He was standing at the edge of that big cliff again, looking down,
and thinking about all those waves. Those waves of his life that surged
with all his defining momentum along the greater social tides,
inevitably doomed to the same incessant fate. Having swelled to his
greatest capacity he'd be cast against some unyielding shoreline of
reality, and then washed out in the existential undertow as so many
other waves rolled right over him. Then like some aqueous adaptation of
that Greek mythologue he could never remember too well he'd inevitably
be forced to repeat this perpetual process.
His pupils
were stranded in those breaking waves as his eyes ceased to do more than
drift along the underlying shore. Marooned in the kind of black
thoughts that blind-out the eyes he began to notice that his own heart
was beating along in syncopated rhythm with the sound below, and that
his breath came in and out according to that same cadence. Noticing this
synchronicity his mood shifted from myopic dysthymia into a powerless
rage that made him feel as if his mind were an island in hell.
It
had been his suspicion that the whole universe was merely one great
conspiracy hatched without any design or designer, and obliviously
functioning as its own assassin. He'd come to the edge of this cliff
with this hunch in his head, and now his breath fumed as the first
traces of fog began to accumulate along with his befuddlement. Having
been so very close to sending himself off the edge of this cliff like
one last wave defying the depth and direction of all the others, he
found himself in the wrong temperament.
There had been
almost no doubt in his mind that he was right about all of this, and
that the universe was wrong about everything comprising itself. If there
had been any doubts they weren't the kind that could be explained and
perhaps even impossible to consciously sense. Now he was even more
convinced than ever before, but something inside this stranded rage
seemed to have been abandoned by-
something. That something could
only be likened to some abstract without any definable features or
identifiable traits other than its apparent ability to cause this
disruption in his head.
For what must have been a
timeless hour in eternity he seethed with anger in the rising fog.
Gradually he began to formalize a means of explaining what he was
experiencing. This hellish feeling that had come over him was perhaps
the one contradictory concept that confounded all of existence according
to his pending indictment of the universe. It was a feeling of
certainty.
The
universe couldn't be oblivious to functioning as its own assassin if a
part of it were certain of this fact. He was certain of this very thing
now, and so the universe had to be something far worse than he'd
imagined. It had to be certain. The whole damned universe were certain
in its own demise.
For the universe to be certain
implied some design or designer. If it was made certain by some designer
than that would mean that gawd had designed destruction. His whole life
then had been kept afloat on waves that were designed to drown him, and
the fact that he'd been afloat at all seemed to be some sadistic
torment or an incompetent form of inefficiency. The thought of a foolish
or devilish gawd just didn't add up to him.
As mad
thoughts drifted in and out of his head he began to notice that the fog
had started to fade. He'd spent more hours trying to figure this whole
thing out than he could even believe. The night he had spent in oblivion
was breaking into day as he started to formulate a new theory in the
breaking fog.
What if the universe were oblivious to
it's design initially, and then became aware of this conspiracy later
on, much like he had done? The whole befuddlement of a design/designer
would still exist, but the context and relevance of this would become
uncertain in the event that their designs could be made certain. It was
difficult for him to clarify what this notion really meant, but there
was perhaps something to it.
As he muddled through logical assessments of all these notions he began to sense a calming feeling of...
uncertainty.
From
this point his mind became too immersed in the abysmal depths of
philosophical thoughts to properly explain without going on at great
length. His mind went back and forth convincing him that he was certain,
or uncertain, or that the universe were this, or that, etc, etc, etc...
Eventually however he managed to formulate an experiment to settle his
indecisiveness of what to do concerning himself and the edge of the
cliff.
Reaching into his pocket he found a single
half-dollar coin. He had received it as change for purchasing a ticket
to some already forgotten movie at a local theater. For some reason they
always handed these damned things back instead of quarters like every
other business in his continental reality. If the theater was part of
some universal scheme this would seem to make sense, but to be certain
of this was still too fragile a thing for him.
With the
coin in his hand he went to take another look off the edge of the cliff
and into the crashing scene below it. He committed to the idea then and
there that if the universe were certain then he was sure to become its
victim either by chance or his own doing. If instead the universe were
uncertain then the only way to know was by chance.
So
he decided to let the coin determine his fate. Then it wouldn't matter
if the universe were certain or oblivious in the whole scheme of demise.
After all, he didn't come all the way to the edge of this cliff to rise
above the secrets of the whole universe. All he really wanted to do was
either sail over the edge into certain death, or drift back into his
life having made the choice to do so.
He
felt the wind against him as he turned his back to the cliff and took
one deep pre-filp breath. Then flicking his thumb against the coin he
watched as it rotated high in the air and descended to the ground at his
feet. Though he could see the spot where it had landed the coin itself
seemed to have vanished with the dull thud that announced its arrival. A
strange panic began to swell inside of him as he dropped to his knees
in search of his fateful coin.
Like a beggar in some
hopeless form of anxiety he combed his fingers through the grass
desperately scavenging for the coin. He absolutely had to know his fate,
and this token had been ordained to minister such truth unto him. His
inability to find the coin of his destiny fueled his sense of animosity
for the world that mocked and tormented him in ways like this for as
long as he had lived. With only the coin, and his fate, and his rage in
his mind he searched an impossibly large after his lost token.
Then,
just as he was standing to resign his search he noticed a glint of
light reflecting off of the ground. He lunged toward it, and pronated
his body before it so that his eyes were as close to its elevation as he
could cast them. Sprawled out like some repentant servant before its
master his pupils expanded to their blackest potential, engulfing the
entirety of his eyes. And in them both reflected stood images of a coin
resting upright on its edge, casting the image from each of its two
sides upon the respective surface of the eye closest to it.
In
the next instant those eyes would have surely appeared to shift from
black reflections into an inferno's blinding blaze. His hatred was not
cooled by the winds that grew stronger and seemed to be ushering him
toward that edge. No, his hatred only spread as if it were a wild fire
that had come upon that same wind, and was now scorching everything
around him. The whole world was aflame with his hatred. From far beyond
the terrestrial horizon to the very edge of this cliff the terrain was
engulfed with metaphorical flames. Even his own being was being consumed
in the volcanic might of his all consuming hatred.
The
heat he felt from this burning rage began to destroy every other sense
within him. He became deaf to the sound of everything but the noise of
combustible frustrations. His skin felt only the torment of the imagined
inferno of the world surrounding him. Then even these diminished senses
seemed to evaporate, and the only thing left in his mind was an image
of the edge that conspired with the oceanic horizon and the sky above to
form a most mocking gawd-face laughing right at him.
Without
any thought he hurled his body at the laughing face like some fist-body
hay-maker. Instead of smashing into the teeth of clouds his heap of
hate was swallowed whole by the laughing sky, and began to plunge down
the digestive tract of the cliff. Though his descent could have only
lasted a mere instant, in his mind the fall lasted an eternity.
Within
the eternity of his descent he experienced the entirety of his
preceding life. He felt himself crashing over and over as the failed
waves of his life flowed back through his mind. As his eternal descent
fell into the moments where this story began he sensed a sinking feeling
within him. Somehow this caused him to feel as if he were suspended in
the air with the image of the coin resting upright at the moment he'd
gone over the edge.
He thought of the fortune he had
imposed on that token. He thought of all the other things in his life
that had been no different to him than that very coin. He thought of how
everything he'd ever experienced seemed to be suspended on edge in just
the same way as that fatal object. He wished he hadn't placed his fate
in all of those things that could only land in such impossible
positions. He even prayed to go back, and pick that coin up off the
ground. He pleaded with no entity in his appeals to allow him to go
back. He swore that given the chance he wouldn't have imagined that
token as an object of fortune, but would have valued it for what it was.
However cheap it might have been, he begged the laughing face to spit
him back out, so he could spend it somehow.
But his
eternal descent just continued as it had all along. Without
comprehension he drifted through the space that held him, unable to
reconcile his frustrations, alternately certain and uncertain of the
universal conspiracy in question. Even after he reached the shoreline of
reality, and the waves passed him into the undertow, and the abyss
welcomed him into its depths he remained forever doomed to continue his
descent, over an edge.
