She was consumed by something, that much she knew, but what it was or why it was happening, she didn’t have an answer. Her life was an abysmal chase of an unforeseen object, something she could picture but couldn’t understand. She had seen similar things in the movies, on the open road, looking into someone else’s eyes; but never saw that reflecting in the mirror. She knew it should be there but it wasn’t. It was missing, like it had been stolen; there was a spot for it, but no evidence that it had ever been there or even existed in the future.
She wept on the couch. Why was she weeping? Even she didn’t know.
The thoughts of the past nine days came flooding over her, pouring into the open spot where the nothingness was. The emptiness was being filled with grief, pain, agony, and things that weren’t supposed to be there.
Was she having an epiphany or a breakdown?
Was there some cosmic warning sign that she was getting?
Was it nothing?
The feeling of being alone and being nothing wrapped its arms around her like a string cutting through cheese.
She couldn’t breathe.
She couldn’t think.
She couldn’t see.
The black, empty, nothingness became entrenched in her and took over. The object of her desire, the goal of her backslope life seemed to be gone, to be vanquished by the conquest of time. She couldn’t understand why she felt this why, and decided that she shouldn’t feel this way, that it was wrong and stupid and terrible all at the same time.
But she felt that way nevertheless.
