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It is said that God does not give us more to carry than what we are able to take. No matter how heavy the burden may seem, it is no more than your strength will allow.
In the darkness you forget that anything outside it exists. You can spend so long left away from people that you forget that anyone can be different to yourself. That anyone can think something new, something interesting, something different to what you believe. That there exists people that believe in a higher being, in a higher life.
Daniel didn't want to believe in anything. He knew it'd lead to dangerous things. But how do you stop belief? You believe the apple is there in your hand as you hold it, you see it, you feel it. How much control do you really have, to stop yourself from believing in anything? There is no control. What you see, you see as real. You could say anything else is imaginary, but that is far from the truth. The apple itself is imagination, the imagination of your own belief. You trust the apple to be true to your memory. You trust your belief, without even thinking about it.
"I was told once by a ghost, someone who had long been dead, that there was once a man that lived with low self confidence and hated himself beyond the level of anyone who hated anybody. That he couldn't find good in himself, no matter what he did. It drove him insane, but at the same time, it kept him sane. For without that self confidence to drive his actions, the delusions that haunted him could not be bought to life. If he believed in nothing, then he wouldn't follow the crafted madness of his own mind."
A worthless being that kept away from all. In the darkness, away from knowledge, away from anyone who might have given him hope. Without hope he could survive. He could fight the belief.
The man looked up from sitting at the edge of the bed, completely naked, a cigarette in hand. Shaking. No matter how many times they would visit, he would never feel any less nervous.
When they visited, he knew that clothes would not protect him. No wall, no door, like light through windows they passed. His mind was open to them, open to be read, open to be torn and destroyed. Any hope he had, any love that he felt, it was ripped from him, leaving bloody scars behind.
Daniel drew from the cigarette, blowing smoke into the air and raising cold eyes in the dark room. "I am ready for you." He said, not noticing as hot ash dropped to his naked thigh.
The pain was like the hallucinations. Stabbing, burning, pinching, it would always change. It would keep him awake at night, it would wake him in the morning. Nothing would be there. You tried simply to ignore the pain. The feeling.
"I feel you."
Daniel dragged on the cigarette and closed his eyes. He knew when they would come. He could sense it. He could feel his mind turning, his emotions fading, as if they were sapped away by their very presence. Wake up Daniel.
He placed the hot end of the cigarette into his arm, burning a hole through his skin. He gritted his teeth and almost smirked as he felt the pain rush through his arm. Every single voice in his body crying out to stop, but ignoring it, letting only the sound of his mind carry the action.
"You cannot avoid the pain, Daniel." He said to himself
"I can block you out if I feel pain elsewhere." Daniel said.
"Have you considered that to be a false pretence?" He replied.
The voices were right.
Everything was belief.
He removed the cigarette from his arm and dropped it to the floorboards. He was being watched.
"I do not know why you torture me. What brings you here, to my room? To my life? Do I carry something that nobody else can? I carry myself, I do not possess the strength to carry you too. I do not find my limbs to be strong enough for you, but yet, still, you bother me! You force me to listen. You force me to care, why, because nobody else can? Do I hear these voices that scream to me as the lost souls unforgiven by God? Are you all lost in limbo, waiting for your release, thinking that perhaps I can help you? I have no belief, I have no God, I have no sense heaven be damned because all I live for is to hear these voices!"
Daniel looked up from the bed, from the smouldering ash of the cigarette from the floor, and stared straight at the white, glowing apparition that floated near the door. It's face black and lost, gracefully holding itself near the door.
"I cannot save you. You force me to tears. You force me to try anything to escape you. But still you come. You come to me, your ever changing face and glowing body. You expect me to know these things that no man can learn! I am no God. I barely carry my own weight. Is God using me? Am I his messenger for you, unhinged spirits that come to me? How do you find me?"
The ghost looked down on him, swirling darkness making up it's appearance, of light and glow.
"Tell me the words I know you wish to speak. Tell me! Bring forth the speech that you make each night, that you torture me with. Show me that again I cannot do anything, that you come to me, that you cut off every emotion in my body just so you feel you have tried your best. And how does it leave me? It leaves me empty. You leave me less of a man, less human, with every passing day. You scar me, you destroy me, you make me forget that I ever have been real, that I have been alive. That I used to feel things. That I used to care. Now, I feel nothing. Even though you force my tears to fall from my face I don't believe I can ever cry again. The emotion escapes me without rising me, without hurting me, holding me. You take that from myself and you have never repaid me. You hear! You have never repaid me!"
And in the darkness, in the room, the ghost spoke the only words he ever said.
"Help me."
Daniel brought his bare legs up to his face, curled up on the bed and tore at his hair. Grey patches grew where he had damaged himself, from the stress, from the belief.
The belief.
Like the rain in the sky, like the apple in your hand. You cannot stop belief. You cannot run from it, you cannot simply deny it exists. It is there, pure as you can imagine. As real as the cigarette that lay on the floor, as real as the bed that creaked beneath the weight of Daniel, as real as the ghost that watched him crawl into himself, his naked body shivering from the lack of strength.
"Help me."
The words drifted as if they would fly past Daniel's head, pass straight over him as if only an echo of what was said came to him, laughing almost as the words pierced his mind. No matter how softly they were said, no matter how calmly, they were always demanding. It was the relationship, not the strength. It was how it made you feel. It was how you looked at it. It was how you believed.
"Curse you, ghost. Curse your soul! I cannot help you!" Daniel shivered and brought his arms over his face. "I cannot see where you can go, I don't even know what you want, what you desire. What do you fear ghost? What do you need? How can I help you to leave me? To pass away, to pass through? Am I destined to end up as you?"
The words slowly dragged out, in a whisper.
"Help me."
"I refuse to." Daniel replied, calming. "I refuse to help you. Find God. Find peace. Find anyone but I. Choose yourself a new person to haunt, choose yourself a new saviour because I am not what you seek. I am but a man, someone who does not believe in these things. I do not believe in anything, not the water, nor the birds, nor the sun. They are but trivial to me, imagination, unreal and unkind. They will pass through me like you shall pass too, ghost. I will not believe in you for your own sake. I cannot. If I believe, then my world will crumble. I will become a victim of my own mind. If I believe I can stop the world, I would try. If I believe I could soar above the sky with the birds and the clouds, then I would leap from the tallest building to glide my way across the land because that would be what I believed. That I could stop cars. That I could.."
"Help me."
"Your soul is lost, ghost! You have found the wrong person! Be gone with you!"
Daniel got to his feet.
"Help me."
"CURSE YOU!" He screamed. "DO YOU NOT SEE THIS MAN HAS NO WAY OF SHOWING YOU ANY SORT OF GUIDANCE! I WILL RID OF YOU! FIND THE WORLD ON YOUR OWN! HELP YOURSELF! DO NOT ASK THIS OF ME! HELP YOURSELF! HELP YOURSELF!"
Daniel's voice echoed through the room.
Out through the door.
Into the hallway.
Across through the building.
"Help yourself." Daniel repeated.
He sat back down on the bed, almost collapsing.
The curtains to the room hadn't been moved in years. He looked to them, and for a moment, wondered what the world outside looked like.
He walked to them, and opened them. Light shone into the room and Daniel squinted his eyes. The sun was rising, coming up beyond the buildings in the distance.
Daniel let his eyes adjust, then watched the sky. It was turning a beautiful red, the colour in the sky fading away like the sun was the drain, the starry sky that must have been there before disappearing to nothing.
In the distance, a bell rang. A clock tower, ringing out the hour.
In the end, it was simply down to the relationship you had. Belief was impossible to escape. No matter how hard you tried, you could never avoid it.
"Even if you are not really there, ghost, I understand that I see you for a reason. Like my hands.." Daniel held out his hands and stared at them. "For sometimes I do not believe they belong to me. But they do. They are my own form, I have confidence that they do. I have faith."
Daniel turned around to face the ghost who gazed softly down on him, saying nothing.
"It is not faith that makes us. We must have faith but to consider the option that what we believe does not necessarily have to be true. I believe you exist. I know that, because I see you as clearly as I see the sun rise outside. But I must admit.." Daniel smiled. "I shouldn't allow it to affect me as easily as it does."
Daniel turned back to watch the sunrise.
"Will I succumb to temptation of my belief? Will I one day take to the top of a building to see if I can float down to the ground, or try, in a moment of spontaneity, to stop a car with my body? I know sometimes I believe these things. Perhaps it is better not to deny belief, but to place it as something that should be questioned, always, and never immediately acted upon."
Birds sang outside. The bells had stopped ringing.
"I know why you come now, ghost. I understand. I will help myself. I will help others. I will help you, by helping myself. You may still visit me. In my bitterness I forgot to see my own reflection in you. I thought you were everything I would become if I simply let myself go. If I lost control. But now I see you as a being, the same as me. It doesn't matter how we control ourselves. We are all of the same book."
Daniel closed the curtains once more and returned to his bed.
"Perhaps we are of the same page, too." Daniel said, before pulling the covers over his body.
--------
All mankind is of one author, and is one volume; when one man dies, one chapter is not torn out of the book, but translated into a better language; and every chapter must be so translated. As therefore the bell that rings to a sermon, calls not upon the preacher only, but upon the congregation to come: so this bell calls us all: but how much more me, who am brought so near the door by this sickness. ... No man is an island, entire of itself. ...any man's death diminishes me, because I am involved in mankind; and therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls; it tolls for thee. - John Donne
In the darkness you forget that anything outside it exists. You can spend so long left away from people that you forget that anyone can be different to yourself. That anyone can think something new, something interesting, something different to what you believe. That there exists people that believe in a higher being, in a higher life.
Daniel didn't want to believe in anything. He knew it'd lead to dangerous things. But how do you stop belief? You believe the apple is there in your hand as you hold it, you see it, you feel it. How much control do you really have, to stop yourself from believing in anything? There is no control. What you see, you see as real. You could say anything else is imaginary, but that is far from the truth. The apple itself is imagination, the imagination of your own belief. You trust the apple to be true to your memory. You trust your belief, without even thinking about it.
"I was told once by a ghost, someone who had long been dead, that there was once a man that lived with low self confidence and hated himself beyond the level of anyone who hated anybody. That he couldn't find good in himself, no matter what he did. It drove him insane, but at the same time, it kept him sane. For without that self confidence to drive his actions, the delusions that haunted him could not be bought to life. If he believed in nothing, then he wouldn't follow the crafted madness of his own mind."
A worthless being that kept away from all. In the darkness, away from knowledge, away from anyone who might have given him hope. Without hope he could survive. He could fight the belief.
The man looked up from sitting at the edge of the bed, completely naked, a cigarette in hand. Shaking. No matter how many times they would visit, he would never feel any less nervous.
When they visited, he knew that clothes would not protect him. No wall, no door, like light through windows they passed. His mind was open to them, open to be read, open to be torn and destroyed. Any hope he had, any love that he felt, it was ripped from him, leaving bloody scars behind.
Daniel drew from the cigarette, blowing smoke into the air and raising cold eyes in the dark room. "I am ready for you." He said, not noticing as hot ash dropped to his naked thigh.
The pain was like the hallucinations. Stabbing, burning, pinching, it would always change. It would keep him awake at night, it would wake him in the morning. Nothing would be there. You tried simply to ignore the pain. The feeling.
"I feel you."
Daniel dragged on the cigarette and closed his eyes. He knew when they would come. He could sense it. He could feel his mind turning, his emotions fading, as if they were sapped away by their very presence. Wake up Daniel.
He placed the hot end of the cigarette into his arm, burning a hole through his skin. He gritted his teeth and almost smirked as he felt the pain rush through his arm. Every single voice in his body crying out to stop, but ignoring it, letting only the sound of his mind carry the action.
"You cannot avoid the pain, Daniel." He said to himself
"I can block you out if I feel pain elsewhere." Daniel said.
"Have you considered that to be a false pretence?" He replied.
The voices were right.
Everything was belief.
He removed the cigarette from his arm and dropped it to the floorboards. He was being watched.
"I do not know why you torture me. What brings you here, to my room? To my life? Do I carry something that nobody else can? I carry myself, I do not possess the strength to carry you too. I do not find my limbs to be strong enough for you, but yet, still, you bother me! You force me to listen. You force me to care, why, because nobody else can? Do I hear these voices that scream to me as the lost souls unforgiven by God? Are you all lost in limbo, waiting for your release, thinking that perhaps I can help you? I have no belief, I have no God, I have no sense heaven be damned because all I live for is to hear these voices!"
Daniel looked up from the bed, from the smouldering ash of the cigarette from the floor, and stared straight at the white, glowing apparition that floated near the door. It's face black and lost, gracefully holding itself near the door.
"I cannot save you. You force me to tears. You force me to try anything to escape you. But still you come. You come to me, your ever changing face and glowing body. You expect me to know these things that no man can learn! I am no God. I barely carry my own weight. Is God using me? Am I his messenger for you, unhinged spirits that come to me? How do you find me?"
The ghost looked down on him, swirling darkness making up it's appearance, of light and glow.
"Tell me the words I know you wish to speak. Tell me! Bring forth the speech that you make each night, that you torture me with. Show me that again I cannot do anything, that you come to me, that you cut off every emotion in my body just so you feel you have tried your best. And how does it leave me? It leaves me empty. You leave me less of a man, less human, with every passing day. You scar me, you destroy me, you make me forget that I ever have been real, that I have been alive. That I used to feel things. That I used to care. Now, I feel nothing. Even though you force my tears to fall from my face I don't believe I can ever cry again. The emotion escapes me without rising me, without hurting me, holding me. You take that from myself and you have never repaid me. You hear! You have never repaid me!"
And in the darkness, in the room, the ghost spoke the only words he ever said.
"Help me."
Daniel brought his bare legs up to his face, curled up on the bed and tore at his hair. Grey patches grew where he had damaged himself, from the stress, from the belief.
The belief.
Like the rain in the sky, like the apple in your hand. You cannot stop belief. You cannot run from it, you cannot simply deny it exists. It is there, pure as you can imagine. As real as the cigarette that lay on the floor, as real as the bed that creaked beneath the weight of Daniel, as real as the ghost that watched him crawl into himself, his naked body shivering from the lack of strength.
"Help me."
The words drifted as if they would fly past Daniel's head, pass straight over him as if only an echo of what was said came to him, laughing almost as the words pierced his mind. No matter how softly they were said, no matter how calmly, they were always demanding. It was the relationship, not the strength. It was how it made you feel. It was how you looked at it. It was how you believed.
"Curse you, ghost. Curse your soul! I cannot help you!" Daniel shivered and brought his arms over his face. "I cannot see where you can go, I don't even know what you want, what you desire. What do you fear ghost? What do you need? How can I help you to leave me? To pass away, to pass through? Am I destined to end up as you?"
The words slowly dragged out, in a whisper.
"Help me."
"I refuse to." Daniel replied, calming. "I refuse to help you. Find God. Find peace. Find anyone but I. Choose yourself a new person to haunt, choose yourself a new saviour because I am not what you seek. I am but a man, someone who does not believe in these things. I do not believe in anything, not the water, nor the birds, nor the sun. They are but trivial to me, imagination, unreal and unkind. They will pass through me like you shall pass too, ghost. I will not believe in you for your own sake. I cannot. If I believe, then my world will crumble. I will become a victim of my own mind. If I believe I can stop the world, I would try. If I believe I could soar above the sky with the birds and the clouds, then I would leap from the tallest building to glide my way across the land because that would be what I believed. That I could stop cars. That I could.."
"Help me."
"Your soul is lost, ghost! You have found the wrong person! Be gone with you!"
Daniel got to his feet.
"Help me."
"CURSE YOU!" He screamed. "DO YOU NOT SEE THIS MAN HAS NO WAY OF SHOWING YOU ANY SORT OF GUIDANCE! I WILL RID OF YOU! FIND THE WORLD ON YOUR OWN! HELP YOURSELF! DO NOT ASK THIS OF ME! HELP YOURSELF! HELP YOURSELF!"
Daniel's voice echoed through the room.
Out through the door.
Into the hallway.
Across through the building.
"Help yourself." Daniel repeated.
He sat back down on the bed, almost collapsing.
The curtains to the room hadn't been moved in years. He looked to them, and for a moment, wondered what the world outside looked like.
He walked to them, and opened them. Light shone into the room and Daniel squinted his eyes. The sun was rising, coming up beyond the buildings in the distance.
Daniel let his eyes adjust, then watched the sky. It was turning a beautiful red, the colour in the sky fading away like the sun was the drain, the starry sky that must have been there before disappearing to nothing.
In the distance, a bell rang. A clock tower, ringing out the hour.
In the end, it was simply down to the relationship you had. Belief was impossible to escape. No matter how hard you tried, you could never avoid it.
"Even if you are not really there, ghost, I understand that I see you for a reason. Like my hands.." Daniel held out his hands and stared at them. "For sometimes I do not believe they belong to me. But they do. They are my own form, I have confidence that they do. I have faith."
Daniel turned around to face the ghost who gazed softly down on him, saying nothing.
"It is not faith that makes us. We must have faith but to consider the option that what we believe does not necessarily have to be true. I believe you exist. I know that, because I see you as clearly as I see the sun rise outside. But I must admit.." Daniel smiled. "I shouldn't allow it to affect me as easily as it does."
Daniel turned back to watch the sunrise.
"Will I succumb to temptation of my belief? Will I one day take to the top of a building to see if I can float down to the ground, or try, in a moment of spontaneity, to stop a car with my body? I know sometimes I believe these things. Perhaps it is better not to deny belief, but to place it as something that should be questioned, always, and never immediately acted upon."
Birds sang outside. The bells had stopped ringing.
"I know why you come now, ghost. I understand. I will help myself. I will help others. I will help you, by helping myself. You may still visit me. In my bitterness I forgot to see my own reflection in you. I thought you were everything I would become if I simply let myself go. If I lost control. But now I see you as a being, the same as me. It doesn't matter how we control ourselves. We are all of the same book."
Daniel closed the curtains once more and returned to his bed.
"Perhaps we are of the same page, too." Daniel said, before pulling the covers over his body.
--------
All mankind is of one author, and is one volume; when one man dies, one chapter is not torn out of the book, but translated into a better language; and every chapter must be so translated. As therefore the bell that rings to a sermon, calls not upon the preacher only, but upon the congregation to come: so this bell calls us all: but how much more me, who am brought so near the door by this sickness. ... No man is an island, entire of itself. ...any man's death diminishes me, because I am involved in mankind; and therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls; it tolls for thee. - John Donne
Ah, I was hoping someone would write something on the "no man is an island" take.
Interesting stuff, it seems almost poetic how the structure and language mimics the content, with the paragraphs and sentences becoming shorter and sharper as the character finds clarity and resolution.
Interesting stuff, it seems almost poetic how the structure and language mimics the content, with the paragraphs and sentences becoming shorter and sharper as the character finds clarity and resolution.
Very nice. Enjoyed it muchly. Good use of the theme.
I really liked that. It kind of reminded me of the Raven, with Daniel yelling at the ghost and it not replying. Nice use of the topic too.
Interesting take on belief/reality. I'm guessing the piece below it, by Donne from Devotions Upon Emergent Occasions, inspired the story.
It is said that God does not give us more to carry than what we are able to take. No matter how heavy the burden may seem, it is no more than your strength will allow.
In the darkness you forget that anything outside it exists. You can spend so long left away from people that you forget that anyone can be different to yourself. That anyone can think something new, something interesting, something different to what you believe. That there exists people that believe in a higher being, in a higher life.
Daniel didn't want to believe in anything. He knew it'd lead to dangerous things. But how do you stop belief? You believe the apple is there in your hand as you hold it, you see it, you feel it. How much control do you really have, to stop yourself from believing in anything? There is no control. What you see, you see as real. You could say anything else is imaginary, but that is far from the truth. The apple itself is imagination, the imagination of your own belief. You trust the apple to be true to your memory. You trust your belief, without even thinking about it.
"I was told once by a ghost, someone who had long been dead, that there was once a man that lived with low self confidence and hated himself beyond the level of anyone who hated anybody. That he couldn't find good in himself, no matter what he did. It drove him insane, but at the same time, it kept him sane. For without that self confidence to drive his actions, the delusions that haunted him could not be bought to life. If he believed in nothing, then he wouldn't follow the crafted madness of his own mind."
A worthless being that kept away from all. In the darkness, away from knowledge, away from anyone who might have given him hope. Without hope he could survive. He could fight the belief.
The man looked up from sitting at the edge of the bed, completely naked, a cigarette in hand. Shaking. No matter how many times they would visit, he would never feel any less nervous.
When they visited, he knew that clothes would not protect him. No wall, no door, like light through windows they passed. His mind was open to them, open to be read, open to be torn and destroyed. Any hope he had, any love that he felt, it was ripped from him, leaving bloody scars behind.
Daniel drew from the cigarette, blowing smoke into the air and raising cold eyes in the dark room. "I am ready for you." He said, not noticing as hot ash dropped to his naked thigh.
The pain was like the hallucinations. Stabbing, burning, pinching, it would always change. It would keep him awake at night, it would wake him in the morning. Nothing would be there. You tried simply to ignore the pain. The feeling.
"I feel you."
Daniel dragged on the cigarette and closed his eyes. He knew when they would come. He could sense it. He could feel his mind turning, his emotions fading, as if they were sapped away by their very presence. Wake up Daniel.
He placed the hot end of the cigarette into his arm, burning a hole through his skin. He gritted his teeth and almost smirked as he felt the pain rush through his arm. Every single voice in his body crying out to stop, but ignoring it, letting only the sound of his mind carry the action.
"You cannot avoid the pain, Daniel." He said to himself
"I can block you out if I feel pain elsewhere." Daniel said.
"Have you considered that to be a false pretence?" He replied.
The voices were right.
Everything was belief.
He removed the cigarette from his arm and dropped it to the floorboards. He was being watched.
"I do not know why you torture me. What brings you here, to my room? To my life? Do I carry something that nobody else can? I carry myself, I do not possess the strength to carry you too. I do not find my limbs to be strong enough for you, but yet, still, you bother me! You force me to listen. You force me to care, why, because nobody else can? Do I hear these voices that scream to me as the lost souls unforgiven by God? Are you all lost in limbo, waiting for your release, thinking that perhaps I can help you? I have no belief, I have no God, I have no sense heaven be damned because all I live for is to hear these voices!"
Daniel looked up from the bed, from the smouldering ash of the cigarette from the floor, and stared straight at the white, glowing apparition that floated near the door. It's face black and lost, gracefully holding itself near the door.
"I cannot save you. You force me to tears. You force me to try anything to escape you. But still you come. You come to me, your ever changing face and glowing body. You expect me to know these things that no man can learn! I am no God. I barely carry my own weight. Is God using me? Am I his messenger for you, unhinged spirits that come to me? How do you find me?"
The ghost looked down on him, swirling darkness making up it's appearance, of light and glow.
"Tell me the words I know you wish to speak. Tell me! Bring forth the speech that you make each night, that you torture me with. Show me that again I cannot do anything, that you come to me, that you cut off every emotion in my body just so you feel you have tried your best. And how does it leave me? It leaves me empty. You leave me less of a man, less human, with every passing day. You scar me, you destroy me, you make me forget that I ever have been real, that I have been alive. That I used to feel things. That I used to care. Now, I feel nothing. Even though you force my tears to fall from my face I don't believe I can ever cry again. The emotion escapes me without rising me, without hurting me, holding me. You take that from myself and you have never repaid me. You hear! You have never repaid me!"
And in the darkness, in the room, the ghost spoke the only words he ever said.
"Help me."
Daniel brought his bare legs up to his face, curled up on the bed and tore at his hair. Grey patches grew where he had damaged himself, from the stress, from the belief.
The belief.
Like the rain in the sky, like the apple in your hand. You cannot stop belief. You cannot run from it, you cannot simply deny it exists. It is there, pure as you can imagine. As real as the cigarette that lay on the floor, as real as the bed that creaked beneath the weight of Daniel, as real as the ghost that watched him crawl into himself, his naked body shivering from the lack of strength.
"Help me."
The words drifted as if they would fly past Daniel's head, pass straight over him as if only an echo of what was said came to him, laughing almost as the words pierced his mind. No matter how softly they were said, no matter how calmly, they were always demanding. It was the relationship, not the strength. It was how it made you feel. It was how you looked at it. It was how you believed.
"Curse you, ghost. Curse your soul! I cannot help you!" Daniel shivered and brought his arms over his face. "I cannot see where you can go, I don't even know what you want, what you desire. What do you fear ghost? What do you need? How can I help you to leave me? To pass away, to pass through? Am I destined to end up as you?"
The words slowly dragged out, in a whisper.
"Help me."
"I refuse to." Daniel replied, calming. "I refuse to help you. Find God. Find peace. Find anyone but I. Choose yourself a new person to haunt, choose yourself a new saviour because I am not what you seek. I am but a man, someone who does not believe in these things. I do not believe in anything, not the water, nor the birds, nor the sun. They are but trivial to me, imagination, unreal and unkind. They will pass through me like you shall pass too, ghost. I will not believe in you for your own sake. I cannot. If I believe, then my world will crumble. I will become a victim of my own mind. If I believe I can stop the world, I would try. If I believe I could soar above the sky with the birds and the clouds, then I would leap from the tallest building to glide my way across the land because that would be what I believed. That I could stop cars. That I could.."
"Help me."
"Your soul is lost, ghost! You have found the wrong person! Be gone with you!"
Daniel got to his feet.
"Help me."
"CURSE YOU!" He screamed. "DO YOU NOT SEE THIS MAN HAS NO WAY OF SHOWING YOU ANY SORT OF GUIDANCE! I WILL RID OF YOU! FIND THE WORLD ON YOUR OWN! HELP YOURSELF! DO NOT ASK THIS OF ME! HELP YOURSELF! HELP YOURSELF!"
Daniel's voice echoed through the room.
Out through the door.
Into the hallway.
Across through the building.
"Help yourself." Daniel repeated.
He sat back down on the bed, almost collapsing.
The curtains to the room hadn't been moved in years. He looked to them, and for a moment, wondered what the world outside looked like.
He walked to them, and opened them. Light shone into the room and Daniel squinted his eyes. The sun was rising, coming up beyond the buildings in the distance.
Daniel let his eyes adjust, then watched the sky. It was turning a beautiful red, the colour in the sky fading away like the sun was the drain, the starry sky that must have been there before disappearing to nothing.
In the distance, a bell rang. A clock tower, ringing out the hour.
In the end, it was simply down to the relationship you had. Belief was impossible to escape. No matter how hard you tried, you could never avoid it.
"Even if you are not really there, ghost, I understand that I see you for a reason. Like my hands.." Daniel held out his hands and stared at them. "For sometimes I do not believe they belong to me. But they do. They are my own form, I have confidence that they do. I have faith."
Daniel turned around to face the ghost who gazed softly down on him, saying nothing.
"It is not faith that makes us. We must have faith but to consider the option that what we believe does not necessarily have to be true. I believe you exist. I know that, because I see you as clearly as I see the sun rise outside. But I must admit.." Daniel smiled. "I shouldn't allow it to affect me as easily as it does."
Daniel turned back to watch the sunrise.
"Will I succumb to temptation of my belief? Will I one day take to the top of a building to see if I can float down to the ground, or try, in a moment of spontaneity, to stop a car with my body? I know sometimes I believe these things. Perhaps it is better not to deny belief, but to place it as something that should be questioned, always, and never immediately acted upon."
Birds sang outside. The bells had stopped ringing.
"I know why you come now, ghost. I understand. I will help myself. I will help others. I will help you, by helping myself. You may still visit me. In my bitterness I forgot to see my own reflection in you. I thought you were everything I would become if I simply let myself go. If I lost control. But now I see you as a being, the same as me. It doesn't matter how we control ourselves. We are all of the same book."
Daniel closed the curtains once more and returned to his bed.
"Perhaps we are of the same page, too." Daniel said, before pulling the covers over his body.
--------
All mankind is of one author, and is one volume; when one man dies, one chapter is not torn out of the book, but translated into a better language; and every chapter must be so translated. As therefore the bell that rings to a sermon, calls not upon the preacher only, but upon the congregation to come: so this bell calls us all: but how much more me, who am brought so near the door by this sickness. ... No man is an island, entire of itself. ...any man's death diminishes me, because I am involved in mankind; and therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls; it tolls for thee. - John Donne
In the darkness you forget that anything outside it exists. You can spend so long left away from people that you forget that anyone can be different to yourself. That anyone can think something new, something interesting, something different to what you believe. That there exists people that believe in a higher being, in a higher life.
Daniel didn't want to believe in anything. He knew it'd lead to dangerous things. But how do you stop belief? You believe the apple is there in your hand as you hold it, you see it, you feel it. How much control do you really have, to stop yourself from believing in anything? There is no control. What you see, you see as real. You could say anything else is imaginary, but that is far from the truth. The apple itself is imagination, the imagination of your own belief. You trust the apple to be true to your memory. You trust your belief, without even thinking about it.
"I was told once by a ghost, someone who had long been dead, that there was once a man that lived with low self confidence and hated himself beyond the level of anyone who hated anybody. That he couldn't find good in himself, no matter what he did. It drove him insane, but at the same time, it kept him sane. For without that self confidence to drive his actions, the delusions that haunted him could not be bought to life. If he believed in nothing, then he wouldn't follow the crafted madness of his own mind."
A worthless being that kept away from all. In the darkness, away from knowledge, away from anyone who might have given him hope. Without hope he could survive. He could fight the belief.
The man looked up from sitting at the edge of the bed, completely naked, a cigarette in hand. Shaking. No matter how many times they would visit, he would never feel any less nervous.
When they visited, he knew that clothes would not protect him. No wall, no door, like light through windows they passed. His mind was open to them, open to be read, open to be torn and destroyed. Any hope he had, any love that he felt, it was ripped from him, leaving bloody scars behind.
Daniel drew from the cigarette, blowing smoke into the air and raising cold eyes in the dark room. "I am ready for you." He said, not noticing as hot ash dropped to his naked thigh.
The pain was like the hallucinations. Stabbing, burning, pinching, it would always change. It would keep him awake at night, it would wake him in the morning. Nothing would be there. You tried simply to ignore the pain. The feeling.
"I feel you."
Daniel dragged on the cigarette and closed his eyes. He knew when they would come. He could sense it. He could feel his mind turning, his emotions fading, as if they were sapped away by their very presence. Wake up Daniel.
He placed the hot end of the cigarette into his arm, burning a hole through his skin. He gritted his teeth and almost smirked as he felt the pain rush through his arm. Every single voice in his body crying out to stop, but ignoring it, letting only the sound of his mind carry the action.
"You cannot avoid the pain, Daniel." He said to himself
"I can block you out if I feel pain elsewhere." Daniel said.
"Have you considered that to be a false pretence?" He replied.
The voices were right.
Everything was belief.
He removed the cigarette from his arm and dropped it to the floorboards. He was being watched.
"I do not know why you torture me. What brings you here, to my room? To my life? Do I carry something that nobody else can? I carry myself, I do not possess the strength to carry you too. I do not find my limbs to be strong enough for you, but yet, still, you bother me! You force me to listen. You force me to care, why, because nobody else can? Do I hear these voices that scream to me as the lost souls unforgiven by God? Are you all lost in limbo, waiting for your release, thinking that perhaps I can help you? I have no belief, I have no God, I have no sense heaven be damned because all I live for is to hear these voices!"
Daniel looked up from the bed, from the smouldering ash of the cigarette from the floor, and stared straight at the white, glowing apparition that floated near the door. It's face black and lost, gracefully holding itself near the door.
"I cannot save you. You force me to tears. You force me to try anything to escape you. But still you come. You come to me, your ever changing face and glowing body. You expect me to know these things that no man can learn! I am no God. I barely carry my own weight. Is God using me? Am I his messenger for you, unhinged spirits that come to me? How do you find me?"
The ghost looked down on him, swirling darkness making up it's appearance, of light and glow.
"Tell me the words I know you wish to speak. Tell me! Bring forth the speech that you make each night, that you torture me with. Show me that again I cannot do anything, that you come to me, that you cut off every emotion in my body just so you feel you have tried your best. And how does it leave me? It leaves me empty. You leave me less of a man, less human, with every passing day. You scar me, you destroy me, you make me forget that I ever have been real, that I have been alive. That I used to feel things. That I used to care. Now, I feel nothing. Even though you force my tears to fall from my face I don't believe I can ever cry again. The emotion escapes me without rising me, without hurting me, holding me. You take that from myself and you have never repaid me. You hear! You have never repaid me!"
And in the darkness, in the room, the ghost spoke the only words he ever said.
"Help me."
Daniel brought his bare legs up to his face, curled up on the bed and tore at his hair. Grey patches grew where he had damaged himself, from the stress, from the belief.
The belief.
Like the rain in the sky, like the apple in your hand. You cannot stop belief. You cannot run from it, you cannot simply deny it exists. It is there, pure as you can imagine. As real as the cigarette that lay on the floor, as real as the bed that creaked beneath the weight of Daniel, as real as the ghost that watched him crawl into himself, his naked body shivering from the lack of strength.
"Help me."
The words drifted as if they would fly past Daniel's head, pass straight over him as if only an echo of what was said came to him, laughing almost as the words pierced his mind. No matter how softly they were said, no matter how calmly, they were always demanding. It was the relationship, not the strength. It was how it made you feel. It was how you looked at it. It was how you believed.
"Curse you, ghost. Curse your soul! I cannot help you!" Daniel shivered and brought his arms over his face. "I cannot see where you can go, I don't even know what you want, what you desire. What do you fear ghost? What do you need? How can I help you to leave me? To pass away, to pass through? Am I destined to end up as you?"
The words slowly dragged out, in a whisper.
"Help me."
"I refuse to." Daniel replied, calming. "I refuse to help you. Find God. Find peace. Find anyone but I. Choose yourself a new person to haunt, choose yourself a new saviour because I am not what you seek. I am but a man, someone who does not believe in these things. I do not believe in anything, not the water, nor the birds, nor the sun. They are but trivial to me, imagination, unreal and unkind. They will pass through me like you shall pass too, ghost. I will not believe in you for your own sake. I cannot. If I believe, then my world will crumble. I will become a victim of my own mind. If I believe I can stop the world, I would try. If I believe I could soar above the sky with the birds and the clouds, then I would leap from the tallest building to glide my way across the land because that would be what I believed. That I could stop cars. That I could.."
"Help me."
"Your soul is lost, ghost! You have found the wrong person! Be gone with you!"
Daniel got to his feet.
"Help me."
"CURSE YOU!" He screamed. "DO YOU NOT SEE THIS MAN HAS NO WAY OF SHOWING YOU ANY SORT OF GUIDANCE! I WILL RID OF YOU! FIND THE WORLD ON YOUR OWN! HELP YOURSELF! DO NOT ASK THIS OF ME! HELP YOURSELF! HELP YOURSELF!"
Daniel's voice echoed through the room.
Out through the door.
Into the hallway.
Across through the building.
"Help yourself." Daniel repeated.
He sat back down on the bed, almost collapsing.
The curtains to the room hadn't been moved in years. He looked to them, and for a moment, wondered what the world outside looked like.
He walked to them, and opened them. Light shone into the room and Daniel squinted his eyes. The sun was rising, coming up beyond the buildings in the distance.
Daniel let his eyes adjust, then watched the sky. It was turning a beautiful red, the colour in the sky fading away like the sun was the drain, the starry sky that must have been there before disappearing to nothing.
In the distance, a bell rang. A clock tower, ringing out the hour.
In the end, it was simply down to the relationship you had. Belief was impossible to escape. No matter how hard you tried, you could never avoid it.
"Even if you are not really there, ghost, I understand that I see you for a reason. Like my hands.." Daniel held out his hands and stared at them. "For sometimes I do not believe they belong to me. But they do. They are my own form, I have confidence that they do. I have faith."
Daniel turned around to face the ghost who gazed softly down on him, saying nothing.
"It is not faith that makes us. We must have faith but to consider the option that what we believe does not necessarily have to be true. I believe you exist. I know that, because I see you as clearly as I see the sun rise outside. But I must admit.." Daniel smiled. "I shouldn't allow it to affect me as easily as it does."
Daniel turned back to watch the sunrise.
"Will I succumb to temptation of my belief? Will I one day take to the top of a building to see if I can float down to the ground, or try, in a moment of spontaneity, to stop a car with my body? I know sometimes I believe these things. Perhaps it is better not to deny belief, but to place it as something that should be questioned, always, and never immediately acted upon."
Birds sang outside. The bells had stopped ringing.
"I know why you come now, ghost. I understand. I will help myself. I will help others. I will help you, by helping myself. You may still visit me. In my bitterness I forgot to see my own reflection in you. I thought you were everything I would become if I simply let myself go. If I lost control. But now I see you as a being, the same as me. It doesn't matter how we control ourselves. We are all of the same book."
Daniel closed the curtains once more and returned to his bed.
"Perhaps we are of the same page, too." Daniel said, before pulling the covers over his body.
--------
All mankind is of one author, and is one volume; when one man dies, one chapter is not torn out of the book, but translated into a better language; and every chapter must be so translated. As therefore the bell that rings to a sermon, calls not upon the preacher only, but upon the congregation to come: so this bell calls us all: but how much more me, who am brought so near the door by this sickness. ... No man is an island, entire of itself. ...any man's death diminishes me, because I am involved in mankind; and therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls; it tolls for thee. - John Donne