Percy

James

00A Nothing Street is, was, and will always remain my home. It is where I was was born: where I was raised, where I lived, and consequently it is where I died.

And now, I move on, forever: permanently.

I remembered reading something once. About existentialism, and the recognition of one's own being. The act of being, that is; not the mere fact that I do, actually, be. Not presently, but always; and over the span of any amount of time. The passive act. I found a beauty in reading that, and a feeling of importance as a member of a body. An individual in a bigger whole.

And yet, if there is such magnificence in one's self, and the fact that one can recognize it is, in fact, a self... what loveliness or beauty can be found in one that is only half? No self to relate to, but only a flyaway airiness for my fragile mind to cling to.

For some time I daresay I held myself accountable. One should not be allowed to live on after the short and passing stage of human life has ended. And soon after I came to realize, in my own solitary confinement, I am not nearly- not even slightly- alive. I am dead and regardless of the fact that I see the world I was once a part of, I am not of it. No longer may I speak with strangers or stoop down to smell a daisy growing between the cracks of the sidewalk.

So you would do no good in assigning me the blame.

I laugh, nowadays, at those who beg to live on forever. Those shallow fools who believe happiness is found in the continuity of life, and the fact that it seems never to end. True contentment, which can be said is the truest and purest form of happiness, is found in the moment: in the now. This very second you're reading my words, you have done so as a human at rest. You've sat, perhaps made yourself a cup of tea or coffee (whichever you happen to prefer)... or have possibly even drawn yourself a hot bath to sit in.

It is these small moments, coming and going every blink of your eye, that form a feeling. A feeling of being at peace. Every molecule of your mind might be screaming at you to feel happy in moments like this. Because it knows, whether or not you are currently aware of it, that one day you will no longer blink. No more happy times with tea and baths, and any other simple pleasure you've found in life.

No more anything.

And for what? All of this for what? If you live your life always looking forward to something else, always looking through a scope, to that "light at the end of the tunnel..." One day, you will stop. And you will realize that the light you thought was the inevitable happiness you deserved... was really just the switch your nurse flicked on, before she realized you'd died sometime late last night. And by then, you might find, it is far too late to go back and revise the rough draft of a book you once wrote. It is too late to finish the mug of coffee you forgot twenty years ago in your mad rush to get to work on time.

You've run completely and utterly short of chances. The account has expired.

And now I sit, a mere ghost, rocking in an invisible chair within an invisible house, passing my story on to you far happier souls who might come across my words.

00A Nothing Street is my home. And it is here that, I have found, I will always stay.

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