i have developed no method by which to keep track of the time that goes by, the time that consumes potential, the extent of the great life i have unwillingly spent here on this relentlessly empty plain of hot, cracked shale which stretches to all horizons. to what can i possibly refer in lieu of knowing one moment apart from the next? the tyrant sun sits forever on its throne directly above my head, deadpan, unmoving calm, casting its perpetual curses. my stomach always seems to be in a twisted knot of sickness, impaled with a terrible hunger that controls me, challenging me with the fiercest aggression to forget about anything else. i will never remember the steps that i take.
i am deathly ill from consuming the poisonous fruit borne of the only sort of plant, and the only distinguishing feature of the land or sky that i have ever seen here. within the context of blurry, lethargic grays and reds, the small purple orbs stand out as though they were self-illuminate, mindlessly imposing their energy on the surrounding world, and never listening or receiving, never needing, never asking. their lives are dimensionless arrays of identical moments of autonomous complacency. their meat tastes like that which was never meant to be eaten. they yield no seeds, and the plant which bears them is always dead. i am convinced that they are here for no other purpose than to mock me, as i wander over the surface of death, searching despondently for a way inside to escape the judging, hateful glare of the sun. an eternity of sickness and hunger is far worse than any sort of end, and i seem to be unable to die.
what am i being held accountable for? i have no choices to make. in a void such as this, i have nothing to destroy, nothing to create. there are no voices in my head, no wind that brushes against my ear. the intangible ring of tinnitus is deafeningly loud, letting up slightly with the beat of my bare heel to the ground. without the abrasion of wind, there is no dust to write in. a dead fish floating atop a black ocean; my seed is useless, cast out into a sterile wasteland left behind by a thousand well-oiled machines. upon the single blade of grass that sprouts finally after an eternity of rusting, i wish hope.