UNAWARENESSLESS

How long has it been?
That's the worst part about being here.
You can't remember how long it has been.
I am here again.
Did I tell you that, already?
Time doesn't slide along the way it's supposed to here, but flows and ebbs from every crevice and seeps through your mind as if your skull was hollow. The sand caresses your toes, the clouds hang over your heavy unheart, Father Time laughs at you from the sky. Your thoughts fly away and when you look, when you stare with all your might, you see nothing. Simple nothing.
Wait, not you, me. You aren't here. I can't see you, or taste you, or smell you, though I know you are out there. When someone is near me the clocks start to melt, and their smiles turn evil. I feel tremors, earthquakes and ripples in the sand. I scream out in fear, but only birds fly out of my mouth. I am/was/will write this in the sand...will you hear me? Will you find me? Will you save me?
I didn't mean to! Please, oh please, let me cry a real tear, you cold, dark cloudy sky. Just to feel the wetness flow down my cheek might help, it might remind me of what once was. Or is. Or will be. Memories fade into dreams here, and it is hard to know if what I believe is now, or was, or might possibly never happen. I just want/ed happiness.
I remember a time. A time where I was stable: the sand was dirt, the clocks flowed forward, and actual sounds came from my lips. I could see you, you weren't hidden behind a haze of shadows, I could reach out and touch you, laugh with you, and my favorite, cry with you.
But, here, now, whatever it is called, the place in between, where my thoughts don't flow but ride and bump along the agitated sea of sand, I cannot feel a thing. Only longing. Longing for substance, for a reality I believed in; not this unawareness...less.
I'm so sorry! Who am I apologizing to? Someone. Someone important, that I have forgotten or refuse to remember, yet. I'm never sure.
Did I tell you that I am here again? I didn't mean to. She was so pretty. I could feel her warm breath on my cheek. Her beautiful face was so close to mine. I could smell her perfume, the fragrance caressing my cheeks, causing my skin to tingle. I didn't know this would happen. My heart, my heart.
Where did I go wrong? She was wrong, somehow. I can't think why. I wasn't supposed to love her. I wasn't ready. Or she wasn't ready. Or, or...The memory/dream fades. I know it was her fault. No, no, it was MY fault. I shouldn't have loved her.
But, why? That question taunts me from Father Time. Is Father Time me, or someone else? His voice sounds evil, angry, spiteful. Will you stop questioning me!! I don't have the answers! Why am I not supposed to love? I don't know.
I see her face clearly. Oh my god...I am gasping for air. She is too wonderful, too sweet, too lovely. I reach out and grasp her hand; its warmth filling my body with song. I smile and she smiles too. It is the same! She cares for me too! I step forward and hug her tight.
And then. And then.
She is gone.
My heart stops beating. It just stops. I wait to hear the beat, but nothing happens. My heart has to beat, yet here, in this place or time or angle or plane or dimension...my heart refuses to beat.
Soon, or later, or yesterday or tomorrow, I see her again. My angel, my love. Why was I taken from her? Why was I sent here, when I had love in my arms, her beautiful lips pressed against mine? Why must I be near these clocks who laugh and point and deride me. I pick up sand and throw them at the clocks...they turn into birds and fly around my head, silently.
I collapse into the sand, my hands trying to draw comfort from the falling between my fingers. Trying to make the clocks move with the passing of the sand. Still, silence and heat and nothing else. I draw a picture of a heart in the sand. Suddenly, her face is there. Smiling up at me. She is so real! Please, come back to me! Rescue me from this timelessness, this fading into nothing! She only smiles. She cannot understand the birds I am sending her.
Suddenly, her face changes. Her smile turns into fear. What? What is it, my love? I will help you! She looks up. The clocks have multiplied, there are too many to count, too many to comprehend. They are targeting my love. I stand up and scream, “You can't have her! Stay back!” I look down at the fear in her eyes. “Don't worry, my love, I will protect you!” But, all that comes out are more birds. The birds attack the clocks, but the clocks multiply exponentially each time a bird destroys one. I scream louder and longer, thousands of birds emerging. Soon, I cannot see, only feathers and glass and the eerie, unearthly silence.
I awaken, covered with sand. Do I sleep here? I think not. Only moments on top of moments that seem to go nowhere. Today, yesterday, or tomorrow I realize with a shudder.
She is gone. She is not here. Or she won't be here. Or she will be here, but I missed her.
No, I am speaking incorrectly. I am not here, but wherever I exist, she isn't.
I think in your world, where time moves forward, you call it by this word: Death.
Sorry about the misspellings in the sand, I don't think you can understand bird.
The hardest part, the part that hurts the most, is the fact that I can't feel my heart beat. I cannot shed a tear. In the world I come from, the place before HERE, I used to be able to hurt, I used to be able to cry, I used to be able to...heal.
I think someone is coming for me. I think now, yesterday, or tomorrow, there is someone coming/going/leaving to save me. I think they are HERE now, no, no not HERE but somewhere, some-when. I hope so. The clocks keep asking me why I am still alive. I don't know.
I lay back down, stop writing in the sand, let the grains flow over my body until only my head and arm are exposed. My thoughts turn into birds, and the clocks grow weary of me and so freeze over. I can no longer entertain thoughts of my dead wife, for the lack of grief is killing me.
Someone is/was/will come for me.
I'm sure of it.
At least, I hope so.