He sometimes thinks he lives in a bubble. Not a plastic bubble like john Travolta, a more delicate type that's wrapped around the very core him, maybe like bubble wrap but he's not sure.
It's his protection he guesses his little unique way of keeping the world out. Not like a mask though, masks are there to hide your feelings, those pesky emotions that are so often your weakness. He doesn't think he has a mask anymore, but he doesn't have emotions either so he guesses it doesn't matter.
He does a lot of that these days. Guessing. Guessing how to react, guessing what feeling he should be faking, guessing what is wrong and what is right because the lines get a little blurry in this bubble of his.
Sometimes he really likes his bubble, safe in the knowledge that nothing can reach him here, no pain, no anger, no bitterness, no cruelly aimed words designed to hurt. He can gasp awake in the middle of night from memories turned nightmares and it just feels like he was watching a movie.
He's not stupid though, contrary to popular belief, he knows that when he can look at the body of a five year old girl, splattered across the sidewalk and not feel a thing, not be even the tiniest bit affected, that something's wrong, that it isn't healthy.
He's not sure what he can do about that though, because he can't force himself to feel, the same way people can't force someone to love them, or force themselves to stop loving someone else. He likes to think his little predicament is more complicated, and really, it is. Because while his bubble keeps all the bad out it doesn't stop there, and it all comes down the age-old clichés. No joy without pain. No happy without sad. No laughter without the tears, because you can't have one and not the other. They are a package deal. He's starting to have a problem with that.
He's having a problem with that because he never wanted to be this cold, this empty. He doesn't want his laughter to be hollow or his smiles fake. He wants to care, to feel compassion, he wants to love people, and feel affection and happiness. Unfortunately, for him, his bubble doesn't care what he wants.
He guesses (oh that really is his favourite thing these days) that he's stuck now. That he spent so long protecting himself, so long pushing people away and holding them there, that he now has no choice but to be resigned to the fate he brought on himself.
He never wanted to be this cold.
He never wanted to be this empty.
He only wanted to be safe.
Now he wants to laugh at the irony of that, because now he is safe. He got what he wanted and he wants to give it back, and he will take all the hurt if that means he can have the happy, but he thinks it's too late now.
He's a walking, breathing corpse and that's his fault.
He's the one that created that damn bubble.