Stoic Paradise

He sat alone in a dark room face planting his desk. His arm was still hurting… but otherwise would be fine. Around him were papers recklessly smattered around the room: some were government issued, some were personal notes, and some… were pictures… of a child.

He finally looked up to a woman looking at him. She had turned the light on and slowly pulled his arm towards her to look at. He numbly allowed her to- still avoiding eye contact with her. He then heard… soft noise. He couldn’t make out what it was however, for his mind and thoughts were static, foggy, out of touch with reality. The woman then pulled his face up to look at her, yet he couldn’t make out any features, as he was staring straight through her.

His mind started to wander, as he pondered memories of his own: from his childhood- from him frolicking through forests, to him absorbing how beautiful the pond was. His mother ended up saving him from drowning from that lake- he wanted to see if mermaids were down there. He examined a leaf in that pond once, and found just how beautiful it felt. For the first time in a while a smile crossed his face, he then noticed the room was dark again and the woman was gone, though the door was still open.

His mind was still foggy, so he barely even noticed he had gotten up and started sluggishly walking downstairs. He passed by pictures on the wall- pictures of 4 people… perhaps it was a bad thing he hadn’t glanced at them for a moment, but what is good or bad? He heard someone talking, but he was floating in blissful fog as he ignored it and walked out the front door. He somehow forgot that the forest was all around them. He completely ignored the road and turned directly towards the forest… and he walked in.

He remembers walking through the trees as it was… awfully quiet. He didn’t even have thoughts as he blindly passed through the trees. Then, he came about a clearing. As he stood in the middle of it, he noticed his eyes were no longer tired, no longer heavy. He then spotted it, and stared at it… a trapdoor.

There was a trapdoor in the middle of the clearing- in the middle of the grass. Despite never seeing this here before, he casually walked towards it as if he waited his whole life for this. He opened it flawlessly, and stared into the pitch darkness. The only thing he could see was a staircase. He felt no fear- no hesitation, as he immediately started descending the void. As he descended, he finally realized, he could think again- but… he still couldn’t feel. In fact, his sense of touch was numb, as if his body was asleep.

He started attempting to formulate thoughts, and as he continued down the stairs, he realized it was awfully difficult to think. Where before it took too much energy to think, now he was now actively trying to think, but alas the only thing he could think about was his present situation. He had just entered a possibly dangerous random trapdoor in the middle of a forest… how stupid and foolish could he be? How reckless could someone be to enter somewhere they have no knowledge of? Despite this, he was, for some reason, still descending the pitch black void. He was angry at himself, and cursed himself-… he paused, and even stopped moving for a second. He looked down, and realized no noise came from his mouth. He attempted to curse himself once more, but no noise escaped his mouth.

He took a moment to actually take in his surroundings, and leaned over the staircase to look up from where he had come from. He left the trapdoor open, but he couldn’t see any light from above, no trace there was an entrance to begin with- how long had he been descending? There was no possible place on earth that could go this deep… He attempted to talk a third time. When nothing came out, he finally noticed everything else. He felt… nothing.

His sense of touch was completely gone, yet something was compelling him to continue down the staircase. In spite of the calmness, he should be feeling afraid in a place like this, but he wasn’t. There was a sense of calm as he continued down the staircase for what felt like hours, yet no mental or physical exhaustion came over him. He hadn’t noticed that once more, his mind became clouded, but not like before. It was now… oddly entranced.

Then… the staircase ended, and he glared below. There was no floor, no bottom, nothing. Without a second thought… he slowly fell into it. His body naturally corrected itself upwards, as his arms and legs flew above him. The fall was more peaceful than he imagined: he felt no wind, heard no sound, and saw no light. He passionately closed his eyes… and fell.

After an unknown amount of time, he felt his sense of touch returning, but it was different. He felt weight on his entire body, and a floating sensation returned to him. He opened his eyes, and at the very corners of his vision, he noticed light. He continued to fall, but was hypnotized by how calm it was… in fact, his fall was slowing down even further. The light that surrounded his vision slowly grew, as the void above him finally started to shrink. The light was no longer yellow, but rather an array of yellow and blue. The void that the staircase originated from shrunk to a single point, then vanished completely. His body softly came upon the green grass.

He examined the sky. There were clouds but… they appeared closer than they should have. When he sat up, his body moved almost in slow motion, and as he stood up, he felt his body moving in a slow, but efficient manner- as if he was still floating. He then looked around… he was in possibly the most gorgeous place he had ever seen. Tall massive trees surrounded him, some reaching taller than his vision did. They were spread out just far enough to walk between. It was… daytime?

The sun somehow... glowed. An entrancing- pulsating sun kept trying to get him to embrace it... and whenever it was out... he could not resist. He'd be compelled to stop and stare in awe at the star, until nighttime. Massive shadows fell upon this place he was in, and would leave at breathtaking speed. When the first shadow came in, the “sun” changed, and the sky changed with it. The sky was a blasting mix of purple and orange. He noticed amazing twinkles and constellations of purple twinkles all across the sky. He then spotted the big one, the bright blue star. Surrounding it was a masterpiece of blue lighting that spread across the sky. They traveled from blue, to purple, to orange. Luscious vines and bright green plants surrounded him, and a natural path laid before him.

His sense of hearing slowly returned, and he could hear only one thing… wind. A strong gust of wind came in and shook the skyscraping branches before him. He heard a million brussels as the symphony of leaves almost blinded his vision of the path. He held out his hand, and let one fall into his palm… it was green. The leaf itself was so simple… but its patterns were so complex. It had millions of tiny hairs that made it incredibly soft to the touch. Without noticing, he smiled. Other than the now disappearing wind, he heard no other sounds: no water, no rocks, no animals. He didn’t attempt to make noise, as he already knew none would come. As he glanced at the path laid ahead of him, his mystified attention finally came to a conclusion… walk.

If it was daytime and he happened to accidentally glance at the sky, his vision would jerk him to stare at the sun until nighttime. His walking was just like his movements before… float-like, unnatural feeling. As he did, the sky switched between a massive blue partly cloudy sky, and the outstanding masterpiece of night. Yet even still, he came to appreciate both just as equally.

When the sound of the wind and trees grew quiet, he was astonished by just how quiet it got… In this place, that was the first thing to slightly unnerve him. Even still, he gracefully moved through the leaves, sometimes forgetting he had legs. The clouds that sometimes filled the “day” sky then started… falling. In a swirling motion, almost like they were being flushed down a drain, he saw them being stretched out and spaghettified as they reached for the ground. Once they did, they poofed and spread out in all directions. More and more of these clouds did this… and eventually, a soft haze filled the forest. It somehow made this place even more entrancing. After what felt like miles, he noticed a figure ahead of him….

It was sitting sprawled out on the ground facing away from him. Without slowing down, he continued as normal. If he was able to formulate proper thoughts, he might have noticed the static… the static noise that had started filling his head the closer he came to it. The figure didn't have a solid form to it, and despite the bright yellow and sometimes purple light breaking through the trees, it did nothing to reveal this figure. It was black… and the closer he came, the more it seemed the trees bent away from it. The haze had turned to a dense fog and he was merely a few meters from it. He had just enough consciousness to stop once everything around him… was dead. He paused, and pulled the leaf from his pocket… When did he pocket it? It was still green, still beautiful, still alive.

He finally reached the figure, which appeared to be breathing. He stopped once more, and as he questioned his plan for just a moment… the figure sharply snapped its head towards him. Its face… was his own- a blank expression. From the moment it looked at him, he was zapped with the full weight of his being. His consciousness and thought process had returned full force, yet he still was unable to speak… to scream. From behind the figure, the forest crumbled away, as if some greenscreen. The crumbling shot through the sky and quickly filled all around him. When he looked back to the figure, it was gone- replaced by the void. The crumbling sky had finally surrounded him, and it clawed at his feet. Once more, he disappeared into the void. He didn’t fall this time, but merely floated in nothingness. For the first time since entering this place, he felt fear.

Then… he finally heard something… “There are many things in life we take for granted- things that we don’t truly appreciate-'' At first he frantically looked all around him, desperate to find the source of the voice, but there was nothing but him. “... things that in death, we can no longer appreciate…” He then soaked in just how warm and comforting the voice was, and he realized he was a child once more. “But once we learn to appreciate these things, the things that matter most to us- matter just as much to us whether still with us or not” He finally stopped and let himself float in the void. “So… What truly matters to you?” He heard rumbling behind him, and turned to see a new void of purple ink slowly fighting its way through the void to him.

He stared into it, contemplating the voice’s words… and finally saw something in the process- a leaf, the leaf he was gifted from the wind- it spun limply in the void… and he finally understood. With a determination he hadn’t felt for a long time, he swam through the void to the leaf. When he reached it, he examined it… it was so beautiful. For the first time when he tried to speak, he was able to. “This… this is what matters to me” Finally, he touched it. Golden liquid light spilled from the leaf’s patterns into the void around him. He smiled and simply watched the gold leak, swirl, and spread throughout his entire field of vision. It flowed like the waters of olympus and sped up. Faster and faster the golden liquid crept into every crevice of the dark void. Soon enough the golden light was all he could see… and then it all stopped…

All his senses returned and he opened his eyes to a forest, his forest. There was a woman holding him- and she was crying. It was the same woman he saw when he started. He spoke weakly, “…M-Maria- an angel?” Maria paused for a moment, laughed through her tears, and hugged him tight. He hugged her right back. Somehow, Maria cried even harder…