Circle the Drain
Wake up and face the mess.
The world is a stage, and we’re all the players of the world’s own production. It’s a large scale, long-term improv show. A world of players that goes around forever, but the players always change. This show is far beyond its prime, but the golden age viewers could never live to tell the tale. They exited the stage long ago, not by choice mind you. They were terminated, eviscerated, and forgotten. Retconned like a blip in a vast place of existence. An episode. A cameo appearance. An extra. This is the fate of the players. This is the fate of me. This is the fate of you. Let me explain.
You do not choose this world; the world chooses you. The world incubates you, inhales and exhales for you, and then exposes you to your senses. A flashbang collective of moments forms your wrinkled, caved in body. A delicate interweaving of particles shaped by experience that makes up you, the player the world cherishes so dearly. A bloody, beautiful mess. The world breathes for you, for a time, and you play your part. Thanking the world for your existence in the way you know how. The world holds you in its palms tenderly, gently, carefully, until it doesn’t. Soft palms snapping into fingertips stabbing my protected cocoon, opening me up, as my congealed innards ooze in-between the cracks of fingers, life itself tearing my body into a sloppy, pasty discharge.
Your aching construction of flesh cannot outrun definition. For the life of you, you will be processed, consumed, and tossed. You will use your own futility to serve your unified endpoint, your unilateral eulogy. You won’t be content; you won’t be satisfied. You won’t see it coming. But the world will decide for you, like it always has, and you will feel the tug in your chest. The sudden realisation of where you really are. A vessel of veins and arteries and tendons, perpetually drowning in a sea of skinless, boneless fish, all circulating around one singular endpoint. You never left your pod. Your senses were the rug pulled over your head. But you can sense clearly now. What will you do with this newfound realisation?
A spirited fish might think it can outpace the circular motion drawing it in, its fins thrashing defiantly, almost playfully, if only for a moment. A spirited fish may not feel the moment of collapse, or maybe it will hurt ever so more, their spirit eroding in flash speed, a haunted momentary time lapse that warps into itself as reality ends.
A spiteful fish might curse the day it was born, angrily twisting and turning, its arteries bunching together into a mess of cables. A spiteful fish will spiral in a pattern that further induces the cyclical motion of its own demise, a haunted momentary time lapse that warps into itself as reality ends.
A sorrowful fish might beg for mercy, crying unseen tears instantaneously swept away into the vast, unending tub. How many tears have been cried here? Oceans. Not enough to make a difference. Their eyes dry up and bulge under the increased pressure, a haunted momentary time lapse that warps into itself as reality ends.
A suicidal fish might propel its momentum towards the drain, starved of its senses but still craving the taste of release. A suicidal fish- haunted momentary time lapse that warps into itself as reality ends.
This isn’t going to change anything. Not for me. Especially not for you. You left my world but you’re still here. Stop delaying. Every fish has its day. This is yours.
What do you do when the hand that feeds feasts upon you? You die, and you never come back. Your rotted corpse has been strewn into the compactor, and yet you still hold onto hope? Pray to God. Pinch yourself. Scream. Do what you must to distract yourself from the black hole staring through your soul. It won’t go away. You won’t wake up. You won’t be saved. You’re a player, and all players must take their final bow. And if you won’t make it, the world will make it for you. Your body hurdles through itself, it’s contractual bind ever present as it accelerates towards oblivion at a speed that doesn’t register. You feel everything and nothing fade away and come back. You think through blank pages about who you were, who you could have been, but none of that matters. All that matters is the… haunted momentary time lapse that warps into itself as reality…
…ends.
author's note: i'm finding footing to lose. let me use you instead