Ms. Tilly

Chapter 15

There's always a barrier when one awakes between when they are asleep. In that barrier, they themselves don't know who they are. No future, no past, and especially no present. It's completely neutral. And when it's neutral, it's calming. That person is one with the universe that expands every nanosecond. That person has no body and no mind in the barrier.

The one thing about that barrier, it's not long enough. It's barely considered an existence because no one remembers it. Yet, that's the unfortunate thing about it.

No one remembers not existing, it's because the mind was absent.

But not existing is somewhat a relief. Nothing bad happens, no pain, no tears, no emotion. Only neutrality with the universe.

But once they wake up, there's that everlasting mystery we ask ourselves absent-mindedly, how is this day going to end?

Is it going to end in neutrality? Was this day an accomplishment, did they end in some kind of achievement? Or did they fail? Is it going to end in failure, loss, pain, anger? Or is it going to end period? That's the most terrifying cost of waking up, they don't know how their day is going to end. Maybe that's why they hate waking up. It's not always because they just like to sleep...

it's because they're terrified of facing the unpredictable.

I was terrified of facing the unpredictable. Reality had stricken me merciless, I was at its game now, I am now the player. A player of defeat, that is. I shall walk into this pointless battle, raise my sword, and cry into the battle as I soon waste my worthless life, playing the good soldier. I will lose, even if I don't die, for the war will kill me.

I never did understand why I was so afraid of confronting my fate. Fate is fate. I cannot change my fate, but it's not my fate I want to change, it's the others' fate. Selfish does it sound, it truly is. I want normality. I was consistency. I want nothing to evolve. No one to leave, no one to despair, I want neutral.

No, I want the barrier. The barrier has been my reality since I was born. However, conflicts still arose outside my barrier, outside of my mind. I live in a world where there are no barriers, nothing to be broken, nothing to be scaled; since it was broken in the beginning. But who broke it? Who broke the peace, the safety, the barrier?

That's where the irony is revealed, it was the barrier that broke itself. Our barriers developed a virus: mouths and ears, tongues and noses, touching and feelings. It wasn't the body that broke the barrier, it was the barrier that broke the body.

How come the barrier broke itself? Why did it make itself ill? The truth is, the mind was the barrier all along.

That thought brings me to my statement of uncertainty, why was I so terrified of facing the unpredictable? Did I know all along that my future would change drastically? If I didn't, why I do I fear?

Why must I fear something that I can change?

Or is it something that I'm missing? Like a small puzzle piece hiding under a couch, burrowing into the darkness, hoping that the puzzled can't find it. What am I missing? What am I overlooking? Does it have something to do with my past? With me losing my family back then?

My future, my present, my past, what do I fear from them? The past was lived, the present is living, and the future will be lived, should I be nervous about what has donned upon to me and what will be donned upon? Should I just live in the moment as I've always had been doing?

Or am I really living at all? I'm just a bunch of floating particles in the middle of the universe, would I really be considered living?

I need to stop getting off-topic, it's one of many bad habits of mine. I get too sidetracked, forgetting where I am, forgetting what time it is. Just me and my thoughts.

Oh! I get it now! I understand why I ask all of these questions. It's so clear, how come I haven't thought of it before? Now I know why nothing made sense, it's because I was standing in my barrier that never existed in the first place. I'm locked to chains that weren't chained to me, drowning in an ocean of nothing. Holding a shield to the harmless. It was all just me confusing me. I weighed myself down, with weights that weighed zero. I trapped myself in a bubble that I could just walk through. The cure to my barrier, to my mind, was realization.

But I still wear fear in my feelings. There's still something holding me back, even if it is imaginary, it's still there, haunting me. What do I fear?

***

As I warmed to my senses, I was sitting on a couch with sobbing children. Mackenzie was holding onto me tightly, swearing that she would never let go. Never ending waterfalls couldn't fill the room with tears as much as the people in front of me could.

Gary was mourning behind the table. His shoulders jumped up and down, letting out a sniffle every once and a while. His hands covered his face, but the tears still revealed themselves. He was too gloomy, the whole room was too gloomy.

It felt like clouds shielding the warm sun on a breezy summer day. Except it started to downpour, and the ground cracked underneath. The sun exploded and the world vanished into instant darkness. If that could happen, it wouldn't ever match the feeling I felt in this room.

It donned upon to me that I too was crying. I don't know why. But then what Taylor said gave me a hint,

"I can't believe she won"

I remembered what I feared the most. It came to me, unwelcoming as usual. I didn't fear the unexpected, nor the barrier that never existed. No, it's much worse than that.

I fear the future that I can't change.

***A/N***

What a deep chapter, am I right? Hopefully, it wasn't too boring for you. Also, happy 2019! Sorry for late update, see you next Saturday.