Static Sticks

Dedicated, as are all my other efforts, to 'lol, and this time, to Sahil, who reminded me that I write not for any newsletter or magazine, but because I like to do so.

Shit again - A tribute to Sandman

A tribute to all the excellently readable stuff over at instain noodles. Read on,

Can't

"The depressed person was in terrible and unceasing emotional pain, and the impossibility of sharing or articulating this pain was itself a component of the pain and a contributing factor in its essential horror."
-opening line from "The Depressed Person" by David Foster Wallace

The man slumped forward from his chair, his chin and arms spilling onto the desk in front of him. He was clad in a light overcoat, a futile attempt of resistance against the overwhelming heat, omnipotent and all-pervading. An assorted medley of stationery lay on his desk, in a semblance of chaotic order, all within arm’s reach, yet so distant as to seem unattainable, the hairsbreadth of space required to grasp any one object calling upon reserves of energy long since depleted.

With a spurt of energy that seemed disproportionately energetic, the man made to rise, a twitch of revenant activity that had long since been banished from the realms of his thought. His hand made as if for a pen and paper just across the desk, yet did not reach it. Not that he could. He assumed his posture of neglected torpor with an ease that belied the pain that used to course through his muscles. But pain gives way to numbness, and apathy becomes bliss.

A fine layer of sand covered all the contents of the room, imparting to it a feeling of timeless age. He knew this was not just his case. The only people in the desolate, deserted landscape were not much different. The want for contact, for interaction, for laughter was so great that it bit at their nerves and made them want to just reach out and start talking to any random personality, even soliloquy was a gift as great as pandora’s box. But it was not to be. The sand covered everything, filling, corroding, relentless, yet coating the entire landscape in a dust s fine that you wouldn’t even notice, it is that you breathe.

He lay on the desk, not a moment from under the dusty overcoat indicating the life concealed within. His breath came in ragged gasps, raw and deep, a desperate effort to resume activity, to escape the madness of endless torpor. With a final effort, he grasped the pen. He tried to dust the paper, but the sand just rose in the air, waiting in a manner reminiscent of a vulture, it would settle soon. The pen would not write, its inkpot contained naught but sand.