Purgatori

Inertia.

The world is constantly woven in silken strings by hands invisible to the naked eye, hands of bronze and silver and gold and diamond. The river oxidizes the face, black grease runs down my eyes — tears in true and pure life. I saw the blood run out of my heart and pulse in every fiber of my being, unable to do anything but scream in desperation. Life was in a perpetual limbo of being. Life was in inertia. Inertia. Inertia. Inertia.

Wake up.

My closed retinas saw the universe in color, but the light had no more saturation. Not anymore. I can only see infinities in spectrum, basking me in their eternal fluidity.

I got up at age's dawn, the water drying my soul while I sat down at the valley of time, it too not affecting me anymore. I stared intensively at the horizon while I recovered my senses, seeing as incorporeal and anthropomorphic gray figures passed through me onwards. In my analysis, I saw another quite like me: dull and bitter, their form almost indistinguishable from a shadow in the horizon. Though they were nothing, it was as if I could hear their every thought — they weren't ready; they didn't want to leave; they screamed and cried but no sound came out of their face; they shouted in anger and prayed for a deity willing to save them; they gave up and broke down in tears. Poor soul at dawn of time. Forgive me Virginia, my day did not end like theirs.

Scattered across the fields were mockeries of nature, all artificial and pale. A gentle wind blew over my shoulders but I did not feel any cold, any hunger, any discernible sense. There was nothing to feel anymore. I touched every inch of my body, but there was not a feature I could recognize. No reproductive system, no folicules, the grease of my skin was indifferent from the feeling of my fingers picking and tearing each nerve of my being. I was exposed, naked for all to see, and yet I was covered in nothing and everything. I am a paradox; forgive me.

I believe there was a peak at the edge of the fields I stood in. Flowers became more sparse and the clouds surrounded a behemoth of proportions unimaginable. Stairs carved in the rock that lead up to the skies above, clear and bright beyond our wildest fantasies. Not that we could see, no: the sky had no sun, no clouds, no birds, only the sound of our footsteps laid against the harsh and empty wind. I saw other shadows climbing and falling, praying at the feet of the mountain like their volumeless sounds were going to be heard. A sad sight, yes, but one I almost indulged in. It is of curiosity that we are made of, and I would be no wiser than a fool were I not to attempt to see beyond the mist.

I propelled myself forward to the moutain as if I were a feather. The speeds at which I walked and ran were the same. No rules are to be followed in the land of the monochrome, and as such, all states apply. I was a particle, existing at every possible point and at none at all. I was no longer being observed.

The grass remained static as I picked at the rocks and started climbing. I lifted myself with ease and watched as the clouds slowly began to show color. I am but an Icarus, however, and there are no more wings as to fly. The sun crushed me under my own weight and I was sent back to the depths. Attempt after attempt my body grew increasingly more tired and weak, as if weights were applied to my muscles every time I fell. And again. And again. I wanted to stop, I needed to stop, I am begging to stop. But my body keeps on going. I must keep on going.

And then I heard the sound of a monitor. And then I heard the voice of a medic. And then I heard the flickering lights in my dim and cold hospital room. I failed what I set out to do, and this was my punishment. I would never be alive again, not in the way I was. And in my final hours, and in my final breath, and in my final whisper: I wished for death.

Hello?

And then I heard a voice.