The Cure for Male Loneliness
An imaginative composed by Darcy (Year 12 Advanced)
Glimmers of black and blue press against the panel’s edge, crawling with life in such a way of similarity to that of artificial creatures. Empty, manufactured, controlled. The screen pulses, alive with movement, yet somehow empty to that of any meaning or emotion. Patterned flashes of pink and purple interrupt elegancy, the rhythm, sudden and violent, disrupting any hidden sense of harmony. Harmony only I myself may see through analysis. The air stood with pungency and stench, of leather and rust, and mold. My Mother used to bring me to this theatre. We’d joke about times like now, but I never believed a word of what she spoke. Perhaps, I should have. I myself couldn't have even begun to notice it happening when it did. Phrases, words, nouns, verbs. Gone. We couldn't tell stories anymore, and eventually, so it seems, we couldn't even remember how to live.
Bright and vivid strobes of light flash in unison with enough force to remove that of any colour itself altogether. Alone, I stand, against the edge of the theatre, dazed. Dazed not by the spectacle itself, but by its effect. How could something so hollow, so orchestrated, so simplistic in nature, captivate hundreds, if not thousands of people, for such an extended period of time such as this? Rows of motionless faces stare ahead, eyes vacant yet fixed, absorbing the strobe of images without question, without thought. Faces of blank canvas with no reflection, and no reaction. Just compliance.
A time once known has become that of memory. Memory perhaps I of all people only can recall. A time of life. Knowledge. Identity. I ponder on how it is so that an entire population of people could suddenly forget who they once were. Is it, perhaps, punishment for being that of the only person still able to reminisce on that of which once was in the first place? If so, why must I suffer alone, in the blank and hollow outline of life as once known? I question, Is it truly a curse to live while the world forgets? Or, perhaps, was the curse always in forgetting and I alone, am simply that of the last to fall behind?
The walls shake and shudder, the floor creaks and moans. Small, thick chunks of rubble form and fall from against the ceiling, landing prominently upon the ill minded crowd below, yet, nobody moves. Nobody flinches. Nobody reacts. Domestic and calm, staring mindlessly forward. These ‘people’ are all i, or anybody on this accursed earth has left to offer for the sanity of its inhabitants continues to deteriorate. Maybe, I don’t want to remember. To know. To be marked as the outcast, mocked and ridiculed for thoughts deemed unethical and unnatural. My ways, my memories, my mind, all opposed against by those whom feel no sense of anything, as far as time reminds me in currency.
Deep within the chambers of my heart I yearn for that of relinquishment. To join my family once more, and to leap forward against this crowd of freaks and tear the screen down from its cast. To scream directly into their blank and whitened faces, the fake, clay like faces, and wait. Hope, beg, for someone to blink. To feel. Anything. Anything at all. But I don’t. I just watch. Like them.
A child coughs beside me. Something real. Something human. Nobody turns their head, but I do. “Please, tell me you're real.” my voice breaks, likely given the immense pressure of silence that plagued the hall in time for as long as it stood. “I want to go home… please, please, i need to, i must, go home…” shallow breaths. I raise my head in response but the boy turns away. Ignorant once more.
The men and women of this hall are blank, as are the children. The elderly are dull. “A vaccine”, they said. “For mental wellbeing.” I turn back to the boy, but his face has blurred. Not just in the sense that I may have forgotten that of his appearance, but in front of me entirely, he changed, as if the world had brushed over him, conforming to the truths that it may see fit. Could it be that I am the one losing shape, failing to conform to the model of human likeness itself? This injection, perhaps it would do me well.
I feel myself drift from that of sanity as time progresses. I feel my thoughts shift and shatter, breaking under the strength of silence in which even I myself may succumb to. Perhaps trying to hold on to words no longer possible to speak is pointless. I begin to come to terms with accepting that it is meaningless to oppose the regime of life that these people are experiencing. Complete and utter bliss. The screen glows more, softly and colourless now. I sit. Like them. My breath slows. Light spills from the edges of the theatre and trickles down the fringe of the wall itself. My mother used to speak of a love that knows no limits. Of a place, a home, that knows no boundaries. This home is all I have now. This love is all I lack now. This is my truth.
