FanStory.com - A Wretched Stateby Tom Horonzy

Come. Join me. I am alone.

Where? I know not; I cannot tell nor see a thing.

The fear is overwhelming. I don't know if I am standing or lying down. Maybe, I'm hanging by my feet, though I cannot feel if they are bound.

Sound has gone m.i.a. as well, as best I can tell. There are no breaths or heartbeats but my own. No static, crickets, or hooting owls. Nothing. Even when I speak, I can envision the words trying to flow over my lips, one letter at a time, as with a teletype, but cannot hear or see them in blackness so dense all words said instantly are unsaid, and thus the thought initiated, drops d e a d!

Perhaps, my eyes are wide shut. I cannot even say for sure if they be open. I blink and feel movement, but my moist eyes make no noise. Go ahead. Try. Close your eyes. Move them up, down, and to either side. Now reopen them. Do you see a thing? No. Therefore, I surmise eyes have no purpose in this void. They have become imperfectly useless.

Wait. Unless there has come a change, you haven't heard any word since they remain imprisoned in my maw. What an act of futility. Any dialogue begun ended as it attempted to enter the void beyond.

Now I know how the dead may feel, though on second thought, they don't feel anything entombed where they lay in a perpetual state, be within a tomb, urn, or an encrusted grave.

Perhaps the question previously asked near the beginning of this text has been answered. A cadaver cannot be heard. Any thought the dead might have surely would die with them, yes? Could the answer to where I am, be unimportant? Instead, the better ask is, how did I arrive?

The Bard of Avon wrote, "The sudden hand of Death close up mine eye!' And since it has, I've joined Hamlet in "A Wretched State."