, but he simply couldn’t.
Even if he were dying of thirst, he knew there was no way he’d make it to the kitchen for a glass of water. The water would have to come to him somehow. The water would likely arrive before any idea did.
Two hours of a parched desert in his mouth.
A tornado in his head. Getting up wasn’t that hard. But making it to the bedroom? A fifty-fifty chance. Small victory. FNM.
Only the thoughts of others filled his head.
Sebeironically, he chuckled: “If that’s how the geniuses did it, I’d love to see their manuscripts. I can’t even find the damn ‘a’.” He groped for the key. “Swore it was right there a second ago. Royal Gorilla isn’t daiquiri.”
Just let no one call, asking him to drive somewhere. Wrapped in the latest technology. Neat and polite. Respectably high. Finally, a long sleep. Dawn was breaking.
Phew… still feeling the aftermath. He picked the worst possible song and reaped his well-deserved reward.
Hole… you knew exactly what you were writing about
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