The Desire for Nothingness

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screaming for my sole attention to hold on to it i walked back to my apartment and tried taking a shower but the water seemed to almost just go through me i didn't even feel the wetness i became so weak and unsettled i collapsed i crawled out from the bathroom and into my bed and tried falling asleep i had never felt like i needed to sleep forever as badly as i did in that moment but i couldn't it seemed like there was almost a mechanism blocking me from doing so i always had a hard time sleeping but not like that i felt so unbearably tired yet completely awake like i was drifting off into another state but was unable to close my eyes and let go of this one after giving up and basically just staring at the ceiling for some obscene amount of time i called alex to ask about what had happened the previous night and then see if he wanted to get some food he didn't answer i figured he would call back within an hour or so so i waited but after i sent a couple of texts and after an hour passed with no response or call back i decided to just go by myself i was used to that anyway it was at a red light at an intersection a couple blocks down the street when it suddenly hit me the moment i realized for the first time that something was actually wrong as i sat at that intersection waiting for the light to turn green after staring out the driver's side window and noticing it i quickly turned and looked out the passenger side then my rear view mirror in every direction i did not see a single person or car being driven anywhere almost every day on my way to contract jobs i passed through that intersection and almost every day no matter what day or time it contained at least some people and some traffic my mind attempted to run through all the possibilities and explanations ultimately rationalizing that there must be or had been an event that cleared out the area that i was not aware of in some sense i believe i was right about this but not at all in the way that i thought i anxiously continued to where i was going to get food when i arrived the parking lot appeared to be filled with parked cars which quickly relieved me but when i went in the restaurant even though the door was unlocked there was no one inside not only no customers but no employees after shouting out for someone multiple times with no response i began to panic i rushed back outside through the parking lot and into the street i spun around looking in all directions the streets now almost fogged over with the haze i hadn't noticed before were completely empty i took off running looking into cars stores restaurants and any other buildings i passed checking inside the ones that were open for some reason i yelled out pleading for anyone but no one was anywhere to be found i soon came to the conclusion that something must have happened that this part of the city must have been evacuated or cleared out for some reason i checked my phone for information but it seemed to have no service i rushed back to my apartment to check my computer but the internet was also down the tv and radio networks weren't live broadcasting anything either the only things on were a few stations playing repeats of really old shows and movies from maybe around 20 years ago after briefly collecting myself i drove into different parts of the city different towns other cities and other states looking for people for signs of people for any indication or clues as to what had happened i found nothing and with each new place in each new day things seem to only get stranger and stranger colors seem to become less and less saturated almost like the world was dying at first it was as if there was a hue of a gloomy overcast day even while the sun was out but then certain areas appeared to almost become monochrome and even stranger by this point i barely even reacted to this the colors of my emotions and sensations seem to begin to dampen reflecting the form of the monochrome dying world around me i was becoming numb my paranoia and concern seemed to decrease as the strangeness of the situation increased pretty soon i just gave up looking for answers turned around and drove back home by the time i was on my drive back entire areas and once cities off the highway seemed to be transformed into just massive white blocks void of any color and texture like early stage digital 3d renderings of architectural designs before any of the details and colors are added once i returned to my apartment i stocked up on as much food and water as i could and stored everything in some of the other units in my apartment building i don't know the last time i ate or drank anything though i don't really feel the need to anymore and the need seems to no longer really even be a need [Music] right now i sit looking out my window watching the world continue to fade deforming down into white textureless blocks and more recently into a flat white landscape lacking increasing amounts of three-dimensional depth it appears to be encroaching closer and closer on me i feel so numb it's strange because i think the same thoughts i've always thought but they don't feel like thoughts it's as if my feelings no longer understand the language i am thinking in and it's like hearing someone say something plainly in another language it means it feels like nothing the only thing i can seem to feel is a strange sort of longing an almost rationalized desire to feel again in my current state of emotionless candor i have thought about and realized a lot before i woke up on that concrete sidewalk i don't know how many times i had thought about ending it i was ready to let go of everything i despised most of it the people the things the things people do and the things that happened to people the way the world spun and demanded that your head spun with it the dissoluteness and depravity the deceit of self of others of the world the beliefs and the beliefs and no beliefs the noise the chaos the fear the uncertainty the sadness the conflict the cruelty the difficulty the love the lack of love the heartbreak the imaginary goal posts constantly being moved away from you your hopeful self still too afraid to admit that even if you score it won't really change the outcome of the game the single car alarm that sounds at just the wrong time the thinking and the feeling and yet now that it's almost all gone i found myself missing it all of it of course i miss the colors the smells the tastes and the simple things i liked but also some of the same things that made me want to no longer exist i deeply miss now that they don't i've realized as the world has been chiseled down and taken away from me the significance of each little chunk the desire for life requires so many undesirable aspects and what we dread is often part of what we would miss if we lost everything and could still be around to know about it in the day in and day out of existence i got so caught up in each moment of each experience in my singular pessimistic myopic view i neglected to ever really step back and realize this each piece's significance to the whole and that the whole is so much greater than the sum of its parts i think i figured out what is happening i've mostly accepted it now there is no other explanation the last clear memory i have of the world before is me sitting on that roof with that bottle some decisions you can never do anything about after you've made them i only wish i could have seen then what i see now [Music] you

Channel: Pursuit of Wonder

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Length: 8min 55sec (535 seconds)

Published: Wed Jan 26 2022