Please don't scroll past this.  

No, seriously.  I need to vent, 

and you're the only one there, 

looking at your computer screen, 

reading this.

don't scroll past this.  

don't break my heart like he did to mine.

if you dare close this page, my heart will shatter one more time.  

please.

i'm begging you.

Humans live vicariously. We're just vessels waiting to be filled up, always lusting after something or another, but the thing is, our emptiness is impossible to satiate. Unsatisfied, we poke our noses into each other's business, peering through the windows of the soul to squeeze every last drop of third-person thrill we can. 

....Yeah. I'm talking about you. I can bet you're watching me somehow.  

Look, there's no script for me. No one's feeding me lines behind-the-scenes, telling me to act or talk some way so I can provoke some sort of reaction. There's no right or wrong answer---and that's what kills me. 

....I can see 'em. Timelines stretched out, from the beginning of time and back. And every damn decision I make spawns a million different parallel universes. 

Say I go out to buy chocolate ice cream. Since I bought the last portion of chocolate ice cream, the shop has run out of that flavor. But then the President comes walking in, demanding for a chocolate ice cream cone. Because there's no chocolate ice cream left, the President's in a bad mood, which means they go ahead and botch a diplomatic deal with another country. That then leads to rising tensions, a world war being declared, and then the apocalypse.

....Now, if I'd just bought vanilla ice cream, everything would go differently.

Hypothetically.  

...To hell with hypotheticals. There's chain reactions going off in my head every day; anxiety-inducing Big Bangs, universes exploding into existence every time I so much as take another breath.

I know. I know you're out there. You can see all the timelines too. You can see what I should've, could've, ought to have damn done. And you look down on me for not having the foresight to produce the best outcome. 

Good thing you're not living out my reality---otherwise, you'd be flailing around as much as I am. 

Nah. I'm just a plot device, a character foil, background noise to you. Just like how you know what's best for others until you're the one suffering the consequences.

....Fun, isn't it? Go on.

 Laugh. 

The creamy ivory of her skin was just begging to be sipped and savored with my tongue. Seductive heavy lashed eyes gazed at my inner soul, urging me to fall abjectly at her feet. Her breasts were like full moons shining luminously in white gold beams of enticement. Shapely legs begged me to travel to their molten source. Even her name was beautiful – Lorelei – named after a woman who was rumored to be a bewitcher of men as well a siren calling them to their deaths.

“Stay away from her.” My deceased mother’s voice instilled itself into my head, pounding in her insistence, “She's no good. She’ll hurt you.”

“Be quiet, mother,” I shouted, “return to your netherworld and leave me alone.”

I knew in my last kernel of awareness that mother was right. Although I was overcome by a malignant aura foretelling that Lorelei was evil incarnate, I chose to turn my back, ignoring my subconscious warnings. I argued with myself in heated words, rationalizing that I would just ride the magic carpet to wherever it took me, without worrying about the consequences. I promised myself that I would leave after sampling her wonders. My pulse quickened as little beads of sweat decorated my upper lip in moistness. “I am coming, Lorelei,” I crooned, as I floated toward her in ignorant bliss.

“You’ll be sorry. Don’t do it!” I paid no heed to the distant fading voice.

She was everything that had been promised to me as I lost myself in her

whirlwind of pure lust. She gave to me until I begged her to stop. “Please,”

I cajoled, “I can’t go on forever as you can. It needs to end!”

But Lorelei continued with her passionate ministrations of moist lips, probing tongue, and stroking hands leading me to her very center. Finally, I crashed into the rock wall that the Song of Lorelei had promised me in legends of the past. My heart could take it no longer and ceased its hammering life.

“I warned you, son! Now you’ll be with me forever in the clouds.”

Once upon a time in a kingdom far more progressive than that of Cinderella’s, lived a locksmith, a fair haired maiden, Hans the fool, and a witch.

“Hold on, what’s with the word witch? Do you realize the negative connotations of that word in a setting like this?”

But you are a witch.

“According to whom?”

Well, you know magic don’t you? Just the other day I watched your bathroom clean itself.

“Big flippin’ deal, so I learned enough that I don’t have to scrub a toilet. Who likes scrubbing toilets? Why were you peeping around my bathroom in the first place?”

I, uh…. moving on. That just proves you’re a witch.

“You change the oil in your car right?”

Well, yeah.

“So you’re a mechanic.”

Point taken. Okay well your mother was a witch.

“Yeah? Yours was a dentist.”

Touché. Nix the witch, got it. How about I identify you by occupation? So, if you’re not a witch, what do you do?

“I sell insurance.”

You’ve got to be kidding. Who needs insurance in the realm of fantasy.

“There are dragons, giants, trolls, and student carriage drivers, happily ever after doesn’t come without a price.”

Makes sense. How about I just call you a maiden of some sort?

“Do I look like a maiden to you?”

Um….

“How about you? Yeah you…eye in the sky with your coffee and unicorn pajamas. Do I look like a maiden in your mind’s eye?”

Don’t bring them into this. Let’s just use your name. What is it?

“Bernadette.”

Bernadette, seller of insurance. Once upon a-

“No, no, no, just Bernadette.

It needs flare. Can I call you Bernie or Dette?

“Do you want to see if I can turn a narrator into a stool?”

Fine, Bernadette is it. Once upon a time in a land far mo-

“Forget it, the moment is gone. I’m going inside to watch cat videos, care to join me eye in the sky? Oh, and see if you can’t talk to the writer, that title needs to go.”

Ummm, the end?

I am utterly alone, and I know no one but you. 

You're an interesting little creature. Small, tiny. I could crush you with a thought.

But I've been lonely for a while now, and you amuse me. 

+  +  +

You're so weak.

Oh? That's not the usual greeting you receive, you say? 

You had it coming, anyway. 

+  +  +

I could squish you. I could torture you. 

I don't know what stops me. 

+  +  +  

Have you ever felt trapped? 

No? This is how it feels, reader: my mind aches. I can't think without hurting. I haven't moved a muscle in a thousand years. 

+  +  +

Who am I kidding? You wouldn't understand. 

You get it, you say? 

That's ridiculous. You're ridiculous.

+  +  + 

I can hear you thinking, you know. You're so petty. 

+  +  +  

Yet you dissolve the loneliness just like that.