v i s c e r a l s t o r i e s

Bullets In A Music Box

We're almost comparable to its inhabitants that's out of this world. We cannot stay and will grow sick and tired of seeing common things that so our eyes too, will be depraved completely over time. We cease at our inability to inhale what reality emits, but we cannot just leave this place, it's not a promenade to a graveyard. We could just continuously drift in this cosmic sea.

The woman sat on the chair in the middle of the room. The room is like a void, stretching endlessly in the monotone darkness. She grew tired of walking aimlessly around, dragging her legs across the checkerboard floor of this place, looking for any way out. The room is pitch black, the only light that brightens everything is a small fluorescent lamp hanging on the middle of the room, in which she appointed as the middle. The middle part of the room, as she refers to, has a jet-black lacquered table and chair.

She is void of any memory of why she's here, who she was, or what's happening. All she knows is that she's in this room that spans across infinity returning into a loop. She tried to walk inside the the darkness, only to find herself back in the middle.

She is stuck in a loop. Her sense of time is dulling. She feels like she's been here for eternity. But she didn't feel any hunger, or thirst. Just boredom. The boredom is killing her. She tried to play with herself, only to find herself disliking it for some unknown reason, she found no desire on pleasing herself. She wondered, what exactly is this place or what purposes it serves her for?

She then heard a whistling sound. It was faint, she thought it came from the metallic wires where the lamp is hanging, but then it was followed by a shrill. This time, she's sure about it. She's been hearing sounds, humanly, coming from the dark. Murmurs came. Soft voices. Male, female, old, young, every sound is different. Soon, it feels like she's in the middle of a crowd, something in the dark, uttering words she cannot understand, words she isn't familiar with and it became a noise where she could only cup her ears and lower her head, wishing for the inconceivable utterance of the vacuity to stop.

She heard a single clap, and the voices stopped. She lifted her head and she saw a small girl. A girl in a ballerina dress, with a face and head of a black goat, or what resembles it. A goat is what she choose to define its appearance because it has curving horns and slit-like pupils superimposed in its yellow eyeballs, but she also knew it was far from an actual goat. The girl just stood there, in front of her, on the other side of the table.

Fear— she doesn't felt it. Anxiety, however, is what stoked her mind and rationality right now. The strange girl seems not to be of any threat, but she also doesn't seemed to be as a friend. A complete stranger she couldn't reach. They could only exchange silent gazes.

"Who are you? What are you?" asked the woman, as she found the courage to utter those words out of pure curiosity.

"I am you." said the little girl in a low pitch.

The woman expected her to sound more sinister, but she was surprised of how normal it was, just like an actual little girl. She didn't understand what she said, though.

"You are me? Okay....so, where are we?" she asked once again, hoping she'll get a good answer.

The strange little girl tilted her head to the side before answering.

"We are inside an ocean."

"An ocean? This is obviously a room. The time I've been here, I haven't even seen a single drop of water, aside from my sweat or saliva. Why call this room an ocean?" she said, dropping a hint of annoyance due to the boredom that's taking over her.

"The ocean of your mind. Thoughts like water that creates a calm wave or ripple. It twists, it dances, the flood plays within you. You'll never understand it, but it understands you. Oh, it knows you pretty well. I know you pretty well. It's just that this is one of those instance where the mind takes over you completely."

"What are you even saying?" she asked. "I don't understand."

"You tried to walk across the room, looking for a way out, didn't you?"

"Yes."

"And you find yourself back in here, below this only source of light, back to this table and that chair?"

"Yes."

"The way out is all up to you. But, you can't just get out here that fast without drowning. A teardrop of earth blood on the yearning asphalt for the flesh flower to open its petals. You need to die in countless, meaningless deaths in order to live."

"I don't understand anything you've been saying at all." she said, covering her face, irritated.

"You can choose not to answer the conundrum. It is pointless, way beyond your grasp. Just a fraction to a chaotic humongous anomaly, there's just no reason to figure out something we just couldn't. But because of curiosity, we can't help it. We tend to seek for answers every single time to warm our heartstrings, gluttonous human nature, and because of that, we were already blinded at the fact that there's just no reason to do it all. Everything ends in naught, this truth hurts our eyes and you find yourself back in the same place again, inside the cosmic womb."

"Well, we need answers to figure something out." she said. "Thats how ancient people created fire to cook their food, that's how we create solutions."

"Or create our own doom. Fire, this vagrant energy can be your friend or your enemy. If tamed, it can cook you food and give you warmth. If provoked, it can send you warm for the rest of your life, even turning everything around you into impalpable ash. This flagrancy is impossible to be extinguished even by a freezing cascade. If you didn't bother to solve it, it won't bother to disturb you. It's like poking a feral lion that's been starved for 3 days with a small stick and you're hoping to not get mauled."

"So what's the point that I'm here? Why am I even here?" she asked.

"To grow, to shed, to hatch. You're an egg waiting to hatch. You've been doing it for a long time, just like everyone else. A fish wanting to grow legs and walk in the lands to venture what's the world has to offer to it, that fish will only find itself seeking back where it belongs, in the abyssal ocean. It's like opening a heavy door because you've been inside for a long time. You can just step outside, and close the door on all those dreadful things that happened, you can lock them away forever but those same dreadful things are outside, sporadic, harsher, uncanny and unsettling than the things you kept locked inside. That is the reason why you're here. A purpose you couldn't understand. I bet no one will ever. You'll be here for as long as you can, but if you give up, you'll find yourself back in the start, completely losing everything without gaining anything, and I've seen you failed for countless times."

"I failed....what? What exactly did I fail on doing?"

"Hatching."

The two fell on complete silence. After what seems like a day's worth of just sitting without uttering a single word, the little ballerina rose from the chair, her supple body spinning slowly.

"Where are you going?" the woman asked.

"Kill your hubris, you do not need me here. You will hatch on your own. Everyone fails, just to remind you. I don't blame your for cutting your tongue or your teeth grind with the chalk while your brain still at the honey glow. We have no saviour. But, I've seen some who managed to become the world. Despite everything, I want to watch you break over and over until one day, your beautiful bruises will become the night sky waiting for us. I'm always waiting. I will always wait." the goat-headed girl said, putting on a confident smirk.

The little girl danced into the darkness, slowly consuming her, left with no visible trace, and the woman was once again left alone, sitting on the middle of the room, with nothingness around her, waiting to hatch.

All alone.

If she failed, she will live. Back to the start.