Fujishima Ai

Loneliness… why do we feel lonely, the pangs of so-called “solitude”, the screams of this endless silence? Loneliness…

We are born individually, yet linked to so many by relationships. Loneliness is simply… a by-product, the side-effects from the addiction of relationships. We are not born into this world with social connections to others. We were born only with bloodlines, genetic history, biological information embedded within our bodies. So why must we form these useless links of relationships that amounts to nothing more than pain in the end?

I have witnessed first-hand the powerful effects, the withdrawal symptoms of this “wonderful” drug of friendship. I am Fujishima Ai, 16, and I know these things because… I do know. I have received an epiphany, a flood of revelations… ever since I began to understand…

I have been born with birth defects, a deliberating disease that wrests control over my limbs, a dictatorial illness that commands with pain and frailty. I am inferior to others, weaker, physically challenged, my youthful soul confined to a body of an old man. I can never be like them…… that is why I feel their snobbish gazes weigh down upon me, suffocating me, crushing me until not one drop of pride and confidence remains, unless… unless I prove myself. This source of strength, this motivation, this impetus is why I drive to succeed. I have to show them… no… give reason to why I am equal to them, to gain their recognition that I exist, to be accepted as their friend. Friends…

Gaining their friendship… so that’s it, isn’t it? That’s what I’ve sought after, the glimmering prize at the end of the race. But then I know eventually, that that golden cup of friendship is nothing but a fleeting dream, which serves nothing more than to stimulate my social appetite; the tangible finishing line is simply a mirage, ever so distant, ever so unreal.

In truth, the chasm between the beginning and the end had always been too far, that I will never make the jump, instead descend into the fathomless depths and disappear into the swallowing darkness after I leap. I had never, and will never grasp their true friendship.

Yet, those dreams had never once left my memories. They have… firmly taken root in the fertile soil of my mind, slowly injecting its venom as it gnaws away at my thoughts.

The lone pair of footsteps falling upon the wooden floorboards… How I abhor it… the loneliness that resonates with each falling foot, with no one at my side, none at all. They have all left me, dining at their own table, leaving me out of their joyous exchange of words. I have seen it… and I know… and I understand. An appearance, a guise… a mask that implies… that I am not wanted here. No one joins me for lunch; no one walks by my side. I am just… a mundane displacement of their lives, something never miscible with their standards, nowhere far soluble.

I… What? Are these… tears? I cannot cry… I cannot let these tears fall… If I do so… I will only… expose more of the hideous flaws in my design… the lack of perfection in this unpolished piece of character. I cannot show weakness… not in front of them. I cannot let their arrogance stamp out whatever scrap of self-worth that still remains defiant. My determination and self-control must prevail over this corrosive and destructive hopelessness… they must be the hands that will pull me out of this raging ocean…

Academic scores… Japanese, English, Natural Sciences, Mathematics, all ‘A’s. Music, excellent… Sometimes, I feel like laughing out loud when I recount my achievements. Academics… marks… letters and ticks that proliferate the papers that I write on… What do they amount to in the end? Absolutely nothing…

The hands that had come to pull my out of the choking water, has only succeeded in keeping my head submerged in the cold, bleak blue… No beginning, no end, no intermediate phase with in this eternal circle, ever turning, ever so uniform. I cannot escape it, no matter what I do… I will remain trapped with in this spiral of despair…

As I descend into the enveloping darkness, so vast and deep, where sunlight and salvation no longer reach, I reflect on life… the life that has shoveled nothing but shit into my face, using me like a toddler would on his first attempt on the toilet seat. The life… that is the torment I am living…

Yet, there are those who poison our ears with venomous blasphemies, uttering such heresy…  of wonderful life; of life being worthwhile… They do not know despair as I know it; they do not comprehend misery the same way as I behold it…

How narrow and confined are their mental horizons, how flawed are their logics… because they do not understand me… my loneliness…

There is no more reason left to live… is there? When loneliness is your only friend… when life is nothing more than hell itself, an impending prelude to whatever lies beneath us… I have spent sixteen years on this earth… and it has been an eternity…

Will someone miss me, will someone care that… I am gone… Does anyone… even love me at all? But I know no one does… no one ever did, and no one… ever will.

The metal gleams so coldly and harshly… under the pale light. A white scepter zooms past the blade; the wintry surface stings my skin. The coldness… an allusion to seclusion… my seclusion from everyone else…

I tread on the fine line between the omega and the alpha of time… alone…

I am alone now… in my room…

I am alone now… in my solitude…

I am alone now… in my existence…

And even at the end, I am alone… and always will be…

Goodbye…

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