I glance at the room around me as its cluttered state forced hopelessness to seep into my mind. The desk was covered in heavy books and littered with papers, which were partially covered with an unorganized scrawl. My mind could not bear any more of the pitiful state of my surroundings as the clocked ticked midnight above me, with no chance of physical escaping from my predicament. However, I am truly the only to blame for what I had wreaked upon myself. It was too much for me to handle, as it always was. Life has beaten me in this match; I was too exhausted to conquer.
Dejectedly, I crawled into bed, and pulled the thick covers above me. It protected me from the frigid air flowing tauntingly in my room. The flattened pillows could still support my head as I began to fall into darkness. The angle formed from the clock’s arms upon the opposite wall was reality’s final imprint on my mind.
I cared little for my room. It is always something I can return to, when the power to take care of it once again decided to flare. I cared little for my work. It can always be done at another time, and can always be done better, when I could control it; it deserved not to control me.
I cared for nothing at all, for nothing outside those pillows and covers mattered. Energy escaped me, and I had given myself to the mysterious depths of sleep. It was not the comfort of the bed itself, nor the warmth of the blankets that would ease my mind. I let myself go to the place in which nothing existed. I was alone.
Loneliness did not concern me in this nothingness; neither did the lack of haphazard dreams that would woefully plague the most ardent of sleepers. I was free from the bonds that tied me to those I loved and hated, I had left stress behind me. Emotion was denied entrance as I gently descended further from the bright lights of reality. My heart beat only for me, much more freely than forced with anxiety’s metronome.
I did not feel happy, but nor did I feel much else. In my nothingness, my inner balance was perfected, recalibrated. Whatever pain that was caused by guilt, stress, or exhaustion disappeared completely. I did not fear returning, but the wretched realization of such would be carried with Phaeton as he drove his father’s chariot to destroy my peace. Joy, if I ever had any, did not join me in this place; it was an unnecessary addition to the contentedness my body was experiencing as an agent of its own will. I had nothing to do, and could do nothing at all; but in the waking world in which I am imprisoned, nothing is exactly what I want to do.