Here, Now and for Ever
The Now is never ending, limitless, immeasurable and constant. Surrounded by cold stone embracing Now is the only way he can survive.
Disclaimer: characters and situations property of J.. This is my first piece of creative writing in nearly a decade – it is just as difficult as I remember.
"Ever"
They said that to him once. In a time before the constant Now. Back when the time before and the time after were different. When there was past, the things that had been, and a future that would contain things that had not already been.
"You'll be staying here forever."
A heartless phrase if ever there was one. But at they time it had not mattered. At the time there was only confusion, anger and the amused admiration for a friend who had carried out the ultimate prank. For back then he was other, his old self, a boy not yet fully a man who saw with a boy's eyes and did not know what 'ever' meant. Who saw a lazy Sunday afternoon with no one around as the end of the world. In spite of the war, in spite of the fear, the fighting, he laughed and he trusted and he knew it would be alright in the end.
"Here"
This space. This dark cube of existence that is somehow the same as Now. 'Here' and 'Now' belong together as neither change. Neither can be measured and so they are infinite. They go to the very edges of space and time; sometimes he thinks they may even go beyond. Those fragile memories of that other place, that other time, are nothing but the fevered imaginings of a creator who knew of no greater world than a granite shell for the decaying husk housed within it.
He tried when they first brought him here. He tried to count. Seconds, minutes, days, years, steps, meters. One foot in front of the other, one breath, one recounting of his woes, one tap of a hand against a wall to a half remembered tune. But one breath is identical to the next, one wrong recalls that which he committed against one he counted a brother and the wall goes on for Ever.
How he wished then for bricks. For stones that he could count and name and count again. Some way to measure the Ever of the wall, the Ever of the floor, the Ever of the ever-present Now.
But wishing is useless, worse than useless. He learned that a Now before this Now. One moment before another, but when? How do they relate to each other? As comrades? As lovers? As friends? He knows that it does not matter, that all such links must die as his died even before he came Here. Then and There have forever been lost to him. Here is only Now, pressing in on him from all sides.
Why wish? Why wait? An endless Here and endless Now. That is, that was, and that will be.
True some Nows are light while some are dark. Others have food, or the cold hopelessness that means the guards are near. But these he has learned not to think on.
In the beginning.
Before the Now began. Back when he counted and paced and measured he also felt. His confusion turned to despair, while his anger grew and turned amusement to hate, blame and the hard realisation of self-loathing. He wished for the sunrise, he hoped for food he dreamed of escape and revenge, he feared the guards. So they came for him.
They pulled his hope, his wishes, his dreams from him and left only the fear, the regrets, the despair for lives of friends ended too soon. The cold was with him always as guard after guard, those creatures of mist and dread indefinable but without the promise of an end in death, kept their long vigil.
But then he discovered the peace of Now. Because he is innocent, because he is sane. Both of these things he knows though others may doubt. They are not wishes or hopes. They are not happy but permanent. Ever present like the cold, the guards, the wall the Now. They can be held to him, kept safe and constant by willingly loosing everything else. So Now became his escape. Not a blanket to keep out the cold, not a way to fight or overcome the constricting Here, but a way to live within it. To exist without living or feeling.
To be.
He has learned not to howl, or cry, shout or even speak. For speaking demands a response, an 'other' outside himself, and he knows that to ask for that will make him wish for Us. The Us that will forever be separate in his mind from all others in spite of everything that led him to Now. The wolf, the stage, and the rat that he loved as much as the others but has had to learn to hate.
He has learned that the Nows with paws are best. Even back Then the times with paws were lived Now. Unencumbered by the necessity of reason, of measuring and knowing his place within the world. Not thinking of what had happened, what would happen, what could happen. An endless Now of running in the grass, playing in the forest, howling at the moon with the wolf.
The Wolf.
A friend. A friend he loves and is all he has left. Who hates him out There in the Then that is happening without him. A friend he should have trusted more.
But no. To think, to regret, is to feel and feelings are part of Then, of There, they do not belong Now. For how can Now exist if it contains a part of Then? How can Here be enough if There is always a breath away?
Paws pad on the floor.
Step by step but no longer counting, no longer wishing, no longer thinking or speaking or living. Now is all there is. Now and Here and Ever. A world without end and without hope but with himself. He still Is; still alive, still sane, still innocent, and for Now that is enough.