Empty Space

I am just a ghost, flitting across empty space. Nothing matters here. Nothing lives here. I am the face you see, the haunted one, the one with the long, hollow expression. I used to feel, I think to myself, I used to be. You cannot see me. I do not matter.

There was a life there once, a time long ago, when beautiful things happened, but I don't know what happened to them anymore. Like a dream, one that started just seconds ago, and is already over. I keep thinking I must've gotten in a plane crash, a car accident. That could only explain why I don't understand anything, why I don't see anything anymore, why I can't feel.

I haven't eaten all day, but I'm ghost. It doesn't matter. There is a sickness there, though, a haunting. Yes, ghosts can be haunted, too. Haunted by thoughts, by visions, the worst kinds, keeping me here, rooted to this spot. I couldn't eat, even if I was human, I think.

I do not touch the ground, not anymore. I flit across the walkways, the streets, parking lots. I see people everywhere I go. Happy faces, down by the creek, the library, the Creek Festival. I watch the couples hand in hand, heads on shoulders, laughter, and I cannot stop staring at those hands. I keep looking and looking and looking. I do not turn away. I used to have that, I think, a hand to hold, a girl to call my own, but none if it matters anymore. I lost her along the way. What happened? Does it matter? Didn't I try? Did I fail that badly, despite the love I had? Didn't love mean anything? Didn't my love mean anything? Doesn't Love mean anything at all?

I walk (or float rather). I watch the couples, and see the strollers, the children, the pregnant wives, and all I can think is, "How can you? How can you? Don't you see? Why would you bring something so precious into such a cruel and hateful world? What are the chances really of success, of love and happiness? Does anyone else have it that you know of? Why would you do that to them? Why take the chance they will come back, years later, not loving you?"

But it's useless. My words don't matter. They have no weight. They make no sound. They come echoing back like thoughts. It's even hard for me to hear them. I shake my head, what there is of it, but nothing matters. Nothing ever mattered. Nothing meant anything. Beauty didn't mean anything. Love didn't mean anything.

It's okay. I can see the blue sky, the green in the trees, but I can't tell what the temperature is. I cannot feel the warmth or the cold. But I can see the blue, and I'm glad for that. At least I can see that. What if it was black and white, what if--as a ghost--you saw in black and white? It wouldn't have surprised me.

You can't cry here, either, so just be warned. You can't feel, touch, or know much of anything, except why you're here. You came all this way, defeated, conquered so much, only to feel like this. It's not fair. And that's where you are trapped in the limbo of unfairness, the cruelty, the savagery. Life doesn't care about you. What made you think you were so special anyway?

So I flit through the empty space, and I scream to myself because there is pain here. That's what the empty feeling is. It's constant. It won't ever go away. Maybe in time. Maybe when the kids come home. Maybe when the dream begins again, if it ever does, if it ever will, and something makes sense again. Maybe when she leans over and lightly touches me, tells me she loves me, that she never wants me to leave, that she needs me there.

But that seems too much to ask. It might've never happened to begin with. Maybe it was just a dream I concocted in my head. I never had love at all. I never had anything. Nothing ever mattered. Nothing ever did, what we had, what we did, the things we said, whatever they were, whoever she is.