The Nothing City

I stood in a stunned shocked silence. People seemed to shoot past on either side of me in a buzz of useless activity. He was right there. He was alive, perfect and real, standing in the drab watercolor street smiling at me. I had no words. I had no thoughts. He was speaking to me then, but I couldn't hear him. I felt a deep sadness, he couldn’t really be alive, could he? I was seeing things. The world had finally gone truly fever mad in front of me. Teran was dead. There was no doubt, I had seen it. Had seen the wall fall on him. Had been there when they found his body, crumpled and broken. 

Lifeless. Lonely.

It was so stupid. So senseless how he had died. So utterly pointless. And yet– here he was on the grey painted street speaking to me. What was he saying? Did it even matter? I couldn't get a grip on myself. The world seemed soggy and distant. The hulking buildings pushing down on me. I couldn't do this, Teran was dead. Why was he coming back to throw this sadness at me again? I turned away from his smile and his crooked-river eyes. 

I walked fast. I was horribly aware that he might reach out and touch me with his phantom arm. I could feel his non-presence behind me– a hot burning circle in my back. I did not stop. If he touched me the crushing weight of the city would be too much, if he touched me I would lose control. I was dangerously close to falling away from the tightrope of reality as it was. One more teetering step and I would be over. I ran. Pushing through the clumping people, feeling their damp heat pressing up against me. I felt the cold rain sliding over my face and my hot tears chasing the drops away. I pounded along the tilting sidewalk. I didn’t know where I was running, there was no one here for me, nothing to run to. This city was flat and grey. I merely existed here. That was all. There was no light, only smudged shades of grey and dripping isolation. I was alone here. The one person holding me together had died. That was all. He had left me in this nothing city full of nothing people. 

I hated Teran for that. Before he had died the city had been lovely. I blamed him for its loud haunting presence. It was suffocating me one day at a time. I needed to get out, I needed to breathe, I needed to be alive! How could Teran have gone and died without me?! How could he have left me here all alone? Lonely in the lovely city.

When I stopped running I found myself at the sea. Staring out into the crashing blue waves and fierce sky, the open air churning around me. I took a breath, the Ocean made me feel alive at least. Sometimes it seemed like the Ocean was the only real thing around me. Teran was dead, the city was nothing, the Ocean was alive, really and truly, it ran across the world, free and ferocious. The Ocean didn’t need any of the flagrantly busy people who filled this city. The Ocean didn’t care, no matter how long I stood staring out at it. No matter how many thoughts I sent in its direction, it kept existing, wild and wondrous without me. I felt a deep sadness at that, the Ocean didn't need me, dead Taren didn't need me, but I needed them, and they didn't care. I turned away and looked back at the city.

What had changed? This place used to seem so lovely and alive to me. So full of potential and beautiful chaos. I hadn’t minded the grey buildings because they drew attention to the trees and cultivated gardens. I had reveled in finding the secret art and hidden patches of color sprinkled among them. I loved to sit and watch all the pretty people drifting past. The city had been as wonderful to me as the Ocean now seemed. They had both been alive in their own way. I had loved this city.

But not anymore. Now all I saw was the looming grey earth-crushing buildings. Now all I saw was the stress written across all the people too busy to smile. All I saw were the endless grimy miles of streets snaking across the land. It was a place full of nothing. The weight of that nothing was too much, it was filling up all my empty spaces with a horrible overpowering dread. Teran could have helped me, but even he had been eaten by this city. 

Maybe it was time to leave. Maybe it was time to become unmoored from this place, like the Ocean– like Teran. Maybe I was no longer cut out for it here. I looked back at the Ocean, away from the nothing city. Away from the massive grey heights. The Sea or the city? The empty phantom city, or the wide and unforgiving Sea? The question seemed easy when I put it like that. It was time for change, I needed to feel something again, I needed wonder, I needed the world to be alive again.

I looked out at the Ocean, it seemed to be calling me to join it. I moved down the rain soaked pier. I could feel Teran with me. We were close, I could almost have touched him. It was not like the ghost of him I had seen earlier. This was different, I could almost feel the warmth of him beside me– he was real. I got to the edge of the dripping wood, the massive storm tossed sea staring back at me. I held out my hand to Teran and his warm fingers wrapped around mine. It was time, time to leave this horrible nothing city. It was time for something new. It was time to lose control.