Emptiness

It was the most ingenious idea he had ever created, or at least that’s what it felt like when his contraption was first invented. Just to keep her alive was the most important aspect of his plan. He walked closely to the street in the night, keeping his cane close to his side as he travelled with haste. He carefully avoided any obstacle, slightly brushing and pushing past pedestrians that were carelessly walking due to their self loathing. Most people had this thought in their head that their lives were terrible due to the fact that they got stuck working at the mine or water plant, making little money compared to most of the higher class that were able to afford an education. He always laughed at that fact. No one knows the terrible event that had befallen on him that night, and no one will ever know the true feeling of emptiness. But she will, just because of him. He pulled his top hat a bit further over his eyes, his white gloves shimmering as he passed gas lamp after gas lamp. The sun was almost completely set; it was hard to tell exactly because of the blinding smoke that the stacks puked out on every corner. But it almost gave the same amount of light, day or night. The brown bricked buildings that were turning a light black due to the soot swarmed him.  He stopped on a street corner to the pair of carriages riding through the street. He gladly waited. As the horse drawn black body and wheels creaked their way past him and the few others that knocked into him walking too fast and almost startling the focused creature, he jolted. The pesky nescience that blabbed out of the drunk mans mouth was far from offensive, he’d seen and done far more worse than a few obscenities being slurred into a poorly made sentence leading nowhere. What he saw shocked him. Through the wheels and the whip that blurred past him, he saw her. A beautiful made in Paris pink dress and an umbrella lightly brushing in the wind. That was the first sight that made his heart skip and instantly made him fall for her, but not this. What he saw was violent, it was so surreal. Her chest where her heart once laid was hollow. Bright red blood poured down her lovely dress, her beautiful blue eyes turned cloudy by her tears. The crack of the horseman’s whip startled him back into reality. She was gone, his eyes fixated on the now empty space that once held the image of her. He rubbed his eyes, thought, and then began moving on his route. He tilted his hat slightly upward to survey the sky as to what time it would be. The amber colored sky with blips of black smoke was surprisingly crisp. He fixated on what fragments of color that were left by the setting sun and thought of her on that fateful night. An airship flew into his gaze. He shook it off and continued walking. He was nearing a bridge, listening closely to the running water of the upcoming water plant. Once one passes the water plant, they knew that the small suburb of this city was amidst. He stopped on the bridge and looked towards the plant, seeing a steamboat trudging towards it slowly. He reached in his pocket to grab the bronze cold pocket watch that would ultimately tell him what time he was actually in. He looked at what the two tiny hands had said then stuffed it back into his vest pocket. Then he remembered. He flipped his cloak to reach for a pocket that he stitched into the side to hold trinkets and various other little specs of tinkering tools when carrying a lot of small items from the local junkyard to his office, home and laboratory. He reached slowly into it. He felt it, but due to his gloves he only felt the existence and concrete aspect of the tiny object, not the cold emitting from the brass or the warmth of the substance that bestowed upon it. He rubbed it around his fingers without removing it to his sight. He let it fall back into the deep pocket and continued walking home. He was an educated man, although he taught himself with only a few years of school, but it was working for his benefit. He saw his home and as he opened the gate he stared at the vine ridden mansion. He shook his head. This wasn’t worth hurting anyone, especially her. He approached the brown wooden door, placed his hand on the knob and reached into another pocket on his cloak and grabbed the small shiny gold key from the depths.  The door was fairly new, but living on the outskirts of an industrialized jungle only made the beautiful handcrafted door look desolate. He pushed it open with a little force, he felt weak. The hinges let out a dull grunt as he shut the door lightly behind him. He untied his cloak and hung it on the coat hanger. He knocked off his top hat and lobbed it on the hanger and put his cane against the wall. He began to slip his gloves off slowly. With one bare hand exposed loosely holding the glove that covered it he reached for the other. He felt a warm, thick substance covering the tip of his glove. He pulled it off quickly, trying to see what it was in the settling darkness. He ran into his study, dropping one glove as he dashed to figure out what it was that felt so odd and scary to him. The moon was creeping through the clouds and peering into his office window facing towards the city. He went against the window and held it in the dull light. He saw it, for it being a thick substance it was shiny to his surprise. He put the glove down on his desk slowly thinking back to the events leading to now. He walked over and placed a few logs into the small fireplace. He grabbed the glove on the mantle and held it firmly on his hand with the other. He aimed at the small logs and pulled a lever on the top very lightly that sputtered out small spheres of fire, landing and scorching the logs as they set ablaze. The device sputtered steam and levers turned and cranked to contain the fuel used for producing the flames. He watched and contemplated. She can’t love anything anymore; her family, designing or even himself, he was depressed. He was more struck with the pain that she doesn’t even smile like she used to when he would see her at the market stalls, she wouldn’t design her beautiful dresses, even hug her children. At this point, he didn’t even care that she didn’t love him, for he loved her and ruined her. He walked over to his bookshelf and pointed out a rough spine broken blue book. He felt it then pulled sharply. A picture that hung on the wall by the door framed jolted letting out a quick burst of air, moving dust along with it. He heard the ever last thump of what was behind it. Before retrieving what was behind the picture he quickly walked back the coat hanger in the living room. He grabbed his cape, not bringing it off the hook and felt in the pockets for the item. A cog, a cog covered in her blood. He grasped it strongly and ran back to the study. Shutting the door behind him he placed the cog by the red stained glove and turned facing the picture. Again the thump was heard. His eyes were tearing up. He took a deep breath and walked forward slowly towards it. He touched the corner of the frame and used two fingers to pull it towards him slightly. The thump he heard again. He saw the leather bag sitting there, dark at the bottom as the top was still the dirty brown it normally was. He grabbed it without hesitation. Without touching the frame he walked back to his desk. This is hers. It’s not supposed to be his. He sat the bag down on his desk then sat in front of it. He wanted it more than anything. He heard the thump again, then again, then again once more. He squeezed his eyes tightly. Tears were starting to pour out of his eyes. This pain was too much to bear. The glove, the cog and the bad sat in line on his desk side by side. He grabbed the top of the bag and pulled the sides away from each other. He reached in slowly. He heard another thump. He wrapped his fingers around it, it thumped in his hand. He jolted but kept his grip a hold. He pulled it out and looked at it. He broke down dropping it on the desk. He didn’t want to live with the pain of taking someone’s love away for his own selfish benefit. His ultimate goal had failed. He cried and cried screaming out into the empty mansion. He pushed back a little bit, the chair scratching across the wooden floorboards as he reached for a drawer. The top right drawer held the key, the pathway to a way out. He had enough causing people pain. He reached for it slowly. He set the end to his right temple and closed his eyes slowly. No more pain and no more tears. He slowly squeezed the trigger. Then fell into black.

Back To Sleep

She sat on the park bench; Central Park, New York, but she is lost. How did the ones before her achieve the greatest gift, life? She took a breath and stared. To him she was beautiful, but why does he feel angry at her as a being? Did he see her at the mill? She saw him. Does he see that Mother Nature herself rejects her? She is only one step away from leaving this divine fire, but is that blasphemy, to go against her creator? She failed her last attempt two nights ago and she already knew that her creator had abandoned her, with absolutely no purpose what so ever.  She reached in her purse and pulled out a vial of purple liquid, she couldn’t feel the corks texture on her fingers as she threw it to the ground. Her solidarity had completed her existence, which made the sorrow she felt grow deeper, for she couldn’t call her being a life. She was never living, never alive. She never should have been created. She looked up at the trees moving in the wind but she knew why she couldn’t feel it against her skin. Her sorrow, deeper still, made her shed a tear. She closed her eyes and put the vial to her lips. As the liquid poured into her mouth, she felt the bench beneath her start to crumble, nature crying at her being. She failed and the thoughts of her entire existence flooded her sleeping mind. She ached all over where she had been put together; the fire was eating away at her. She clutched the bench, crumbling in her hands as she drew her final ending breath.