Everything is Nothing

Fatima Shabbir, Pakistan

Nel mezzo del cammin di nostra vita, 

Mi ritrovai per una selva oscura 

Ché la diritta via era smarrita. 

In the midway of this our mortal life, 

I found me in a gloomy wood, astray 

Gone from the path direct 

~Dante  

Everything was dull and dormant. 

Things had begun to lose colour and fade into shallow meaningless nothings. He  had begun to let go of faith slowly over the expanse of years and settle into a shell  of a corpse that acknowledged the walk of humanity on the planet but ceased to  experience it himself. 

“Everything is nothing” 

This phrase kept marauding his intellect and silenced every inquisition that rose to  bring back or better yet, to wake up the dormant fossils of a soul that had taken to  hiding in the depths of the human body instead of ruling it. 

At least that was what I could deduce from his sophisticated and carefully strung  together words. So I typed that in my ‘Cipriano' 

I gingerly lifted the cup of tea to my lips and pretended taking a long sip, looking  at the liquid to avoid staring at the wight sitting across from me. I had just looked  at him once before (and I reckoned that was enough for a lifetime) when I had  sauntered into the living room about three minutes and twenty-two seconds ago  with my morning tea and my laptop (aka Cipriano) to work on a paper for college.  Albeit him being a stranger, I, after the initial double-take, didn't protest against his presence. I could not. 

He was talking in a low voice, the words coming out, the tone and sound of them  so alluring, mollifying that I felt sleep approaching the horizon of my cerebrum but receding pronto when once again my eyes collided with his. Bloodshot, his eyes  had this haunted look in them, this certain wildness and a mercilessness that was 

pressing in on my brain. His hands were fisted tightly, his knuckles white as they  bounced off the arms of the chair, drowning the room in an urgency that though  beyond my understanding, almost had me sitting on the edge of the sofa I reclined  on but I was good at being nonchalant to human emotions. Factually, he was 20,  swathed in his usual black attire, his wrists adorned with bracelets and a watch that was eerily identical to mine, his neck tatted up with outré symbols. How I knew his age and his ‘usual’ appearance was above my percipience.  

“They call me ‘real’ and they say I understand them. They genuinely think that, I  can tell. They—” He broke off, a tear sneaking out from his left eye and his breath  turning into a desperate gasp, “ They don't know— They don't know ‘bout my sin.” 

We both sucked in a breathe simultaneously but he didn't notice, he was just  looking into my eyes as if fixated by a charm. That mercilessness? It held me in  place even though I was impassive both physically and mentally.  

“I ev-ven...I triedd telling—” he breaks off once again, more tears leaking and  casually strolling down his cheeks, “ I tell them whenever I..I can that I'm not what they think I am. I am fake. Fake.” 

A visible tremor travelled up his arm and he dropped his head in his hands, loud  gut-wrenching sobs rocked his body. Unconsciously he slid down the chair and fell to his knees, an animalistic sound escaped his lips as he conspicuously struggled  against holding his pain back. His hands were clenched and subconsciously pulled  on tufts of hair as if he was going to tear them out. Despite my phlegmatic  behaviour, lifting Cipriano out of my lap and crouching in front of him, I reached  out and pried his hands away from his hair. 

“Easy there,” I attempted a smile which didn't reach my eyes. 

Hands shaking violently in mine, he slowly lifted his head up and those amber eyes once again collided with mine. He jerked back from me, pulling his hands out of  my grasp as if I'd burnt him. Those hands went to his mouth and he tried to block  his wretched cries by putting a tight fist in his mouth as he fell back on his rear and pulled his legs up.  

“What sin are we talking about here?” I inquired, my tone pococurante and  irritated. 

“I don't know,” he murmured shakily as he desperately wiped his tears away while  more kept streaking down, “I...I gambled with Him, maybe? I DON'T KNOW!”

He stared me in the eye as if he needed me to give him all the answers. I stared  back.  

“Rrrii... right,” He began again and his voice steadied after a couple of deep  breaths. 

“God...I played with nature. Against it. I turned His everything to nothing for  myself,” At this, his voice once again broke horribly but soon gained composure, “  I dunno how..how it happened! I was never like this...I don't know when it started.  With my conceit, perhaps? My Brobdingnagian self respect,” He scoffs, self  loathing never so apparent on anybody's face, “ Though I never once wittingly said or thought that I was God, every part of me inadvertently screamed that I was  invincible. I looked down upon people, humans. God! Who am I to do that?  Who?!”  

The waterworks had subsided for the moment and the intent in his eye had me  actually reflecting that he was talking more about me than himself, but only for a  split second.  

“Then, my pride, my arrogance compelled me to demand more. Avarice. I looked  at men and grew into a green-eyed monster! I — I don't know how, damn it! I  resented God for how less,” He let out a mirthless laugh, “ how fucking less he has given me compared to other men. Know what comes after covetousness?” 

I shook my head with a whispered ‘no’ just to humour him. 

“Indignation. I slapped my mother and I—” And the waterworks started again  accompanied with an inhuman sound of pain with which his shattered, battered  words fell to a whisper, “and I don't even remember why?! That was birse. Blind.” 

He abruptly stood up, I followed slowly, taking a step away from him. His hands  convulsed at his sides around air but his eyes, in their teary haze, still held mine. 

“Then, then I tried to forget. And I did too. Ravishing myself and innocents.  Ravishing everything. It gave me a break from me.”  

I take another step away from him. First time since I'd seen him, I wanted him  gone. Who was he? 

You don't know? A voice in my head taunted me. 

“ Next? Gluttony. Drinking. Smoking. Heroine became my life. Inertia drove my  life, doing nothing, forgetting human existence. Acedia.”

As I moved one more step back, he noticed it and I noticed that.  

“Don't,” he warns, albeit another audible break in his word, “ please don't move  away from me. You still don't understand who I am? Look at me!”  

I did. And I kept looking until his whole form flickered, weakening and hunching  under my stoic vibes. I knew who he was then. I became sure as he walked towards me and took me by the shoulders, touching his forehead to mine with a plea in his  eyes. 

“Plea—Please help me, I beg you, please help me” His voice broke multiple times, lowering to a wild hoarse, “ Don't go down that road. After indifference, there is  nothing. I BEG YOU! Those seven deadly sins are enough for us. Come back. Only you can save me..only you!”  

I gazed up at him for a few seconds, shrugged his hands off me and smiled at him  in my most pretend understanding way as I shook my head. 

As he saw, maybe for the first time, my utter disinterest in the whole situation, his  form began to fade. A long string of progressively etiolating ‘No.no..no' emitted  from his mouth as the last shreds of my conscience faded into nothingness and I  stood there, watching stoically. 

Fatima Shabbir, 21, is a nature-obsessed soul that likes wandering around aimlessly sometimes. She is currently studying at Army Medical College, Rawalpindi in her third year of Bachelor in Medicine and Surgery. She loves reading, writing, football, cricket and computers too. She loves Harry Potter as well. She likes to keep her writings to herself, but sometimes she shares it.