Blackhole

I woke up alone, once again, and promptly felt my mouth dry. My head still weighed on me from last night, and the light invading my room through its cracked window only worsened the migraine that taunted my brain. While I slowly recovered my senses, I stood on the cold floor; then heading to the kitchen on an unsteady march filled with bumps on pommels and other stumbles.

There, I drank water. Too much water. I could feel its cupric taste engrossing my palate and tongue while I gulped it down my throat. Looking for food, I opened the fridge, and its cold air freshened my skin. I quickly grabbed an apple and poured a glass of milk, then, between nibbles and sips, I returned to my room, dropping the symptoms of hangover. The single thing I couldn’t get rid of was the very weight that continued to sit on my head. ‘It will go away’, I told myself, as I finished my breakfast.

I placed the empty glass beside the sink and threw the eaten apple in the trash as I entered the bathroom. Then, my morning ritual: I washed my face, brushed my teeth, shaved the little tufts of hair on my face, and stepped on the scale. Three extra pounds. I figured it was from all of the water I’d just drunk, and decided better not to worry about it.

As customary, I quickly showered and then got dressed. I wondered if this was going to be a good day, watering the little seed of expectation in my chest. I looked in the mirror, and noticed my skin more pale than usual, probably dehydrated from booze. “Nothing to do about it” I told myself carelessly, as I grabbed my keys, wallet, watch, and left home.

I stood there in the crowded bus, as usual. Leaning on the window, I felt my arm hurt, its muscles tired. “I must have beared on it for too long, hence the fatigue”, I thought to myself, and turned to repose on my other arm. I felt fine for the rest of the way. “Thank you, have good day!” and a smile to the driver, as I got off the vehicle. The jump from the car to the sidewalk was brusque, and brought a stinging pain to my knee. “It will pass”, I concluded, and continued on my way to work. Getting there, my arms felt heavy, and I sighed as I entered another day of idled labour.

Morning and afternoon happened unritually. Time was crooked, I could feel every second phasing through me as if I had to cross a curtain made of sand to get to the next instant. A nuisance, but bearable. What bothered me the most was the strife in thinking. My head worked like an old computer, costively processing information. I couldn’t adhere to what was told and happened to me, everything looked distant and irrelevant. I watched life as a documentary about drosophilae, completely undazzling. I was oblivious to the world, as the world was to me.

My time. Finally! The day had been suffocating, the air being dense and empty simultaneously. I got out of my chair unsteadily, and felt dizzy for the strength it demanded. It was difficult to walk, but the thought of going home carried me forward, and I staggered my way to the exit.

Returning to the bus stop, I waited. The sky still shifted from twilight to dusk and I gazed at it with wonder, which brought me the long forgotten feeling of joy. For an instant I was attracted to it, to the profound abysmal universe, to the profound idea of an universe. Something meaningful! So vast and thorough, the creator of its own mysteries. I am, in a way, the universe’s rhetoric. I am made of it, dead remains of old stars. I am its own way of experiencing itself, an attempt of illumination from within. I am curious, I want to fathom it; fathom myself too.

My vision gradually straightened as the painted sky was now overtaken by a smudge of white light. I noticed the bus’ headlights blinding my sight, snapping me out of the epiphanic trance. When it arrived, I stepped into the vehicle and immediately felt its carriage nearing the ground. I was the only passenger in the car, and the driver crossed his eyes at me. I greeted him anyway and headed to my seat.

As I got to my building, passing the entry gate and hall, I pressed the button for the elevator. The door opened slowly and I stepped inside. A high pitched tone bursted from the elevator’s loudspeaker, making my ears buzz. I read on the screen “Maximum load reached, please step out”. So I did, then took the stairs, not giving any eminence to the event. There were sixteen floors. I started climbing.

It was mountainous. My thighs were sore, and I could no longer lean on the rail due to the faintness of my arms from earlier today. My head bent forward, and I started using that impulse to propel the escalade. I felt as if I carried the weight of the whole day, of my whole life, as a perverse amalgam of Atlas and Sisyphus. It was all just too tiring…

Entering home, I settled myself on the couch. There was still much to do: read the paper, clean the apartment, answer emails etc; one must be responsible. But I was exhausted. I continued there, layed down on the sofa as gravity demanded, gathering energy to do my chores.

* * *

I had beef and potatoes for dinner, gloriously. I had finally concluded the due tasks, and felt as if I cleared the path to take a few more steps before calling it a day. Unfortunately, that etherealness was soon quelled by the weight over my head. It sank my neck and body unto the ground, and I could only surmise it would be something to live with onwards.

I sat on the terrace to observe the street below and its events. ‘Mr. Meursault’, I remembered, drawing a subtle smile. The buses went by crowded, some empty going in the opposite direction, a few bikers as well. I felt restrained... The sky was the only allure I could find amongst the characterless imprisoning existence I found myself in. Long ago the world’s cries, voices, laughter, chants, ceased to be music to me. Now, they were only a cacophony.

I struggled to get up, and stood watching Gaea and Uranus clashing over the horizon. Now my whole body overwhelmed me, as if a magnet pulled me towards the Earth’s core. Fatigued by my reverie, I headed to the bathroom. As I entered, I noticed a dark figure staring at me in the mirror. It was me. My skin was soaked in a calliginous tar, incapable of reflecting the dimmest beam of light. An unconscious, abysmal chromatic, easy to drown into, covering every square inch of my body, not for the eyes. They were the stars of mine, the only trace of vitality I could avow. The residual was only darkness.

As I returned to the terrace, I saw the sky now fully covered by the colors of night. A dazzling night! I pertain to it, as I do to the universe! Standing on the balcony, I am now only to grasp the cosmos, and by doing so, swim in its numbness. In the night I exist, profoundly. I realized the sky as Van Gogh’s ‘Starry Night’, magnificent, stunning consonance. Enlightening, above all. I must reach it.

I converged into the night, still swallowed in darkness. I could feel every void within me in its entirety. They compose me, the hollow and the darkness. Now I know I must come closer, seize it. I am floating, and now can reach the universe!

But balance is ultimate, and speaks the loudest. After all, it is the verdict of everything, as it was for me. Seeking expansion, as a supernova star, I became a black hole, heavily cavernous. Finally, in my attempt to reach the skies, balance objected, and all the things that weighed me down pulled me to the ground!