The consciousness didn’t understand time nor did the passage of it effect him in any manner. There was nothing, he was nothing. And then sometimes, he was more. He had pressure, and weight, and sensation. But still no form, nothing tangible, no thought, or memories.

The times he was more than nothing only happened when the pull got so strong it couldn’t be ignored. So tight it would break his nothingness apart into more nothingnesses if he didn’t follow it.

So he did.

Every time it happened.

It tugged and led him through the black empty space of nowhere.

Until he was suddenly somewhere.

Sometimes, it was in that small room with barely the space for a kitchen and a small bed. With the person curled up in bed or hunched over the table. Usually crying, often staring at that same photograph. Sometimes, they would be so still and so calm, the consciousness thought for sure the person had moved beyond the world of the living.

Other times, the tug would pull him out into the bright sunshine. Or the dreary rain. The bitterness of snow. The dawn of a new day. The consciousness didn’t know how he had no memory and no real thoughts or form and yet knew the concept of places and things like rain and sun. They just were. Just like the nothingness was nothing and something.

It took a moment for the consciousness to orient themselves this time. It was dark out, but not quite nighttime. Dark and rainy. The exhaust from cars on the road rose in the air and from the dress of people as they hurried past, the consciousness knew it was cold. The cars on the road were loud, the buildings around were overwhelmingly tall. But why had the tug brought him there? Where was the man? He always saw the man, no matter where or when the consciousness appeared.

Finally, he located the man. Close to the shoulder of the road, the man knelt on the sidewalk. People walked passed him, unseeing him.

Uncaring.

Unknowing.

Like the consciousness was unknowable and unseeable. Suddenly closer to the man, as if the consciousness was sitting next to him to get a closer look. He was sure the man was crying but it was hard to tell as everything was soaked from the rain. He wore a hooded sweatshirt but no coat, colored dark with the rain. His hands jittered as he frantically gathered up papers and books strewn about the ground. On the sidewalk and in the gutter, pages and pages fluttered in the wind.

The man chewed on his lower lip and shoved crumpled paper into his bag even as other people walked on top of the papers, ripping them to shreds as they went by without a care in the world.

Why would no one stop for him?

Blog About Ch2: Short and Odd

These first handful of chapters are short and a little…odd.

I’m having fun experimenting with the consciousness and trying to get across this idea of timeless nothing.

What do you think so far?