Engulfed

He sat back in the large chair his mother had bought him, staring into the depths of the perfectly blank page on the screen before him. The chair was one of the many things he had sought comfort in. Booze, cigars, filthy pictures, his cat Mia, Summer, he’d been looking for something to make things easier, a little more bearable. His parents had put up with so much nonsense for him to be “right.” But deep down, he really just wanted to create. Yet paradoxically, all this stuff was keeping him from creating. Everything was fleshed out in his mind. The ideas constantly danced upon his head, but they were locked inside a separate space, waltzing in a room with no key. All these other concerns, women, his psudeo-nuerosis, his depression that was little more than his anger at what he thought he couldn’t have, were piled up against the door even if they did manage to jimmy it open.

He thought back to the last substantial thing he had created. It was a journal that he had written during his “crisis.” The therapist had hinted at it but he found the real idea at a site about insomnia. Clear your mind by writing all your worries in a journal each night before you go to bed. That will disconnect you and allow you to relax, clear your mind. He reached for the journal from his book bag, still unpacked after his hasty departure from academia. He was amazed that his parents hadn’t found it. It would’ve blown their mind how he had thought about blowing his. It was all so preposterously weighty, like the scribbling of some terribly self-consumed emo kid. And maybe that’s exactly what he was, without the sweater and the thick rimmed glasses. “I just don’t know what to do about Summer, I just don’t know.” “Today: Depressed, kinda confused.” “Tina narced on me again.” The last page was easily the most absurd. It was from the night he made “the call.” It was scrawled in deliberately large letters, purposely overdramatized, even if it was his subconscious. “I JUST DON’T KNOW. SHOULD I STAY OR SHOULD I GO?” The Clash. He quoted the fucking Clash. It was then that it hit him.

He was stuck there. He’d never really left. That had been self-evident for quite some time. Particularly when Summer had found somebody else right as he was about to stop being a pussy. He was torn up for weeks. And he didn’t need to be. But he just couldn’t get out of the rut. “It,” this beast that required so much of, that told him that he must be different, that nothing was right, that he was wrong, was on the inside and he just let it consume him from there, working upwards to his mind as it feasted away at the vessel of his creation. It eventually just replaced what was once there, the output being the “sorrow” which he had created. Maybe that was really the last thing he had created. The pain. No matter what the case, this stood as a block. A memory of all that he wanted behind him. He wanted his mind back. Perhaps, for once, the only way to create was for him to destroy.

He timed it out perfectly. He tore the tainted pages out of the binder and laid them aside. He pulled his clothes for his shower, and grabbed his lighter. He walked down the hall to the bathroom, and pulled the door behind him. He glanced down at the pages one last time but he made no effort to read them. Generally this is the sort of thing he’d watch in the mirror, conveniently located before him. It allowed a sort of detachment; certainly he was behind the actions, but it gave him comfort that perhaps some how he wasn’t. However, he was fully behind this action. He put everything into it. He held the pages in his left, rather high above the sink, and in his right was the lighter. whirrCLICK. whirrCLICK. Damn thing, never could get it on the first try. I guess that’s why they were four for a dollar. WhirrCLICK flame! It took.

It was not at all what he had imagined. Somehow he had imagined a more gentle scene, as if the flame was a spirit of some kind, coming to pick up this last remnant of the old and carry it off into the abyss. But rather this was mongrel horde, quickly tearing its way up the stack, engulfing it on both sides until only the middle remained. He suddenly panicked, the heat next to him, and he dropped the page into the sink, hoping that the moist environment would quickly halt the fire. But no, it carried on its righteous path, so he decided that he had to quench this new foe. The water poured down, as if Tso’s army had come to protect these holy articles. But this ended up aiding the eventual goal. He tried to light the paper again, almost immediately regretting his move. Now he’d have to smother the memories rather than quickly decimate them. He took the charred remain and soaked them under the spigot, turning them quickly into mush. Much ash remained but the water quickly carried it down the drain. As the paper disintegrated it left a blue mush upon his fingers, which was quickly removed but an obvious sign that the memory struggled to remain. After some manipulation, though, the bulk was gone. He surveyed the sink a final time, noticing some flakes that had flown during the first assault, hoping that they may survive, but they were quickly wiped away. However, ash still remained, but that too was dispatched by a quick rub of his wet fingertips. And so it was complete.

He hopped into the shower in what promised to be the most relaxing in some time, but it never surpassed average. As he left the bathroom, renewed not by the shower but by the act, he passed his father, who sniffed the air to find an unusual smell for this house of order.

“Something burning?,” the man inquired.

“I think a bug crawled in the heater,” the false God replied, hastily seeking a return to his throne.

He sat down, closed his eyes, and nearly as soon as they were open his fingers were already in synch with his mind, racing to keep order as the door finally came crashing open and the packed ballroom finally had room to maneuver, presenting their hideous elegance to the world. It was a veritable orgasm of creation, and within minutes he was nearly panting, stopping to survey what he had wrought upon the once blank and innocent page, now sullied with his creation.

As he looked at it, his eyes slowly drifted over to his Instant Messanger. Huh, Summer’s away. I wonder where she is?

And like that, the beast was back, its forces cracking the skulls of the innocent dancers with a force unseen to them before. It returned like that, and all upon a simple reminder of what it was like. No peace is meant to last forever. All the same feelings flooded him. Is she with him? Why couldn’t I have her? What does all this matter? Did I make a mistake? God I’m dumb. This is silly. This has no plot. The dialogue’s jilted. And so he just climbed into bed, determined to live as he had, trying not to.