Location Withheld “The Static Void”
“It sounds like water. Shifting water. Muted like when I used to sink into the water of my bath, listening to the muffled sound of the surface, the strange thump of my feet upon the porcelain as I resisted the urge to come up for air.
It was a private game I had as a kid, one where I would try to see how long it would take before I couldn't hold my breath any longer. When you play a game like that, strange things creep into the edges of your mind as your body begins to shake and the water feels more and more like a grave.
Things that once seem to be hidden in the periphery of your vision begin to become something you can see, looking down at you.
A black form with pale eyes. A blank space devoid of life.
Devoid of light.
It is night now. I am in the den.
The TV Screen
It isn't right. There isn't static. There isn't supposed to be static on TVs anymore. I hear the sound in my ears though I turned the volume off, and I have started to see strange things within the cluttered pixels of the screen.
There is no static.
There is static.
I hear the static in my ears, a sort of droning, a sound that conjures up images of my childhood and the TVs we had back then. The ones that we had to have special connectors for if we wanted to connect anything created after the 1980's.
I hear it in my ears, but it doesn't sound like static anymore. It sounds like the sea, like the surf pulling in and out of my ear canal. A rising and falling, and a wet feeling within my head when I close my eyes and listen closely.
I close my eyes as I hear the static. The static sound like water. The static sounds like laying in the tub, waiting for the panic to kick in. I keep my eyes closed, and I can see it lingering on the edges of my imagination. I know that if I open my eyes it will disappear, but with my eyes closed I can see it standing next to the television, looking down at the screen as the light makes no impression on its body.
It turns and looks at me, its eyes empty. A void.
There is no static. I hear static.
I open my eyes, to see what I have been writing, but it is not there.
When I close my eyes it has returned.
It is not there when I open my eyes again.
I look down at what I have written, a special message just for you, for when next you close your eyes and imagine the sounds of static or the water or a bathtub.
You will see it there.
I look down at my writing.
It isn't a piece of writing, but a shape of writing.
A shape of a face with blackened skin and holes where light/life should be.
A void.
All I can think about is the void.
I/You have to share the void.
Share the void.
Share the void.
Share.
The.
Void.”
- .... . / ...- --- .. -.. / .. ... / .-- .. - .... .. -.
I am still underweight. I've been making sure I eat most of the meals, plus a few in-between. I suppose I was expecting too much when I hoped that when I wrote to you next that I would be feeling better.
I am feeling better, just not as much as I would like.
The truth is that sometimes we do real harm to ourselves when we forget to eat or forget to reach out. Some of those things can leave a point of weakness, like a break. Your bone will heal, but it will take time, and even after all is settled and back to normal, a chronic pain can develop.
I am not at the chronic pain part. I am still healing.
Dammit. I am so sick of not being alright. There is a paranoia I have about being ill. Even with assurances and all that, I always am left worrying that there won't be a next time, that I will be too much.
Static on old TVs is actually a result of the receiver picking up electromagnetic noise. Sometimes that noise is from local radio stations, but most of it is cosmic microwave background radiation. It is essentially electromagnetic radiation that was left over during the early stages of the formation of the universe.
It lingers. Like a song stuck in your head, or a smell you can't get out of your house.
You have been great. You really have been.
I am going to stop writing. Whatever I would say next, it wouldn't be the truth.
