Grey Buttons

These perfectly circular flat buttons. Beset upon canvas and stitched into formations by heartless automation. They sit there three down perfectly placed along the left side of the bag. Uniform monotone grey canvas, unbroken wrapping itself into void.

Harden jagged blue triangles line the mouth of the bag, collapsing perfectly into place, with no hesitation, no doubt about its place in the world. Slipping into place, forming a closure, filling the void.

I don’t think I’ve ever felt envy for a bag, the crystalline nature of its buttons, frozen in time, the pond of reflective lights they give off. Three perfect buttons stitched into formation, so they stand guard.

This strange sensation overwhelms my body like a fever taking over. I can feel the heat being given off by my eye lids. A few droplets of sweat form above my lips, my jaw cracks from the pressure of my biting. The lag of my lazy eye is fixed by the rising adrenaline, my focus becomes enlarged and my field of view lessens.

The world around the bag begins to melt away, hidden behind the cone of my obsession. The clashing of the wind outside the train cart deafened by the echoes of the tears from the zipper while being opened wide up. For the world to see, the covered shell reveals a striking nimbus of velvet and silk seas. The inside of the bag, covered in utilized space. It’s a war path of half folded papers, torn note books and loose folders. From the outside, zipped, it hides the chaos inside. And even of this I am jealous.

I’m aware I’m staring now, staring at this bag for an inappropriately long time, and the owner is beginning to grow nervous. The bag unbothered by all of this, the shaking of the train, the pendulum of its rocking back and forth brings it to life, and yet it stays in formation, at guard. And it becomes apparent that in a world such as this, in existence, happiness is the absurdity. How much of it I’ve gotten wrong over the years, my tribulations and failures battalions I’ve built up to make my presence more meaningful.

As if the mere perception of reality is enough to wield the canvas of the cosmos into shape. It goes much deeper than that, you see. If this universe were to be simply a simulation or a state of suspended “being” then the bag itself would be nothing more than a projection, nothing more than the sums of its parts being placed into existence for the entire purpose of being observed.

Is the entire point of existence to simply exist? If so is my shadow, the void of me, in any particular way any different than the physical version of my body. Both are evidence for my existence, but they are not entangled, unlike yin and yang there is no balance in our relationship. There is no part of me that exists within my shadow, and no part of it within me.

The stitches of my skin begin to itch, the emptiness within me grows, as I’m struck by this profound loneliness. The air crystallizes around us, as I realize, I will never be held like this bag. Never to be within the arms of the one to protect me for what’s within me, the mysteries buried within the hollows of myself.

Light itself begins to fall behind the horizon of my tunnel vision, as we go underground. The outside world is consumed by the tunnel. And the echoes of the world clash against me. And I’m sent into a whirlpool of ghosts and shadows. Memories forever tarnished by crawling sands. Hourglass and eclipse my only guide other than the perpetual rotation around a vacant Milky Way. The perturbations of my failures, the bedrock of my mistakes, making my life no more weighted than my own shadow. The specters of the person I once was, the nimbus of my flaws, ashes of my convictions.

I am consumed by the embers of envy, for a life far from mine. Countless timelines upon my head have fallen into sand time and time again, wiped away finally by the event horizon of reincarnating while still alive. Having died time and time again in the same mind of mine, the hollowness within me grows each passing loop. I’ve lost my ability to wield mountains to move, and I’m losing my power to create.

As the patches of this facade fade, the dogmatic idea of faith branded on to me. I suppose some part of me will always need you to exist outside of reality, beyond the cone of my obsessions . The thoughts of you, a reference to the history of you. Statues of failures and the ghosts of your unholiness, fear casted into love. I can’t stand the thought of you, but I can’t stand the thought of not having you here, or there, somewhere. I hate you for making me hate you, leaving you behind a bridge…

The train doors open, she walks out, takes the bag, and with it my inspiration.