Staccato.

The sun. Now orange. Now red. Blazing. Iridescent. Portentous. Humbling. Setting.

Its reflection. His eyes. His face. Stubble. A tear. Salty to taste. The sea. The waves. Little boat on the horizon. Bobbing.

The breeze. The smell of fish. The taste of salt. Of memories. Bygones. Possibilities.

The seagulls. Fly. Glide. Circle. Fish. Dip. Miss. Dip. Catch. Eat.

Rocks. Vein-encrusted. Tidebreakers. Sturdy. Stolid. Weathered. Worn.

Clouds. Contrast. Shapes. Of wishes. Of dreams. Drift away.

'I want to...'

Thoughts. Fragmented. Splintered. Incoherent. Looking. Searching. Lost trains.

Life. Meaning. None. Journey. Pointless. Goal. Unattainable. Game. Whose? Mine. Yours. His? Whose? Somebody. Nobody.

Beautiful? No.

Interesting? Yes.

Spectacles. Opaque. Coulombic. Not inverse. Mundane. Nontrivial. Together. Simple. Lies. Random. Words. Strung. Together. A theory. An explanation. A fact. Contrast. A rationalization. Expectations. Reality.

He sat and thought. For a way to put his thoughts into words. Of any form, in any language. Words. Powerful. Meaningless. Powerless. Wise. Such...., such that it allowed his wandering, traipsing mind to express all kinds of eloquent trivialities, but fell short when he wanted to speak of what mattered.

But what mattered? Initiate cycle. Success? Meaningless. Company? Temporary. Love? No, not that. Freedom? Self imposed. Self declared. Semantics. Life? Not being dead? Achievments? Individual. Meaningless. History? Stories. Depend on the storyteller. Peace? Wishful thinking. Happiness? Too hard. Satisfaction? To whom. Self. How? Success? Full circle. No answers.

He sat and watched the sun set, a reflected fire burning in his hollowed eyes as the incandescent ball ducked below the skyline with deceptive quickness, the lights in his eyes flickering with the stormy sea before they, too, went out altogether, leaving the burnt out husk of what once had possibly been a great man. Softly, he sang to the wind, as they carried the quiet words away,

'Don't take away my shine, my shine is all i have...'

Meaning

The search is endless.
The path fruitless.
The goal uncertain.
And yet we look.

An incomplete theorem.
An unfinished painting.
An abandoned building.
You stare at them.
They stare back.
And yet we look.

We search for the one.
In crowds so big.
Not knowing, not believing.
Not accepting. Nor stopping.
Life goes by, and I grow old.
And yet we look.

The wisdom of the ancients,
Know thyself, it says.
'What's the point?' we ask.
Ignorance is bliss.
And yet we look.

The universe builds on singularities,
Asymmetric, warped, like desire.
Like will, like logic, like love or pain,
We know not the solution,
Or even if it can be solved.
Unprovable, axiomatic, it lies,
The fruit, in itself, the seed.
And yet we look.

Love, loss, wisdom, pain.
Zero sum, zero gain.
Sometimes a bit high, then low.
From dust to dust, we come, we go.
And yet, we look.
For meaning.

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.