Emptiness

A boy sits alone in his room, and refuses to sleep. He has a lot of time to think.

The clock ticks over to 1:14 as the night silently marches on. The world outside has all but stopped, but in this room, covered by sterile fluorescent light, a boy sits at him computer. The screen doesn’t contain much of interest, music videos are playing as the speakers fill his mind with distraction. He sits and looks at his phone with general disinterest, checking a few forums and occasionally looking to see if someone has contacted him. His schedule for the next day is busy, but his bed is covered with all the things he needed today. His bag lies on the bed, half open with some books laying out. The clothes he had switched out earlier are balled up in one corner, exchanged for some more comfortable clothes. His keys lie next to a beanie and a set of gloves, discarded in exchange for a baggy hoodie and an oil heater. All that can be heard is the hum of the light and the occasional tapping of keys on the keyboard. Occasionally he smirks as he sees something that amuses him for a moment, but that soon fades back to the usual expression of disinterest. Every now and then he looks to the roof and rubs his eyes. He removes his glasses for a moment to clean them, momentarily revealing the deep dark circles that lie under his eyes.

 

He is tired.

 

He glances over to his bed for a moment before looking back at his computer and opening a new webpage, searching for something else to fill time. As a chill invades the room and overpowers the heater, he grabs for a blanket that he drapes over his legs. He puts on his gloves and continues his nightly ritual. His thoughts turn for a moment to the assignment that he had dew the next day, but he puts it off for a moment, delaying it for later in the night. As he goes from page to page, video to video, he finds nothing that peaks his interest. Nothing that engages him. He tries to become interested in an article he had found regarding behavioural studies of primates, but he quickly loses his engagement.

 

He is very tired.

 

He glances to the clock and sees that time has moved forward, but not as much as he would have hoped. The clock flashes 2:02 am, as small numbers above the time show him alarms set for 7:00 and 7:30. How many nights had he missed sleep this week? It seems around 3 or 4, but the days blend together at this point. He can barely remember anymore. He has a hard time focusing on the screen and the words before him. His eyes hurt and his mind aches.

He needs to sleep.

 

He looks back to his bed before looking away once again. Thoughts begin to rush to his mind as a sombre song comes through his headphones. He thinks about the things he has in his life, about the things he wants, and the things he can never have. He thinks about better times, about the people he loves and the people he once loved. He thinks about all the things he has and all the reasons he has to love life.

 

So why can’t he?

 

He thinks about all the times he had lost something, or someone. He thinks about impending death, about sickness, about losing people and family. He thinks about his life falling apart and about the world that he currently lives in crashing around him. He thinks about all the reasons he has to be sad.

 

Why can’t he feel it?

 

The world fades away as the thoughts are drowned out by vacancy. White noise fills his mind and the thoughts cease, leaving nothing but emptiness. The world is gone, he is gone, he is empty.

 

He can feel this.

 

This is all he can feel. He shakes off the emptiness and finds distraction in work. He starts thinking about an assignment, but nothing can come to mind. He tries harder and harder, and he starts to become frustrated with himself. The music fades out of his mind and he can’t do anything but try to banish the silence.

 

The emptiness is back.

 

He looks to his bed and thinks about sleeping. If he went to sleep, this would all stop. If he went to sleep the noise would be gone. The loud silence would fade as the next day came into being. But he doesn’t sleep. He knows that if he sleeps the next day will come. If the next day comes he will go out and see his friends. He will work and he will laugh and he will do his best to hide from it, but it won’t go away. And he is scared of that moment when he sits down after a good day, and looks around his room to see the same light, the same bed, the same computer and chair, the same heater and blanket and he knows. He knows what will be there to greet him.

 

The emptiness.

 

Another thought he has had for years surfaces, a thought that he had long ignored, but had recently embraced the emptiness and came at his worst of times. A thought that pierces his mind and fills it with a sense of ecstasy and longing. An idea that entices him so tenderly that he finds himself so close to giving in on a daily basis.

 

What if he could sleep forever?

 

He would never have to know the pain of the emptiness again. He would never know what it meant to be sad again. He would be able to forget it all and sleep. But he is sad, because he knows that sleep is not eternal. He knows that if he were to sleep he would simply wake up the next morning, and he would look at himself in the mirror and he would let out a deep sigh as he readied himself to wear his usual appearance. He would smile, and laugh to all his friends. He would be the centre of all the jokes, and do his best to keep up his front, long through the day until the time comes where he is alone in his room once again.

 

And the emptiness sets in once again.

 

So he is left with a choice he has faced too many times before. A choice that is put before him every single night, a choice that haunts him throughout the day and more so at night. He reaches down to his chest to feel the scar that sits just over his heart. The burn that had, just for a moment, taken away the emptiness all those years ago. The feeling that he longed for every single moment of every day, and a question filled his mind with an intoxicatingly appealing aroma.

 

Do I want to die?

 

It was a simple question, not that big a deal in his mind. Dying was pretty much sleeping, it just didn’t end, exactly what he wanted. But it wasn’t that simple, obviously. He thought about the people that would care if he was dead. His friends would be sad, his housemates would be disturbed, they would have to get someone to move into the room that someone killed themselves. Not to mention his best friend that lived there too. He wouldn’t be able to stay in the house where one room over, his oldest friend had killed himself. But he could deal with all that if he had to, it was just one other thing that stopped him.

 

His parents.

 

His mother and father. What would they think? She would blame herself, think that she should have made more time to visit him. His dad would try his best to keep it in, but he would crack. They would blame themselves for letting him move out. Even his brother, the one that had done nothing but criticise him since he went to go to university might even be sad about it. That was what stopped him every night. That was what put his thoughts at bay.

 

The thought of his loving family.

 

He didn’t feel better, but he didn’t feel worse. He let the thoughts fade his mind as he took a few deep breaths. He felt the same as before. Empty. He looked over to the clock to see how much time had passed.

 

2:16

 

This was how most nights went. This would happen a few more times, as he dreaded sleeping, and dreaded waking up even more. The keyboard continued to tap away as the night progressed and the sun soon rose over the hill, bleeding some natural light through the window. He stood up and went to the bathroom to wash his face. He looked in the mirror to see that all the life had left his face. His eyes were jaded and cold and the bags beneath them were getting larger. His beard with unkempt and messy and his hair had gotten far too long. He stared long and hard at his reflection before he let out a sigh and rustled his hair. He moved into his usual state of mind and smiled at the mirror with an almost sincere level of glee, before his face turned back to its usual state. He was prepared for the day ahead, he had his things ready on his bed. He had gotten his mind ready for another day and got dressed. The alarm soon sounded, and he turned it off before making his way out the room and locked it behind him. He left the front door and looked around him at the dew covered grass. The world around him sparkled with the light of the new day as the sky hewed notes of orange, leading into blue around him. The world was in motion as he stared on from his front door. He let out a big sigh as he began his walk.

 

Still nothing. Still no thoughts, no sounds, no ideas, no feelings, no regrets. Just a need to sleep and a sense of familiarity. A feeling that he could never shake, no matter how hard he tried.

 

The emptiness was never leaving.

Author's Note

Not really expecting anyone to review this or anything, just wanted to put it somewhere