You do not need to know my name, for it is irrelevant; I am the epitome of what every individual fears to be, yet the will, if they have not already, nor if they presently are. I am alone. I am lost and searching, as mankind has for all of its history. The pure unknown and emptiness has haunted us for many a millennium, and it is nothing short of eternal.
I speak not from personal experience as much as facts. Emptiness is but an illusion; a mirage that takes us from inside our own minds, that abducts us from our very core existence. Though an illusion, its dilemmas are perpetual.
I felt everything, then nothing.
Hundreds of people went to my funeral, but only a few cried or even frowned. I saw eyes crinkle with joy, as if my death had been the cause of a reunion, and others whose foreheads crinkled with lines of worry or despair. I watched them all.
Only one person spoke at my funeral. It was my brother, the only person who was fit to speak, for he was the only person I spoke to. My mother wasn’t in attendance; I doubted that she knew I was dead.
It’s a funny thing, being dead. It doesn’t hurt, but it doesn’t feel good, either. It’s like falling into a deep, dreamless sleep, yet somehow, I could see. I was floating in circles towards the ceiling of the room, my casket closed. There was no need for makeup; no one would see it before the maggots ate it all off.
Almost half the people threw dirt on my grave. They were happier to see me off than they were to see me live. People hugged and bade their farewells, some arranging plans for the following Saturday. I drifted after them.
I appeared in their television sets and mirrors for decades after my death. Each year, a few more people would visit my grave site, their attention not on my tombstone, but on the world around them. They were, I knew, visiting me not out of care, but out of anxiety that they would, again, see my face the way it had been before my death.
I watched the funerals of the people who had attended mine as, one by one, their time, as well, came. The attendees were many in number, but few seemed sad or jovial; in fact, most seemed impartial. Tired. They were exhausted, too exhausted to acknowledge one another or the open casket that held the body of their acquaintance.
I drift through mirrors of empty houses, sometimes only shards of glass, while listening to conversations regarding the demolition of the outdated house. It has already happened to many. I drift the world through screens and mirrors, and watch it grow barren and empty. I haven’t seen a pair of eyes with any hint of an inner soul in them for decades, and I haven’t seen any forms of non-rodent life for months. My world is that of a lonely spirit, one of echoes and raindrops that fall only for me. Where vents open and close and let in bursts of air that I cannot feel, but I can hear. Where curtains drift through still air as if by their own accord; as if they could think.
Then, even my lifeless dream ends as I pass on.