Woe is me

Woe was a simple man. He would live his life to the fullest while it's nighttime, then, in the morning, he'd utilize the process of sleeping as an escapism measure, yet it would never take quite as much time as he calculated for it to take; so Woe would wake up while the sun's still high up, and suffer all day long until the sun would finally set and the moon would march into its place.

Then again, Woe wasn't all that simple. I mentioned he would suffer all day long, didn't i?

See, at some point in time, even Woe, who was, unfortunately, a pure woe, felt happy and content with his misery - though not then, I guess - of a life. He was at his peak, woe-ah! He was an omnipotent being. He could engage in any kind of activity - only to be inevitably met with immense fortune in that activity, and to excel at it in a way no one in the world ever did manage to excel at it. This is how omnipotent Woe used to be.

Naturally, something must've caused Woe to acquire this omnipotence. Funnily, it was the simplest, the most basic thing - love, on which the world itself is built and with & by & because of which the world is functional at all. While it was a simple, foolish infatuation it first, Woe's feelings would soon ascend to another level entirely, so he would soon not just feel infatuated with someone, but love someone with all his mind and heart.

The guilty party for that ascension of Woe was Lady Joy, Woe once met her at the... how do I even put it? It's a weird thing to construct a precise enough analogy for, well... Let's just call it a train station, that is the first place coming to my mind. Woe was to board a train to Nowhere: this is a destination that people usually don't come back from, and Woe, informed of this, practically flew to the train station. He needed to ride somewhere quick, his goal was to disappear - and trust me, there's no better place in the world to disappear off to. After all, Nowhere's located nowhere.

How Lady Joy ended up on a train returning from Nowhere is still a mystery, and Woe couldn't and never even tried to solve that mystery (as far as the information found in his journals tells us), but it's factual that Lady Joy did end up at that same train station via the train returning from Nowhere. As she stepped off the train, she bumped into Woe.

"Oh, pray forgive," Woe said indifferently.

"You're boarding that train?" Joy looked at him very seriously. So Woe just had to turn around and pay his attention to her words and, ultimately, to her herself.

"So what if I do?"

"People tend to stay there forever."

"Guess the place's good enough to live there till kingdom come. I detect no issues."

"You can't know that," said Joy, making a gesture expressing her dissatisfaction with Woe's poor knowledge. He payed no mind to it, though.

"Say, lady... Who even are yo...u... Wait." Woe carefully examined her, top to bottom, with his well-trained eye, and then skimmed through his memories, trying his hardest to remember anything related to this arguing gal.

They stood in silence for around four minutes, eyeing each other as if they were trying to hunt each other down. A sight to see, for sure!

"I think you're Joy, the ferocious opponent of rational irrationalists. Or something like that," sighed Woe, terrified by all the memories. "Not sure, but... I think I saw you leaving this train."

"So?" she blinked at him repeatedly, simulating ignorance. Oh, these cunning women...

"I mean, you were leaving the train which no soul tends to leave. Care to explain that? Or refute, whatever," groaned Woe exhaustedly.

Joy's face lighted up, odd mischief written all over it.

"I can clarify that," she smiled innocently (Woe saw through that innocence, though: he was concentrated on that mischievous face). "If you walk with me instead of boarding that train."

"No can do, excuse me, princess," Woe shook his head in disappointment. "I've got no time for these pastimes any longer. I am very tired."

"We could go dine somewhere, then. Surely that wouldn't tire you even further, eh?" having thought some more, she added: "This train is going back and forth every day. You just can't miss it, so you could still catch it tomorrow, if you so wish."

"Fine," Woe finally gave up. His eyes filled with odd sorrow, he followed Joy out of the station.

"Say, Joy, how'd you even make it back in one piece from, you know... THE Nowhere? This question genuinely bugs me." Woe cast a glance upon Joy's still mischievous face. ""I wonder... What is it that she's having so much fun thinking about?" Woe thought to himself.

"Call it a maiden's secret or something... Well, long story short," Joy turned to Woe and looked at him quite strictly, sort of... reprimandingly, "You're never the only one to experience something uniquely shocking. But you sure can be the only to get left behind... Like, well, if you don't try and overcome whatever it is bothering you, Woe. There's no need to keep sinking along with an accidentally-boarded Titanic."

That unironically made Woe think for a while.

Anyway, the duo had successfully gotten to the restaurant by the time Woe came back to his senses.

"A big cake for two!" Joy ordered cheerfully. Woe slightly shook his head, ordering himself a small bag of cookies and a cup of poorly-brewed coffee.

"Why come back from Nowhere? It's the same Nowhere here anyway." Woe decided to attack the lady's logic right away. He's a cunning type, that he is... was.

"That's a peculiar way to look at it," Joy quit slurping her milkshake, switching to slicing up the big cake for two. "So it's the same Nowhere here and there for you, is it? Then why bother boarding a train which is virtually not moving?"

"You're evading the question." Woe grinned victoriously. "What matters is that YOU did go there, and then came back. No one ever does, so how come?"

Woe himself fell silent. A sudden change of the discussion's apparent direction... He sure's insane, Joy thought. Well, I bet she thought that.

"Right... You must be something I thought up. So it works just fine. Sorry."

And he was refuted right away by a very warm embrace. That's right, Lady Joy really just... up and hugged him. This story's getting weirder by minute...

"Wha?" Woe couldn't've predicted that. Stunned, he blinked several times; looked funny, so the lady bestowed her divine smile upon him.

"So much for "something you thought up", huh?" Joy proudly shot her mischief - about the same time Woe caught himself thinking that he's starting to like this cute li'l mischief - at his face and pushed one of the plates with a slice of cake towards her new friend.

That's how Woe learnt that he's no prophet; he couldn't predict something this simple, ergo... ergo he's not deluding.

Joy was unlike any other girl Woe had met before. They would meet up now and again, talk about literally everything, all the minor things, all the major predicaments... And Woe came to treat her as a family member - and he never even did so with his actual family.

However, Woe is Woe to the core. So one day, he went too far.

"You're naught but the product of my desires," he said carelessly, as if it really were true and well-known. It scarred Joy.

"You're this interesting and unpredictable... since I naturally would never have it any other way," he went on. It scarred Joy, again.

"You're actually real for the sole purpose of... being real, I guess. That's the way I perceive it. And yet the trick is... you need no purpose to be real. You break that rule, therefore proving your delusory nature. But I love that, too..."

His cheek felt a small, tender slap. It was the last bits of tender Joy had collected, reprimanding Woe, the person she herself had grown infatuated with, the person whom she believed she had been helping to become better and view the world differently up till now, for the last time.

She boarded a ship named "S.S. Yourself", never to be seen again by Woe.

He's been staring blankly at that Nowhere-bound train I'd brought up at the beginning ever since.

He reminisced through his experience with Joy one last time.

Her smile. It could be daring, bitter, it could be cheerful, silly, it could be strict, tender, it could be seductive, it could be supportive, it could be mischievous, but most importantly - it could be happy. Rarely did Woe succeed to bring her happiness...

"I need more strength."

"Your train has just arrived, sir!"

...so he went to Nowhere and devoured it, becoming Nowoehere.

Since there was No woe here anymore, he just... felt all empty. He fought off his insane demeanour all on his own, but... He was too uncertain and passive, he lacked resolve and conviction. So he turned completely empty, having caged his love within the Yeswhere-bound train.

He sent the train going, finally becoming empty. He only believed that his love would one day surely reach Joy... and so he retired.

Woe is me! Yet I am no Woe.

Because there is no woe here, indeed...

As you already know, I've massacred Nowhere. Devoured it, that's right... Which means there is no Nowhere here anymore. So it's the same Yeswhere... So I, Nowoehere, can actually try something.

It's been a few months, but at last, at long last... I have successfully mustered up all the courage to board the train. It comes and goes every day, which is weird, and yet... Screw it. I needed to see Joy again. My Joy of life again!...

"Strong enough to come and see you all on my own now, huh?" I whispered straight into her ear as I descended the platform. She turned beet-red on a moment's notice. I embraced her warmly, grasping her image and burning it into my mind. That lasted a few seconds - wouldn't wanna be too obnoxious. There's... no obnoxious Woe here, after all. She's... huh.

"Believe it or not, but... I am relieved to know that," Joy replied. A simple answer, but... there was nothing to complicate.

Half a year has been wasted on pure woe... Woe is me, truly!

Resolve... resolve to look up at the sky. Did you know? The sky is blue. I imagined it to be always dark.

Resolve to embrace changes, changes I make myself, first and foremost... And to apologise when really needed. The will to listen to the others, and... the recognition of their right to think.

These are the woeful problems Nowoehere used to have. So I no longer have them.

And I told her all that.

Work out the ending on your own, please... It's strange how I finish this story now, a month later. Maybe it's still capable of making an enjoyable read, though.

...

...

...

Ah, but now that we've made it all the way here again, to the SHADOW OF DEATH RAILWAY STATION, we might as well work out the ending **together**.

"Hey Woe," saluted Vince.

"Whoever you are?" questioned Woe the stranger, that is, Vince Roland.

"You are the reflection," whispered Roland half-sanely, "of my broken self - yet self which is still alive, - so I have come to deal with you for real."

Vince Roland glanced at lady Joy by Woe's side and suddenly got himself an expensive-looking scalpel. He would take the lady hostage moments afterwards. Woe sprang to her defense immediately.

"The hell do you think you're doing?"

"The hell are you doing?" replied Vince with a grin on his face in a "how do you do" style, bringing the scalpel closer to Joy's neck. "I am not even sorry to do this, I just wanna try something out. Perhaps that's what the real DeMePReMe needs," added Roland, smirking at me as he cut open the skin of Woe's only damn salvation.

And that's ----- the Maroon, no, Vermillion, no --- Scarlet Mayhem, Mahogany Chaos, the Unpainted Amok.

Woe collapsed again, trying to reaffirm his resolve, - useless, so useless.

"Useless, so useless," repeated Vince Roland, whoever the fuck he was.

"Useless, so useless," Useless, so useless, "Useless, so useless."

Useless, so useless!

Woe fled the SHADOW OF DEATH RAILWAY STATION and realised that there really is nowhere to run, in truth: literaly: for he himself had previously devoured the Nowhere. And it was a damn tower in the middle of the Nowhere, the world was just so fucking gone.

There never was a park. Nor a restaurant or cafe or whatnot existed, so he couldn't've ever visited it with Joy.

And now, glancing back, Woe fails to spot the corpse - Joy's body - in Roland's hands.

His Joy may have never existed at all.

"What have you done, you moronic bastard?" cried Woe hopelessly, denying the reality with all his might.

"Enjoy."

"What DO you mean "ENJOY"? Don't give me this crap!"

The two leapt at each other, funnily skirmishing all over the SHADOW OF DEATH RAILWAY STATION until it stopped resembling one.

Before the two amid their scuffle appeared the giant Leviathan of LOGIC which denied the both's existence, both separately and concurrently: the reason being them being present nowhere while nowhere was nowhere anyway. And that's then Vince and Woe merged into one.

It was a saneless man sporting as if it were an accessory a smile filled with absolute mockery and provocation to attack. And so the Leviathan of LOGIC did attack: that was very stupid and futile.

It was perception.

The saneless man gave no fuck about logic.

The world was him.

"The world is you," whispered Woe to Vince and vice-versa:

"The world is me."

They have achieved the anti-salvation and their nihilistical peak, the nihil, the zero, the null, nil, 0, , in the totality of egoism. 

Their ego.

His ego.

Your ego.

My ego.

E go.

Eg o.

E? g, o: .

It was an atomic sunrise near the river flowing from the depths of their consciousness all the way towards the wake of the actual morning of the real world.

I, I wake up, slowly.

I am alone, - people always are alone,

I know Joy is a decent girl and I am no less a decent man myself, but,

I also know

that

I

am

doomed

to be

alone because

that's how us humans just

exist

no?

non?

nonononono?

Vince Roland and Woe is Me both spread his and my and our and their wings and hopped up high like two crazy grasshoppers, and the wind of solitude carried me away.

I cannot believe what I have just done.

This isn't even about accepting myself.

This is me letting loose.

I am so one. The world is so me. I am so the world.

The inescapable nobility of the inseparable loneliness due to the solitary confinement within the separation from the darling ones in light of the cruel nature;

mother earth.

Nizhny - Priozernyy - mindscape, Oct 11-Dec 29 2023