Gregory Carousel Morgan

There are times when we hang on to our lives simply by a flimsy thread, waiting in queue to be called out in either death or life. Currently, I am in one of those times.
It is either the seventy-seventh or seventy-eighth; I lost count climbing the unguarded emergency stairs choked to the moldy brick wall, barely breathing after the fiftieth floor. The timing is perfect, the weather cannot be more supporting than now; cloudy with chance of sudden powerful breath of wind. Everything seemed to have been staged quite nicely; like the world also had anticipated this day for long.
Well, Creator, you surely have made your homework arranging everything to be like today, this night, this hour; this entirety of a long minute.

---

How I made it that far couldn't be much of a coincidence, my meeting with an old chum named Gregory C. Morgan have somehow been the key factor to me being in that stage. The first time we met, we were dressed as mascots for a local chain of supermarkets.
The first time we met, he said this, "This is my store… Eh, part-time job. Who am I kidding?"

Gregory C. Morgan, shortly Greg. In Yin-Yang theory, the one symbol which resembled two tadpoles making 'it'; the light and dark part of everything is balanced and in equilibrium until the end of time. In Tabula Rasa theory, you are first made pure white paper waiting to be written.
Those theories have made their point. In our late junior high school days, nobody didn't know Greg; the prime egg of the dark tadpole within our school. You would hardly believe he was a coward little geeky boy before he was taken to the dark side; formerly as the bullied. When the time-bomb in his body ticks off, he exploded quite frighteningly, like he was some sort of god back then, tackling his way to the boss of the school thugs.
There was a first time for everything, and some of his teeth goes off and is now still buried within the school's garden. Still, he succeeded quite nicely, for after that time, nobody messes with Gregory C. Morgan. Why? Ask the ear bitten off by Greg on that day, I guess. Much remaining part of it is now still adventuring the waterway of our little town, I think.
Nobody said anything about Gregory C. Morgan out there; none would believe anyway a skinny kid like him could do such a berserk trick. And with him coming out of the case nice and clean, he knew everything had just gone well for him.
Thus, Gregory's reign of terror goes up to air within the junior high without the teachers suspecting a thing. Not only the thugs get it from him, actually, there is this one time a regular kid pisses him off and sent to ground zero shortly after. Me. More to come after me, but I cannot seem to remember for I always tried to stay low when it concerned Greg after that one incident which made my head gain two or three stitches.
When I was in eighth grade and he is in the ninth, never failed a year for he is a geek to begin with, the scandal goes up to the teacher's lounge and soon the adults know of his true horror. Still, everything was too late and he soon graduated normally like any other kid.

"We have wasted our days."
I heard him say as many speculations revolved in my head about how he seems to recall about me. Seeing the remaining signs of stitches in my head would be too general, and I get freak haircut every two months or so leading me to have inexact haircut from time to time. Why would he remember me?
"I am only here because of the money."
"We have wasted our days."
"What?"
"That is what."
He seemed to not know I am never one like him. He said that in the past, after graduating junior high he cannot go back to being a geek, the rumor has been heard in his senior high school leading everyone to know of his true nature. Ninth grade is an adult as we see it as children, there is nothing more to hope to change when you are already an adult. Everything is supposed to be static, dully boring as hell.
"That is why; nobody goes up to me after the rumor spread out."
"Right," I am partially confused why I am hearing this from him.
A long moment with neither of us speaking.
“I am going to die tonight,” he suddenly said again, “I am going to the tallest tower there is in town and jump down, arms stretched off, lips shut tight, eyes opened wide.
I looked to him with disbelief.
He continued with an evil grin on his face, “My bones will all crumble, my eyeballs squashed by passing cars, and I myself will break down to pieces. I think I am going to be something I never thought I will be; a shitty kind of gruel.”
“Right,” I said again with the same emotion I felt the last time I said the same word.
“Just you wait,” he shaped his left hand to resemble a firearm and made clicking sounds while pointing at me, “some other else might as well, I have a good chance I am going to become a hero.”
“Right, why?”
He showed his grin again at me as he asked, “Have you ever wondered why bother living?”
Then lunch break was over and the both of us never met each other again for the rest of the day. Meeting the one who once upon a time broke off your teeth, talking about shitty things which ended up like joke; meeting Greg is the biggest nightmare I had never experienced in a dream before.

Life is simply just a giant joke, I think, which is why I let everything he said off as one hell of a joke. That is when my assumption turned out incorrect.
Gregory C. Morgan died; dropped off from the rooftop of a building at the center of the town. No signs of forced attempt, which is why the authority ruled it out as suicide. Apparently, the impact of the collision was much too great for Greg’s body to withstand. Almost nothing is solid enough from his wimpy little organic body to identify who he really is.
How is it that the authority ruled out the deceased as Gregory C. Morgan? Beside very little identification found in the wallet of his pants, there is this quote that the authority found on top of the building:

EMPTY. ARE YOU? charlie anonymous :)
The time has come!

The smiley face is not a typo, it seems, not just my head playing tricks on me.
There is also a note that a certain police officer became agitated after seeing the said quote.
It wasn’t long after that many deaths come to air with the quote scribbled somewhere within the suicide scene. Somewhere among the list, I think along the very first ones, was the certain police officer:

EMPTY. ARE YOU? walter anonymous :’(

What changes in the quotes from here on out is merely the emoticon part, ongoing with more and more expressions expressed; open-mouthed smile ( :D ), sad face ( :( ), tongue sticking out ( :b ), etc.
It was inducted then after a few similar cases and the quote evidence in the first suicide that these incidents are a part of something big. Like, perhaps, a cult ritual.
The biggest problem is, there is nothing the authority could do. In any trouble concerning cults, usually you shack up the big boss in prison, and then the problem is vanquished nicely clean just like that. But now, what to do when the leader is already a dead man grinded to ground? No real evidence of a cult, at that.
In just a short time after meeting him, Gregory C. Morgan had already become an icon for His Majesty Death himself.
Fucking.
Huge.

Then a news story was released that certain eyewitnesses reported some of the deceased met and chatted with the very first victim, Gregory. Gregory, however, in most of them depicted as almost a saint. He talked to them about their problems, and in most of it succeeded on helping them to overcome their problems. An eyewitness asked what method Gregory used on his friend (helped by Gregory) and the answer is, “He told me something, made me believe world is nothing.”

“Some other else might as well. I will become a hero.”
“Have you ever wondered why bother living at all?”
The words each day struck me hard then harder as they became clearer within every recalling; this is no mere coincidence, Gregory C. Morgan has planned all this mega-commotion chaos all along. What is worse is, the harder I try to contradict it, slowly I am grasping what is in his philosophy that enticed other people and I am embracing it sure.
“EMPTY. ARE YOU?”
“Just you wait.”
What is worst is I think Gregory had planned on meeting me all along. I think I am one of the last numbers there are to this mass suicide he had planned. Perhaps still adding up now, given the possibility that there are others beside him to “spread the words”.
“The time has come!”

“Hey, I am Doe, and my mind is suffocating me from the inside. I need help.”
“Hey, Doe.”
I went to several clubs which promised enlightenment and mind control, I went to psychiatrists and spent big bucks, I consumed addictive drugs; nothing is helping. I am afraid. Really, truly. Really, really, truly. Really, fucking, truly. Shit, I have gone nuts.

What Gregory Morgan was trying to teach us is, I think, that life is just a state in which nothing is really anything; you just went aimlessly until you are given a seat at the real life after this one. You just go on an ordeal every day, said to yourself good job every night, you repeat the cycle all the times to make anyone think you are useful. But really, you just want yourself to feel like that, no one is going to feel, I mean REALLY feel that way towards others as they are too busy with the same stupid situation. Basically everything within this life is nothing. Why bother? Why not go to the real life faster than you are supposed to, give God the essential surprise He might need as He could as well be stranded to the same static cycle as ours?
Being here is empty. Being a mascot of nothing is nothing. Being nothing is empty. Being static is empty. Empty. Are you?

We are just strangers in no man’s land, we have no relationship to anyone whoever in, we are empty casings waiting to be filled but never filled. We are just no one, we are nothing, and we are just us carrying ourselves to cross to the real side of reality.

Now I think I cracked.

“The time has come!”

---

“Just you wait,” I whispered, now back from my mind to life.
EMPTY.
I carved out a word. “I will become a hero.”
ARE YOU?
“We are never anyone to others. We are never even someone to begin with.”
doe anonymous
A giant, sudden breath of wind.
8-[
The last one is to mark his being as a nerd before, now after death reborn a gargantuan icon within this town. I don’t know why, but I just did the emoticon. For fun, I guess.
Joe. Ramon. Jill. Gretchen. Reese. Lee. Howard. Peter. Nicolai. Adam. Eve. Etc. Etc…
… All anonymous, my very own pupils on Gregory’s teaching.
I looked down from somewhere along the eightieth floor and all I can say is that all is blurry from up here. I guess, this is when I am going to end and my legend starts from here on out. Good bye, world. Sleep tight in your fake warmth and kindness and love. Now we know those are all lies. Nothing. Empty.

EMPTY.
ARE YOU?