An old man sits, fidgeting mindlessly with the blank papers, layed out neatly in rows around him, as if to mark out the walls of some sacred space. He pays no attention to the roaring cars, driven by people who are far too busy with their own lives, to take an interest in his. Pedestrians walk past him without a downward glance. He sits silently, and watches the Azure sky begin to fade. The darkness is fast approaching and, as he watches blankly, the last embers of sunlight are chased away by the encircling blackness. The crowds rush back to their safe homes to hide until the light returns.
He sits and he waits.
The night rolls on, the sky turns from black into a deep nothingness, the colour of absence
"Where am i?"
The man inhales deeply, and without moving, rises up and surveys his surroundings.
Nothing
The streets would be empty, if they existed. The cars would have been put to rest for the night, whilst the owners slept peacefully in the comfortable beds, dreaming of more money or a faster car, of life and death or falling down stairs. They would have dreamed a thousand nonsenses, if they too had not faded into oblivion.
"Am I Dead?"
He notices her now, the figure of a child sitting on what would,before, have been a step . She was not frightened or angry, and this worried him. She just sat there, staring at the multicoloured blankness around her. She had been half expecting this all her life, without ever knowing it. She asked a million questions without moving her lips. Her eyes gave her away, that bleak icy colour he had come to expect after time.
"Not Dead.... death doesnt exist...nor life.... it's not there is it? any of it?"
He say a word. He didnt have to. His knowledge emanated from him, and grounded itself in the nearest vessel. She knew as much as he did.
She knew that it was she who wasn't really there at all. She knew that the sun and the stars were all above her, as sure as the ground was below. She could almost see them when she focused, fleeting glimpses of a world she had long ago known. She knew that she had finally dissapeared into the cracks in the mask she had worn for so long, it had become her face, never to be found. She knew that no one would ever look for her, and she would never be found. She longed for death.
He looked up at the nothingness, and sighed a sigh a thousand years old, and tired. His eyes looked into hers. She merely nodded a silent understanding and walked by his side.
Together they walked over the papers and sat slowly upon the street. A tear rolled from his bleak eye, off his cheek, and into nothingness. He glances up to see the dawn break silently through the nighttime air. The people would soon be back, rushing past to get to work or school or somewhere important. They sat silently and hoped for someone to focus on them, just for a second, for someone to make them real again.