When you think you're out of time, you're right.
I never saw time as an existing phenomenon. We can all remember the passage of it, but we cannot see the past or the future. We can remember, we can predict, but to feel, to be present in the past moment, which may easily be an oxymoron, is beyond our scope. What we call time is just a quirk of our perception of the universe.
It is relative for everyone. Happier moments seem to fly by, while the worst memories haunt you for days, weeks, years, even decades. But what matters is... They're just memories. Burning memories, eroded and erased, forgotten but not forgone. We all have our set. Everything that has ever existed is imprinted in the memory of someone or something. And there is one place imprinted in my memory that doesn't exist. An image.
A simple apartment. Worn out, slightly dilapidated, yet so... right. A corridor connecting the entrance straight to the kitchen and the living room on the right. To the left, some space for the clothes rack and the entrance to the bathroom. The living room also connects to the sleeping room, which marks the end of it.
It is old. Rather crudely done from the start, it shows its age even more now. Humidity and dampness did their thing and withered the wallpaper. The window frames, still the wooden ones from the ages bygone, displaying more and more little cracks in the paint.
Everything is covered in dust. Not too thick; I try to visit the place every now and then and do my best to brush it up. But it does not help. The dust would be there each time I return, no matter how much effort I would spend cleaning. It always returns to the same state I first visited it in. It never changes.
Every time, I sit on the couch and look out of the window. There is nothing. It is always late outside, no matter what the clock shows when I enter this place, but no street lights are in working order, and there are no lights coming from other windows. The outside world cannot be seen from the living room; I suppose the only possibility for that would be going outside.
I fear going outside. I looked more closely out of the window once; it was hazy, unusual. Unlike the apartment, it felt wrong, like a world massacred and abandoned, distorted, barely recognisable.
On another one of my visits, I opened a window. Slightly, just by an inch. Immediately, I heard sounds of street life, all the while the picture seen through the windows and even the crack of the opened one remained the same. I closed the window shortly after. I would rather not experiment with it right then.
This place is stuck in time, perhaps representing the true nature of it in a form that a human would be able to understand. It is withering but it stays the same no matter how much time has passed. No change is permanent. Life outside exists... and it does not. Whether the outside itself exists is questionable.
All that is left to do is think. I feel like I belong there, I know some of my memories are closely connected to it. Mostly happy. Some of them may or may not haunt me to this day. What I feel is, it is my home. A place where I am loved. Somewhere I'm met with joy and happiness.
An image is imprinted in my memory. An image of my home, where I would receive a warm welcome and spend some good time; not enough thereof. I have missed my chance, and all I can observe is an empty shell, devoid of any living presence but my own.
If I could say sorry, I would. For not keeping it tidy and clean. For giving it up to pursue something that never intended to go away. The key part of the image, a figure that gave it the life it is missing, is lost. I know that if I were to go outside, I'd be met with the same world that I see before entering this strange place, just...
Dead.
The apartment exists to this day. But that place is no longer there. It has forever withered into an image that will burn for ages before finally dissolving into a hazy mess. It will pass to the world of forgotten memories...
Just for someone else to see it out of their window and watch the only remaining light go out.
ns 15.158.61.17da2
