The Depth Of Life [[OPEN]]

[NARESH KAVI GUPTAH]

The night is dark. Dotted with stars that beg questions of Heaven and a universe beyond that of our own. Wonderment. Forcing one to consider the reach of life. You grasp the idea, hold it in your hands. Turn it around to look at it from all sides and begin to think about how tangible life really is. The level of control we have. Over life. The world. Our own consciousness. And you begin to realize that there is chaos. Pure chaos. Fake ideals of organization and meaning. Grandeur ideas of control. And you begin to wonder if you really know yourself. Or if you really are yourself.
This are the thoughts that plagued Naresh's mind as he walked the darkened and deserted streets of District X. Lights flicker above his head, blinking in his peripheral as to draw attention away. Yet there is nothing to draw his attention away from except for the steady sound of converse scuffing along soggy concrete. It is nights like these, where everything is silent. Calm. And you're almost walking in a dream, one that isn't your own and yet is at the same time. It makes one wonder. Thinking beyond a body that is their own. A thought process Naresh is used to by now. The ideas and beliefs that no one is their own and can be snapped. That there is always a crack to chip at to let one in. Naresh is well acquainted with this idea.
Though you wouldn't think this of the Indian man walking through the darkened streets way past the time of night for walks down the street. His grey button up shirt hanging loosely and slightly unbuttoned on his lithe frame, sleeves rolled up above the elbow. His black jeans hanging over the back of his scuffed black converse, the bottoms ragged from scratching along concrete streets after concrete streets. This is not a man you expect to ponder the idea of control. The idea of chaos. And yet there is a darkness in this man. The hardened look of a man who's seen things one shouldn't. Done things people could never imagine in their wildest nightmare. A man who understands the snapping point of humans and their twisted, fragile idea of reality. And yet you would never see it. Never understand it, because no one can quite understand.
No one can quite understand what it is like to live in another persons mind. Not be them but to control them. Feeling their thoughts and consciousness try to push you away. Even as their limbs swing and their feet move, they don't quite understand. But they try. And on some instinctive level they do. These are not of my own will. These are not my legs walking and these are not my hands strangling. They look like mine, they feel like mine, and my fingerprints and genetic encoding will tell you that they are mine. But they aren't. As I am not the one controlling them. I don't give them the orders they follow through with. And they push you out. Kick and scream at you. And they can do nothing until you pull away from them. Take yourself out of them. And you lie there breathing heavily and clutching at the bed clothes because you're not quite sure if you're you anymore. You don't know where they end and you begin. Did you control them? Or were they controlling you? And for hours you sit, your breathing slows and your grip loosens. But your heart pounds, it beats in your chest like it's trying to shove it's way out. As if it's devouring your flesh in order to escape. You climb to your feet, body wracked with goosebumps and shivering though the room feels as if it's more than a hundred degrees. You stumble your way to the bathroom and you stare at your eyes. Pupils dilating swiftly from the sudden burst of light and spots dance in front of your eyes as you examine yourself. Making sure that you're still you and not then. You flex your fingers. Bite your lip. You look and recognize yourself. And it kicks in. The emotions wracking through you and shaking you harder than any shiver could do. Before you can stop it, your fist is colliding with the wall. Flesh cracks and plaster flies. Blood drips from your hand, the pain shoots through you quickly. And you now know you are yourself. That you are in fact real and that there's nothing that can be done to change that. You own your mind now. No one else does. And the person you've left behind can't say the same for themselves. They'll think they had some horrible nightmare and when the time comes will worry. Begin to question the bruises on their body and the blood stains on their clothes. And they will justify it. Explain it away. If something can be explained than it can be explained away.
This is the things Naresh thinks about late at night in District X. Not what life is. Not what life means. But the depth of life.



WORDS; 857
TAG; open
MUSE; Inception
MUSIC; give me novacaine by green day
CREDIT; thavron @ caution