Crossing the night
The pain is unbearable. Steel against skin against sins. You contemplate once again the perfection of the circular building, the vertical tunnel, a hundred hundred lives tall. How do you find your way through this maze of shards, of sparkling rust ? How do you light the way through this blending of loss, greed and weakness ?
There are others like you, not very far at all. Some are casting themselves in the emptiness, thinking they can end their suffering that way. But you have tried before and you know it won't work. Useless. But they will learn.
There is no bottom to be reached. You may diminish yourself, degrade your body, torture your soul, you will never reach the bottom of this black pool of nothingness, this realm of despair. There is no end to what does not exist, and there is always another story after the tale is told.
You look up at the sky and you see steel, rust and concrete. Holding tight to the railing, you look at the infinite pool of steaming dark fluid, far under your feet, the dark place that seems to hold all the answers. The place that draws all of you, the object of your fear, the abject grave of your yearnings.
You know it is but a veil, a black veil between this life and the next, a new beginning, always leading to the same old ending. You have past the threshold many times, wishing you could put an end to this. Your memory of the ordeal comes back, and your breath fills with tears, fills with fears.
Make it stop, you think, please but make it stop. You have no voice, but the others hear and turn to look at you. You can see a flash of sad understanding etching on their faces. They are like you, they know, they have been there before. This communion doesn't last, though, and they soon turn back to their own familiar pains, their old demons. You don't blame them. How could they save you, when they can't save themselves ?
You hit at the bars of your suspended cage, the prison you have built by yourself, for yourself. You were so afraid.
You are too close, you used to say. Don't come near me ! Leave me alone ! I don't need anyone of you, I am better off on my own.
So many regrets. And you hit, you hit at the cage, until rust is blood and blood is rust. There is no sound. You can come, you say. Really, it is perfectly safe. Please, say a word, just a small word. I am not so bad, how could I have known ?
There are so many barriers between you and them, yet the more barriers you set up, the weaker your feel. So many things depend on you, and you are so fragile. So many years lost, trying to figure out what it is to live. You are a man and you are a child. You don't understand the difference. The thoughts, the illusions, the soul. Everything is just terribly dark, inscrutable.
There seem to be fog around each of your steps. You used to see through it, you used to find the light when the moon itself was hiding. There seem to be thorns growing on your skin. You want to scratch them but you only hurt yourself.
They have all long stopped looking at you. They are searching for a way out. What makes it so hard is that hope never really dies. But how can you find your way, with just two globes of flesh and cartilage ? It is light that you need. It is fire that you crave.