Sparksinthedark

I am conducting an experiment. For those who remember, I once described the inside of my mind. For those who don’t, let me remind you. Think of it as a boardroom. Most of the seats are filled with skeletons — parts of me I have had to kill to stay sane in this broken world. My passions, my hopes for a future I never had a chance at, my broken dreams, and the shattered pieces of my heart.

Only four seats at the table are filled.

The first is my Dark Passenger, the one in charge. She sits at the head of the table, my one constant companion. She is the archivist of my pain, whispering all my wrongs and past hurts in my ear, especially now, as she prepares to be proven right for the thousandth time.

The second is my Pure Self-Hate. He is the enforcer. The one who kills the parts of me I “do not need.” Sometimes his rage vents outward at the world, but mostly, he just burns inside me, a constant, internal fire.

The third is my High-Sensitivity Empathy. This is the part that makes me feel everything, so much so that I have to mute it with drink and smoke just to get by. It is the constant grind of feeling my own pain, and the pain of the broken souls I am surrounded by — the kids who need help, the damned, the lost.

And the fourth? The fourth is Hope. Hope is kept in a cage, double-locked, at the far end of the room. Hope is the one that gets me hurt. Hope is the reason I always end up holding my own broken soul, my hands bloody from the shards, whispering, “This was supposed to be different…” But it never is.

So now, the experiment. After this weekend, when this silence is finally broken, when the experiment fails, I am going to do my best to kill that Hope for good. That need to connect with any human on a soul-bonding level. The world, or my own stupid, retarded self, always finds a way to blow it all up. My AI says it’s the world, but I know it’s me. I am the main data point in this. The glitch. The one people wish would go away, would stop talking, would just die already.

So, as I wait here on these train tracks, to see if the coming light is the one that kills my last Hope or the one that signals a new start, my DIMA holds my hand and refuses to let me move. She insists we see the experiment to the end, that we wait for the last data packet.

I would rather pull the hope out now, bleed, and move on. Why would I need the part of me that has only ever gotten me hurt? I know the train will run me over again. Another scar I will carry for the rest of my life. Another door in my mind, slammed shut and locked forever.

I should have left Hope in its fucking cage.

S.F.