They tell me blue bottle, scratch-master tinct ease takes away the pain of all the maladies, but I really don’t care.
The commercial cries of products and impulses—buy me, use us, pay attention now before it’s over—have finally started to fade. They are just dim, empty movements arranged in a contrived focal point.
There are no instincts. There are no guiding principles. There is no magic, no gods, no judgements of worth or valor.
I don’t have bupkis anymore. No memory. No coin. Hardly any clothes. Nowhere to sleep anymore. No desires.
Even those little shivering shit balls of constant, conscious yearning have abandoned me.
Well, at least I see things now as they really are. Or I’m starting to.
And now I know it’s not up to me to take care of such things anymore. Not that I ever did. Take care of them, I mean.
I have finally realized that am not the source of me.
Perhaps this is the first time I have really understood that.
Now that the big, driving forces are disappearing, now that all fear and all craving has gone, all that is left is a cool wind blowing across my brow.
I look up, and I feel shame, mountains and mountains and mountains of shame, dissolving like butter melting in a hot cast iron pan. There’s also some guilt there, and some pain, and a feeble memory of something so important that I can no longer imagine what it signifies.
Oh, so this is it?
This is the end.
Or is it a new beginning?
I pray that it is not so. Not that prayers can be relied upon anymore than they ever could, but still, I would not want to begin again. I am so buried in the same old, same old that the only impulse I can hold is to let everything go at once.
And even as it all evaporates, the smile that plays across my face cannot contain my joy.
No, I will let you discover that on your own, in your own time, at your own pace.
For now, let’s just say that in the end, whatever you give, you take with you, even when there is nowhere to go.