Timeless (This is a fictional story I just wrote in 30 minutes or less)

My name is Alex and I feel I need to write this down, even if it won't happen. I thought it would be fun. But I've lost all concept of joy. I am gripped with an unending fear. My time between, if you could call it that, is my only respite. I haven't slept in days, I think. I lost all concept of time as soon as I began. All I know is what I am right now. And right now I am tired, and terrified.

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If I sleep, will I wake? If I don't sleep, will I see it? Will I even know? I can see what I've written here, so I know I've done this. I remember this. Maybe that's all there is. Maybe that's the only truth. Maybe I don't need to know if this is the ten thousandth or first time. Maybe if I'm suddenly no longer writing this, that won't matter either. But that's where the terror comes from. I want it to matter. I want to have a solid course. A beginning, a middle, and an end.

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Have I lived an infinite number of lives? Have they? I watch them come and go, and it all stays the same for me, at least I think it does. That of course is until I go myself, and then I've made everything different.

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People always looked at it from a singular perspective, their own. As if the whole world happily went on hold for them, and returned for them when they came back. Who comes here anyway? Why here? Why now? What do they know that I don't?

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Communication has ceased. There is no news. There are reporters. There is some measure of stability I suppose, not everyone could afford to go. But I don't care anymore. The news can't be right, how could they be? And even if they are right, for how long? Only now. Only now. Only now. That's all that matters.

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We can move as fast and far as we want, but only our perception of now makes us whole. And no matter how much we move, we will still die. You can't run from old age. Well, at least I assume so. Might have to wait to find that one out.

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I used to find it amusing when people would come here from before. To see the look on their faces, when they saw the unimagined overwhelm them. I suppose it's a good place to blow your mind. Downtown. It's why I used to come here, when coming mattered. I think other people find comfort here too. I would like to say the crime has ceased since people were able to leave. But I know that can't be true. If not here, then everywhere else. Anarchy. People can't even help themselves. They lose what I've lost, and they struggle to hold on to what they valued before. But what they valued is gone. Now they can only fixate on satisfying what they wanted before. Wants and values, normally they could co-exist. I can no longer have anything I valued. Maybe love. I can't imagine it's any harder now finding a girl than it was before. And I do see people together. They come and go together. Somehow I find it ironic, or at least a little self defeating. Maybe only on a grand scale. If you have what you wanted, what does it matter where you are? If you are with who you want to be, wouldn't staying put, or at least following a goal make sense? This meandering I'm doing is only an ebb in the raging river that has consumed everything we humans thought to be real.

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Well I suppose no matter what I do, I'm doing it. I know I wrote what I've just written, but maybe I just started to know this. Maybe I have changed in the meantime. What if I go now? What if I can keep this with me? If it stays with me, I'll know I have some stability in this universe. If I can just keep this in my pocket. If I lose it, I might not ever know, or maybe I'll lose it a thousand times and get it right back a thousand more. Or maybe it will say something different each time. I guess it really doesn't matter. What's in my head is on this paper, and either is just as easily replaced. Wonderful. But I think I've only written this to know what I do. I may have no more middle, but I think I do, and I am tired. Maybe I'll wake up tired, maybe I won't wake up, but I have to at least try. I must continue to act. I must survive. Well. Maybe I'll die a thousand times in my sleep. But if I wake up, or at least I think I wake up, and I feel better, then I can continue. Continue this timeless existence.