"Did you expect to find me swimming with these bodies? You know you shouldn't have, probably for a couple of good reasons." She took hold of my arm, pulling herself out of the squalid water.
Was she smirking?
"I wasn't expecting anything, my friend - but I'm more than happy to see you here, out of these bodies in which I seem to have found you," I mused with a tired grin. The desire was certainly not to antagonize, but to cast my curiosity on that which she seemed to regard with unexpected clarity and composure. There was a sensation of confidence in her tone that, at present, I envied. If she had seen something upstream, maybe she...yes, she most likely could readily offer a more sensible construct of our shared circumstances than I had yet construed.
The immediate environs were not entirely appealing. The skies, a dark tract of murky gray, descended rapidly in large droplets; the bleeding clouds lined the heavenly expanse like scaly flesh. The two of us sat on the edge of a bridge, our feet dangling inches from the crawling waterway, itself an entity of intimidating proportions. The water beneath us reached outward in all perceptible directions...Say, upon what was this bridge built? Was it touching solid ground somewhere, out of sight?
The immensity of the waterway encircling our location shook thoughts of the bizarre bridge far from mind. This infinite river, in its tow, carried with it the bodies of countless familiar persons in vast supply. None of them were physically harmed, nor were they marred, nor even in casual disarray; by all appearances, their waking lives had abruptly ceased, and no one could be more surprised than they. But not one had offered proof of consciousness until moments ago, when she calmly emerged from their endless numbers.
I knew them all. So many, so many. Every man and woman floated by in silence; every voiceless face induced stories that seeped from my memories. They were not all Friends as I'd known them, but certainly none of them deserved this predicament. Were they really dead? They had to be. Their large gray eyes were opened wide, far too wide, to such an extent that their eyelids should have torn apart. Almost as though small, invisible hands gripped and pried at the eyelids. So-called windows into the soul.
Windows to the soul. A sorrowful notion arose that these passersby had sought in life to protect and conceal their private and personal essences, their quiet joys and their sullen remorses, in the introvertedly controlled manners that an individual must, to balance sanity and civility. Yet something here had pried, physically, and forced itself into their sacred, fragile essences. Something in this place sought to obliterate their metaphorical defense; their so-called windows had been shattered, utterly, and floating husks of soggy flesh were the lone remnants of these unfortunate soulless multitudes.
After having sat in this place for a time, watching as the waterlogged friends and colleagues floated onward, I pondered whether a leap into the waters would be necessary as some form of eventual escape. Could the bridge lead somewhere? That seemed absolutely unlikely.
Now though, at last, I was one of two. On a bridge to nowhere. Surrounded by a small sea of bouyant carcasses. And nothing was fighting to tear open our eyes, as my imagination feared. Things were looking up.
"In truth, I'm here to tell you one thing," she said, "but first, I need you to throw away your knife."
"What...what knife? I don't- Oh." She was right. A small blade was clutched in my left hand; I had unknowingly been plunging it into my legs, repeatedly. Why didn't I feel it? Was I drugged? Did I take drugs? No, I was merely stupid. I pulled the bloodied knife from my leg and tossed it into the waters below. Small tendrils of blood danced from the blade and swam away like tiny snakes.
Curiously, she then set a gun on my lap. An unremarkable little handgun. I glanced at her expectantly for elucidation.
"Two bullets. You'll need to use both of them on yourself."
With a laugh, I gazed out to the horizon. Realizing there was no horizon to see through a newly formed mist, I looked back to her. "To what end?" A glance down at the handgun, reflecting on the situation; it would be nice to escape this place...
"No. No, Josh. Using that gun won't kill you any more quickly than this place will. You've been here too long already. No, this is sort of your Red Pill/Blue Pill choice - and it is a choice. Use the gun to shoot your heart, and then to shoot your head. Both of those things have taken control of you, control that rightfully belongs to you. As long as you surrender your control to Heart and Mind, you'll barely survive. Killing them is your only chance to live."
"All right then. But, pray tell - without passion and compassion, without reason and rationale, how could one hope to live with any satisfaction at all?"
She stared through me. "Do you have any of those things now? Really, do you, in some capacity?" she asked, as she slid back into the squalid waters below.
Gun in hand, I contemplated the choice of putting it to use, but was overcome once again by the oppressive silence and solitude. Wide-eyed bodies floated by, staring, perhaps feigning curious expectation.
Maybe it was a magic gun! I found myself pointing it at my chest. Squeezed the trigger.
Geez, ow. Ok, it didn't feel like a magic gun.
Obediently, I found myself pointing this lie of a gun at my head. On a bridge to nowhere, with holes in my legs and an empty chest, alone save for the wide-eyed bodies floating by; even if the gun resolved nothing it was promised, it certainly couldn't worsen matters. Things were looking up.
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