This is a recent version of what the writing industry refers to as a "short short," i.e. a short story that is short even for a short story. Kinda redundant to me, but hey, I don't write the buzzwords.

Decay

“This place is . . . such a mess . . .” he muttered, surveying his crumbling kingdom.

How many days had gone on like this? How many futile days and miserable nights had he stayed here, in this place? How long had it been since he’d gone out? Was “outside” a myth? Had it ever really been there? Did nothing exist save this hovel with its peeling paint and garish walls? Why had he kept himself isolated here for so long?

The questions did not lend themselves to answers. His mind was a hazy collection of half-remembered days, days spent doing the same thing. He would brood, and he would lament, and curse his sorry luck, but he would not leave. The dust had collected on the windows until they allowed not even the tiniest measure of light in, and Teslon had long since lost the battle against the invading insect hordes. They had burrowed into every darkened area of the closet, every last corner and forbidding nook, and there they had laid the eggs of their pestilence, and multiplied, coming on even stronger than before. He ignored them, though his hair grew thick with unwashed detritus, and he could hardly sleep anymore without eating a few unwitting insects that crawled into his open, snoring mouth.

It could be written off as laziness, but it wasn’t: no, this was a purer shiftlessness than the lazy could possibly hope to attain. Here was inaction at its purest, a person in stasis. There he sat, uncaring, unthinking, unmoved by any pleas within himself to take the helm of his body, to rise up out of his chair, to clean that which had been scourged by decay, to fight back against the spirit of dust that surrounded him.

No, this was a man who truly did not concern himself with anything. The affairs of the day went unnoticed, for Teslon did not receive the paper. Nor did he receive any other media, or any stimuli whatsoever. He drifted through his day in nonchalance, not concerned about his wailing stomach’s desire for food, or his under-stimulated mind’s cries for excitement. He knew for a fact that there was no excitement, there was no thrill. There was nothing but this house, this moment, this life.

He had lived on years like this. Every day would follow the same cruel pattern; his body would ache and itch, but he would not bend to relieve the strain. His stomach would loathe his mouth for its failure at its duty, and his throat would fill with dust, forever begging the immobile husk that was Teslon’s body to please, in the name of mercy, quench the inexorable thirst with but a drop of water. And yet he would remain, no slave to his desires, only a slave to his own denial of self. The self is not there. He is not himself; he is but a teasing thought in another’s mind, and his decrepit, atrophying body an illusion of this other’s mind. He was but an afterthought, forever waiting to be forgotten.

“I hate . . . all of this . . .” Teslon mused to himself. He was amazed his mouth still worked. Did it still work? Was this voice that he spoke his own body, or but an imagined expression of his loathing of this situation? All was hated, all was despised, all there was was the stench of rot and the ever-present deep disgust that stuck to his mouth and pulled at his entrails. His existence was a disease, a chronic condition that attached itself to his nervous system and leached off its precious resources. He lived because death was a favor he could never grant himself.

A brilliant glimmer of light, by dint of a small portion of the dust on the windows giving way and drifting slowly to the ground where it mingled with the thousands of particles already on the floor, found its way to his unseeing eyes. They fought the light, denied it with the very innermost of their being. The light is not there. There is no logic in going outside. There is nothing out there. The light is but a hapless, forlorn hope burned into his dying retinas.

And yet it could not be denied. Though his mind fought any ruminations, he could not resist believing that maybe, just maybe, there was an “outside” that could be gone to. No, such nonsense would not be tolerated. He scourged it from his brain, and shut his deceitful eyes. He would not tolerate such nonsense. He must s stay rational, stay motionless, stay indoors . . .

“Why . . . do I lie to myself?” he asked himself, still refusing to open his betraying orbs. His was a forceful resistance, a sort of dichotomy within his being; the one side wished for renewal. It wished for cleanliness, to put things in order, to wipe out the bugs. It wished to retake his life.

The other side, however, was stronger. It wanted the dust to settle, and then more dust to settle on top of that. It desired nothing but to wait for the end, to wait for that glorious day when there no more dust would fall, no more spiders would spin webs around him, no more days indoors with nothing but detestable surroundings to stare at. Just keep at it, this side of his inner debate would urge. Soon you will be but an asterisk in history, a footnote of no importance.

No one could hope to know just how long he had sat in the moldy chair staring at his disease-ridden walls, but today would not be the same. Today, an outside influence would at last find itself into his stasis, and quite decisively.

There was a crash, and though he believed his ears to be but another means of deception, he could not resist listening to it, or the sound of an object bouncing across his floor, tearing apart the cobwebs that it struck. It was a baseball, and someone had just shattered his window. There was no denying the light anymore. The rivulet of light was now an undeniable beam that shined into his face with a rejuvenating energy. Yes, this was the day, the day that he finally strode forward and expressed the reality of his existence!

He lifted his weary legs until he was at his feet. He could not even remember the last time that he stood. A few tentative steps, and he had found the baseball. He walked in a swaying stumble, the walk of one who did not recall how to even stand.

He walked down the stairs towards his door, and for the first time since days long lost in the streams of time, he opened the door, which fell from its battered hinges in lieu of opening. The crashing noise was heard by a small boy, the boy who had so recently interrupted his eternal entropy by breaking his window. He walked towards the terrifying old man with friendliness in his face, in spite of Teslon’s clothes, which had nearly rotted off of his skin, and hung from his body in tatters.

Teslon held up the baseball to the eager child, who took it with no reservations. “Thank you so much, Mister,” the boy said, his face awash in joy. “You know, for years people had thought that house was abandoned. Everybody told me nobody lived there.”

Teslon’s face fell as the years began to weigh upon his back. The many days spent denying existence were now tumbling upon him with devastating speed, and he felt his pulse slowing and his breath leaving him.

With great determination, Teslon spoke. “No one has ever lived here, kid, and no one ever will. Now, I have a great favor to ask of you.”

“What’s that?”

“Live, boy, live! This life you’ve been granted . . . is the grandest gift you will ever receive. To waste even a moment of it . . . is a travesty. Thank you . . . for all . . . you’ve . . . done . . .” As he ceased speaking, Teslon could feel himself falling forward. It was a peaceful drop, a fall into slumber, a slumber that he had never known before now. He had at last found the repose he was searching for. So, as the boy watched in wonder, the old man crumbled into dust under the weight of countless years, and found himself scattered into infinity by the ever-flowing wind.

Hey Mike. I loved the story. Always a great writer. I am sure you will get a better response here than you did at the other forum you posted Despair. These guys wont consider it advertising, lol.

What do you guys think?

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Mr. Bob's Web Design - Tirelessly looking for ways to enhance the customer base of your business.

Hi Mike?

Take a bow ... that was a really nice story!

... and welcome to GIDForums™.

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J de Silva
Learning Journal | GIDForums™ | GIDNetwork™ | GIDWebhosts™ | GIDSearch™

Thats pretty good.

I couldn't help but think of the old king in the Return of the Kings: Fellowship of the Three movie with your first paragraphs.

I like it, its powerful and compelling. I want to know how he became such a shell of a man. Too many 12 hour night shifts maybe.

Too many 12 hour night shifts maybe.
- Hahahahahahaha. Right on the money
He has been busy with that and school stuff. Im getting him a web site pretty soon to showcase his work, he just has to come up with the $8.88 for the domain name. Mike has already published one book. Unfortunately only a few sales were made on it. It is on Amazon.com under Manzerik (Something close to that spelling). Anywho, he has shared many stories with me, and I am far more than just impressed with them. I have only read ONE book in my entire life from cover to cover, and yet I read his entire stories. They are so good, I can't wait until he gets his name out, and I am sure neither can he.

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Mr. Bob's Web Design - Tirelessly looking for ways to enhance the customer base of your business.