Beyond Nothing

Sebastian sat and listened to Jen with something of mild indifference. She was telling him of her past weekend, stories about her grandmother and grandfather and the precious things they had said to her in the midst of each time her parents had looked at her devotedly and her brother had said obnoxious things as usual—she loved him. The words spilled out of her mouth; and he sat. Thena was sitting on her bed, across the room from Jen's bed, listening as well, but also reading a book, occasionally letting her brain soak in the meaning of the words written on the pieces of paper before her.

Her oration of an all too-dull soliloquy continued, lacking something or anything to pique his interest. Maybe it was mood, maybe more; Sebastian glanced over Jen’s shoulder at Thena. Maybe it was the content. Maybe Sebastian just was sick of the mere recitation of historical data and the mercurial emoticons that accompanied the story: something as rote as it was mundane. People always talked. People always had stories. Sebastian wondered if there was something wrong with him that he didn't care. Perhaps Sebastian was just looking for something in particular to listen to. Sebastian sat, his gaze returning to Jen: half-listening, half-not listening, flexing his fingers unconsciously, searching for something, anything; he found nothing convenient until Candace walked in with her usual swagger.

"Where you been?" Sebastian immediately said, exploiting the momentary verbal pause caused by her entrance.

"Class," Candance replied.

"Whatta you up to now?" Thena asked her.

"Nothin'."

"That's cool," Thena said, nodding her head slightly, a sly smile on her face, her long, dark curls swinging slightly.

"It is, right?" Candace said. She turned her gaze on Sebastian and flashed a smile and a wink.

Sebastian stood up, looking from Jen to Thena, finally letting his gaze linger on Candace. He feigned a stretch to overemphasize and picked up his bag, throwing its strap over his head, letting it hang in the nook between his neck and his right shoulder. "I guess it's time I took off."

"What, did I scare you off?" Candace asked, punching him on the arm.

"Nah," Sebastian said with a smile as he looked down and shook his head ever so slightly. "I just gotta jet, that's all."

"Right," Thena said, laying it on thick. "Right."

"Hey, fuck you all, all right?" Sebastian said smiling, stepping slowly towards the freedom of the hallway.

"Whatever," Thena said.

"Later," Sebastian said. They all returned the good-bye.

Sebastian shook his head as he walked: how pale how pale he thought; how pale was the empty conversation he had had with Jen as opposed to his talks with Candace or Thena—given he had mostly only listened during those talks, but he had listened to them talk for real; it wasn’t as if the words that came out of their mouths were of different languages or that those conversations had started any different way or had meant anything more—possibly the inverse—but there was just something to the conversations you had with certain people that seemed so much more tangible, as if the very words clung to one’s pores like so much musk. Maybe it was just a vibe, just a flow: maybe it wasn’t that one person talked about things that mattered and one didn’t, since to someone everything meant something, but that certain words inside a context of a smile, framed by the right walk, that while whispering the same words seemed to explain more about who a person was, betraying the semantic designation of each syllable and grammatical graft. It wasn’t that he wanted to trivialize the feelings that Jen had about her family, he wasn’t sure if he had the right to do that—that thought disturbed him—but then what was it? Maybe it was the recent awkwardness between he and Jen which had lessened the sonic impact of her words, maybe it had been that which stopped him from feeling her thoughts and emotions in his bones and what inside, maybe was the stark contrast between that taut connection and the underlying freebased tension that existed between he and the other two; or it could have been his perception of that tension was what changed his relationship between them and it had nothing to do with anything other than the fact that one aspect of a relationship tainted everything while all others free of that ambiguous touch glimmered by comparison. He shrugged.

To no end was Sebastian frustrated by the fact of who he was: his means always beyond his desires, his desires unfulfilled, and his knowledge always short of definition: his frustration never gratified by the fact that he was no worse off in any of those things than anyone else around him; whose dreams went answered in birth to twenty? He was hungry, but impatient. How could Sebastian justify anger based on a life full of emotional pitfalls and intellectual shortcomings—the experience of betrayal at the hands of a lover, the break between family members, and the humiliation of ignorance were not new to anyone around him, let alone to his generation, or even to those of any other. What made him any better or worse than any other ever: if anything, it was only the little that he knew, and that was nothing.

As Sebastian walked out of the building, he wished that instead of jumbled thoughts and words that his brain would lock on something just once, some truth or correctness of being that would enable him to understand. Arrogance? Impatience again? Or just youth? Whatever it was, he felt dismal failure and little else. Given, much of that was due to the loneliness he felt in any given crowd, but again, in that he had no one to blame but himself. It had been his choice; he knew that; and in time, the awkwardness would pass. Yet it was hard to preach patience when the present was so appealingly pitiable; it was easy to guide Candy on her problems and her loneliness, so why was it so hard to believe that which he explained so easily to others? Why? And he was just one of many. He knew that.

Yet he wasn’t sure why he felt so empty, since he knew nothing. He knew it and that was what he knew. Why still he wouldn't he act, why couldn't he release just once: to punch out that goddamn wall, break the glass before the fire extinguisher, knock the sense out of that dumb-ass kid walking down the hall, what the hell was wrong with him? What would it solve, what would it prove: anger suddenly reared up and raising its ugly hydra-head sucker-punched damn it, only leading to the—don't say it—okay, but the inherent truth still applies why should I stop?

Looking away from his feet, from the shadows there, Sebastian took a deep breath. He squinted in the brightly lit day, crossing from where he was, across the parking lot to move farther away from the populace behind him. He had to let go the tether on his frustration because he was only beating it back to himself. He was too smart to complain but like too many he did, just as upset despite the ludicrousness of it: thinking all the while, for Christ's sake, complaining about the fucking fact that he didn't have a cordless phone not enough posters for his room not enough CDs, what the hell did people who really suffered feel? What did the poor or war-torn feel? What what what why didn't he know; was the truth so far away? No, it was nothing.

Stopping and staring, Sebastian saw the Church. It was beautiful, tall and majestic; pointy spires extended into the sky, reaching upwards pointedly: open arms, red brick, balanced by the disquiet gray; the sun shone. What did it mean, what did anything mean—once it had meant something, once it had meant everything; yet where was God when he had needed Him most, couldn’t He be everywhere at once: infinite power, infinite knowledge grace and goodness and all that (of course that somehow meant through space that He was infinite which if eternal and lacking limit, probably did not imply that He was a he after all but some kind of an non-offensive androgynous It). Perhaps what had always been the quandary of religion was what also gave it strength: the personification of existence and the supposition for a purpose for it all, a divine reflection which while often soothing, scapegoated each person’s problems and issues and disappointments, be they growing up without parents, watching your brother gunned down in the street, failing an important test, your spouse divorcing you, your child dying, waiting in line an hour in your impoverished town just to buy bread, or just not getting laid in a long time: each instance, each little thing gave way to the power and design of the almighty and as such was part of His (Its) grand plan and thus happened for a reason, and in that, each person who believed in such a deity constantly asked "why?" because one way or another It wanted that to happen, no matter how mysterious or unfathomable Its ways.

Words entered Sebastian’s head. Literature, stories, novels, poems and sonnets: all spoke to It. Song lyrics: "There’s a hole in my soul where my faith used to be / I tried to believe I tried to follow You / but all I found was my own despair / what I got surely wasn't fair / Hey God why can’t you give me a break? / Hey God do I deserve this fate / all I wanted was happiness / So don’t blame me if I lose my faith." Who was it fair for? But then again, Sebastian thought, that wasn’t news, how many people grew up under the rubric of "life’s not fair," which is an interesting undertone for existence judged by a benevolent god, but then again, how fair was a deity who hand-picked his favorites before behavior dictated judgement—who speaks for those that aren’t the chosen ones? Who are the children of Abraham now, whose friends with who talks to who sleeps with dates meets hang-out with fucks breeds with the chosen ones? And which am I? Fuck you fuck you fuck you where are you?

Sebastian crossed the street, whim walking him where he didn't know or want: cars slowed, beeped, impatient; slowly he moved, slowly he walked. Sebastian looked up, still seeing the spires, what did they mean, what did it mean? Maybe there was something, maybe it was just emotion it overruled logic sometimes damn it. Who knew? Did they? He walked up the stone steps leading to the Church. Just a few moments to sit down and think. That’s it. Just a few moments. It might mean something. He reached out for the large, gilded handles.

The doors were locked.

Sebastian shrugged, brushing it off as no big deal. He moved back down the steps, away from false majesty away from what in his mind he was convinced despite any momentary outreach of whim was the symbol of high hypocrisy: organized goodness good beyond balance of good and evil; too much good did no good.

Skipping down the stairs, Sebastian’s mind returned to people that hadn’t been dead two-thousand years. Beliefs, thoughts, families, tongues licking words across salted ears stinging like lemons, Jen’s masquerading as the tequila shot of Candace or Thena when it was triple sec instead. His thoughts moved towards others as he meandered down the walkway.

Bell hadn't been returning his calls. He was supposed to be his best friend from back home, only now he hadn’t seen him or heard from him in too long, what the hell was his problem he said he would have been home, only where was the message that he had called, or where was the ring of the phone ringing. Damn Bell, damn Bell, just wanted to talk, didn't you have fucking time to talk?

Sebastian shook his head. He chastised himself once more for letting his mind wander into such self-pitying, self-destructive, thought; again he wondered how he could be so agitated. Did he want to be? Did he forget all that he had and did have? He looked down over the railing as he crossed the bridge, gazing down at the flowing river. He didn’t know what it was, whether it was the phase of the moon he was born under, the position of the stars, genetic disposition, or something aesthetic, but he loved water. It was such a primal force, so simple, so stoic, yet not; there was something mystical to his non-scientific brain about how it could be solid and held in one’s hand, yet disparate enough to part when one jumped into it, parting it. Or maybe it wasn't any of that, he thought, that none of that or of who called or of god or of who said what mattered, maybe it was only his perceptual realization of its of their existence(s) that mattered more so than any truth which was as he well knew unknowable anyway—which left nothing.

Whim again: unknowing knowledge, again, again. Sebastian took hold of the railing guarding the side of the bridge and swung over. No more than six feet down, his feet fell on a small landing, below the bridge. Above, he could hear the roar of the cars passing and the urbanized sounds of horns, loud voices, and construction: all in stark contrast to the soft slurping of the water against the shore and the rocks pointing upwards, against the splash of the leaping fish and the call of the forest insects flitting in and around the water. He looked back up, northward, to the approaching city and back at the suburban stores southward; underneath was what he knew deserved to be above, but that which only existed in small glimpses: the trees, the water, the grass; the city did not extend everywhere and the suburbia had yet to conquer all that the earth was born with. His eyes caught—they flicked back—they caught—yes.

Taking hold of the railing surrounding the landing, he pulled himself up, not up to the bridge top again, but up and over, hanging over everything; he looked down and smiled. It was a long ways to fall if his grip slipped. Carefully, he caught hold of another rail, pulling himself over, and left the landing. Huge steel I-beams, inverted, ran under the bridge as its support; they ran on their side, so he could stand or sit in them; they were almost like canoes, he thought, canoes, as the sides of the beam came up from the middle cross, and he could sit in it, with sides holding him in safely. Just like a canoe.

He didn't sit yet, though. Sebastian walked slowly, below him at the small, yet vital, nature scene; it didn't seem real, it didn't seem like-life, more like TV, as if somehow in their civilized culture brought to them every night at six the real world was more real than what his eyes might see if he or anyone just moved off their ass and opened their eyes. He shook his head at the tragedy. He shook his head softly, still looking down, watching the water roll over the rocks. God, if only he could be holding her hand—it'd never happen though—then—fuck it: again the hole, not the soul but the bleeding heart, why? If in the middle of this even then he couldn’t keep his mind off of—Goddamn it, how many times would why be—no crying, goddamn baby crying motherfucker I hate—

Sebastian walked along the rail, walking along the beam, walked walking walked never never knowing never thinking always thinking why. It was a raw feeling: was it naïvette? Too sheltered, too pampered, was that it? What insanity could make trivialities hurt? To what purpose? He couldn’t even talk to himself. Then again, who was speaking and who was listening: not his soul but his heart don't lie the heart alone not since five goddamn months—live the life, why stop now she was only a girl.

            Impotence abound, the pleasure stillborn, the thoughts suddenly dead, the music, words, love dead, seeking so hard for something to make nothing become something again, looking so hard to find something other than the struggle worthwhile. If all we do is fight why do we try, why not relax and enjoy, incestuous? Exaggeration: I don't care—she would—how do you know fuck fuck fuck. Thena would know but she'd tell can't trust her she's too close to both of them, no why won't Bell fucking answer the call: escape is nigh, I told you why not why the why again shut up this sucks I can't you can't I'll never you'll never shut up shut up shut up; why can't I just live my fucking life without the trials and tribulations of suffering and SUCK IT UP YOU'RE NOT THE FIRST FUCKING KID TO GO THROUGH WITH THIS not a kid DOESN'T FUCKING MATTER SUCK IT THE HELL UP
            Why
            WHy
            WHY
            Sebastian sat down, confused by answers he hadn't sought out, saddened by a despondency found in the utter chaos of his thoughts, depressed by his desperation over the mundane. For him, the worst was the unoriginality of his thoughts, both in what he knew to be his own and that of others: finding no comfort in company.

Fallen over like dominos, his mental barriers and defenses had been raped and self-annihilated by doubt and self-indulgence: such a small offense, yet such a strong response, one to which he apparently had little defense: pity, aggravated, inundated—so certain, so instantaneously, eternally, momentarily convinced of ultimate pain and suffering—taken, made real, unreal, even against common rationality, yet so obviously true to him, in what he knew to be true.

The river flowed and he heard it, the cars still roaring by above as the sun began to set, simmering at the horizon, sitting there silently, but just loud enough to elicit a short laugh from the implicit realization that at least he knew he knew nothing. That was something.