Prelude- Chapter Three Silence

Deep breath.

Inhale….calm the thumping in your chest…deep breath….floating here in this darkness. I am in nothingness. I am in a void. I take a deep breath….but I feel nothing…no air in my lungs, no air coming into my nose. Yet my lungs fill. I move my arms I feel them move, I feel the muscles moving under my skin. But I feel nothing besides myself. I am a body in a void.

How long have I been here? I don’t think that there is time here. There is nothing not even hot or cold. There is the thumping, the beating of a heart against bone. That’s my heart! I feel myself but I feel so distant from any physical….thumping in my ears…..

I hear my blood flowing in my veins. My heart pumps. I feel the valves open and shut. I feel the large vein's size as the blood comes into the right chamber. I feel the valves open….I can count them…one, two, three; each opens with the others and I feel the open and shut. It flows through the center and into my lungs. I feel it branch out, filling each ventricle, smaller and smaller and smaller. I feel my lungs filled with the void struggling to expand out. I am suffocating but I do not feel it….

Dizziness is hard to understand.

I am not breathing….liquid…am I asleep……..

Ice. There is ice. Cold; there is cold, I fee something… I actually feel something. Ugh I can’t tell if my eyes are open or closed. Wait! Am I paralyzed!? Is that why I couldn’t feel anything before? I am numbed somehow I am stuck here unable to move. Cold again! Wait!? No this is different. AHHHooahhh. Hot and cold clouds? I feel…..air flowing like water gently over my food….I feel warm icy air climbing up my leg. Ooooooo…..I feel the liquid moving like fire climbing my leg….. Like the heat from a fire climbing up I feel the cold liquid air gliding, creeping, up my body.

AAAAAAHHHHHHgggUuUUAAAAHHH. AHHH..OHHH GOD what is this? ARRgghh UH ITS STABBING INTO ME! I felt the pain in my lower back, like being bit into and an ice flare penetrating deep into my spine. Every nerve in my being ignited it cold fire. I felt my spinal cord burst apart in a instant less than a second as it was slowly broken in two for an eternity. I felt my limbs melt into wisps of vapor and freeze into glass simultaneously.

....smoke in my brain....wisps of memory.....

I have an hour yet before I must be at work and I keep thinking about not wanting to go. Those thoughts will make it more difficult to be there for the first few minutes. Then the work will come and I will do it looking at the clock occasionally until the last hour. Yes I am thinking about it and living it already which makes me not want to go. So I want to call out but it is too late to do that . Not without being an asshole about it. So I must go but I have not eaten I can't go to work without eating that is just hell. But I do not want to eat. Neither do I want to go. Perhaps I should stop saying that, saying it over and over again is going to make my effort all the more difficult. Is it because I am lazy that I do not want to go?

Actually it is just because I want to be by myself. Sometimes I just want to lock the doors and close the windows and not speak to any other person but sit in this space of silence. A silence that is perforated by other humans. Whether it is their music, or their speaking, the act of living is just so noisy. Sometimes it seems that people are just out to make noise, as though they have something against the peace and quiet. I have grown so tired of hearing the TV, of hearing the dialogue and the commercials and all the crap that the tube spits out.

I have grown tired of the neighbors as well but I feel that that is not too fair to them, they are just trying to live. No I do not want to go to work today I do not want to do the paperwork or answer the calls. But it is too late to call out and they are expecting me. It is not like it is too hard to do and I do get to listen to my own music or lectures. It really is not that bad. BUT. I really do not want to be there. I want to be at home with my books and the quiet. The quiet house while nobody else is here. That is rare treat in itself. Maybe I should just not go and see what happens? But am I going to go tomorrow? And what will I do when the boss calls not answer? Sometimes I do not really like my job. And hearing the TV in the background is annoying me right now. There it is the news theme again and again. News that is the same cycle of the TV, in print, on social media. Sometimes I just want to lock the doors and close all the windows; not hear about the world for a moment. But I only have a few minutes before work I really should eat something. It is worse when I don't eat because there I am burning energy with no food to burn. I scrap so much food at work. That is something I have a hard time understanding about people, they spend this money on food and it goes right to the trash. Beyond that all the food that is throw out every day in the country is hard to believe, impossible to accept. Especially when you pass the homeless on the street. I once passed a man, his sign said, " Hungry please help'; it was held together by duct tape, it looked like it had been ripped in half. The dumpsters behind the market have locks on them. We wouldn't want to encourage the homeless to eat the food in there. No I don't want to go to work today but it is too late to call out. Besides there will be a lot of people out enjoying the day so how busy could the restaurant be. I enjoyed myself last night I got off my other job early so I had an extra hour to sit in silence....

....feel....ice....waves....like heat rising from black tar....cold rising from my spine....

My spine is swelling. I have been here for years. My spine doesn't feel like mine. It's like I have my backpack on....I can't move my glass body. I have not been able to for years. Floating in the this eternal blackness. The Old Man is a devil spirit and I am in hell. No hell is not the inferno, it is not the endless torment of fire whips and demon's teeth. Neither is hell other people. Hell is this eternal night, this crushing silence. My hell is being frozen here in the void of nothingness.

....doodling on a sheet of paper with some math on it. It has been a decent shift, not too busy, not too slow. I work the restaurant on the weekends. I had to get the second job since my desk gig wasn't enough. The internet bill went up last month which was surprising. I guess I was getting a promotional deal for the first 11 months. Why it wasn't a whole year I have no idea. Annoying as it was I like having the internet more than not having it. The door open, a man walked in. As he thumped up to the counter I noticed his odd mud covered boots. The dry mud crusted on the top painting the black worn leather in streaks of light brown. It looked like shit stains. The guy looked homeless or pretty damn close to it. An old white guy, sun dried and cracking skin, he had a slight ruddy tinge around his face, dirt in the lines and creases. His long hair was pure white in some patches, grey in others, thickened in clumps by dirt and sweat. He rested his hand on the counter and smiled at me. On his approach I could smell the dust and dirt that coated him and interestingly this vague odor of new plastic. He kind of grossed me out.

"Hello", a raspy , choked voice greeted as he squinted at me with one eye

"could I get a taco please"

'Sure. What kind would you like?'

"Whatevers cheaper". He rummaged in the large pouch pocket on his dirty grey sweater, leaving his hand resting on the counter. His hand was something to look at. The dirt accumulated under his nails painted them a solid black. Spots and scabs dotted the back and his veins popped out a little disturbingly. There was a black spot or scab that was hard to stop looking at. Change spilled from his other hand on the counter. Dirty change. I could smell it and had to count in out. How would I even describe this like a sweaty coin smell I mean the coins had to be in -- "Is that enough?"---he squinted at me, his yellowed teeth stuck out a little. There was $2.35 in change. One taco was $3.25.

'yea that enough ima get you a chicken taco and some chips. Would you like some water?'

"Yes", squinted the horse whisper

I felt my throat clench a little and my heart hopping like a frog. I felt bad for the dude. Who knows how long he worked to get that two bucks. I put the order in.

"Are you sure that's enough?"

'Yea man no worries we all good here's your water' I smiled my best smile. Yes it was enough. It was enough for this guy to have a little food for one night. I could care less what the manager said to me, I would put the money in the till myself. Putting extra tortilla chips in the basket I thought about the food that gets wasted.

'Here you go man is there anything else I can get you'

"No". He had stopped looking at me. Staring at the chips he was eating. The taco was ready and I brought it over. And I started thinking. What would it be if he had another? So I put the order in.

'Here you are, more water?'

"Yes", he stared straight down and began to eat quickly.

"Could I have more chips in a bag?"

'Yea man'. Chips were free. He was trying to get something for later. The frog hopped a little more. His second taco was ready so I wrapped it to go and put the chips in. Packaged and ready I put it in front of him. He paused.

"Is that a taco?"

'Yea man'. He was quiet. He looked at me with disbelief but also with the desire to trust.

"Are you sure", a whisper low over the bag.

'Yea man have a good night'. I walked away to end it. There was nothing more to say and he understood it. He stayed at the table he was at sipping the water. A couple came in, young and fresh from the bar. Maybe fresh is not the right expression, you are not really fresh coming out of a bar. The young woman wrinkled her nose to the man at the table. They came to the counter placed their order to go, we joked, they smiled, everyone's a great pal. The guy went to sit down and she paused. She showed her reluctance to sit and he understood. He got up and they walked out, "we'll be right back" was the call from the door.

I remained at my post. Waiting to to what I had to. The man at the table stood collecting his food. Turning he came to the counter. " Thank you for letting me be here"

'What do you mean man?'

"And thank you for the food"

'Yea no worries'

"Are you paying for it?"

'Huh, oh no it's nothing man uhh, you know buy one get one free deal'

"Thank you."

He starting thumping out the bag of food dangling off he arm bumping into his side. He stopped at the door. "You know everything is empty right, the void exists in every thing in this dimension"

'Oh ok man'. He squinted and smiled at me. I had no idea what to make of it.

....in the darkness my stiff glass limbs started to feel warmer. It was then I realized I could move again. I clenched and released my fist. Rolling my head side to side. And a light pricked into existence above me. I looked up and watched the white hole of light grow as the black melted away. I was floated out to a chamber. The same chamber where the Old Man had brought me.

"How do feel Skeletor?

'You son of a bitch'

"Haha so you died a good death then"

'What in the fuck are you doing. I am sick of this shit! I want you to fucking tell me what is going on, what you are doing! Mother fucker. What did you do to me? What is all this bullshit and what in the fuck is that fucking black thing that disappears!?'

" Yes yes all angry and upset. Let it go. Stop acting like a mortal you're beyond that now."

'Fucking guy comes to me, breaks into my fucking house....

"Still going on are you"

' Torments me for years in some fucking cell...

"It was just a three months...

'Fucking freezing me somehow in this bullshit...

"If I wanted to freeze you'd be frozen."

'Goddamn telling me some magic bullshit...

"Alright enough"

My voice stopped working. I was pissed. I looked with rage at the Old Man before me.

"It is time to get serious your mortal body is dead , now it's time to learn."

Then it hit me. My mortal body was dead? Now I had nothing to say. Now I felt cold again.