Numb
Laughing.
They’re all laughing.
They’re all turning to me and wondering why
I’m not.
And so I fake a smile, laugh a plastic laugh,
and hate myself
for not being able to laugh genuinely.
They never suspect it.
They never think that I’m empty.
Hollow.
Vacant.
Void.
They think I’m fine.
I won’t be the one to tell them
I’m not.
Battle Roh ZN-10-4, Annex Class, 002
I lie on porous gray rocks, blue paint scratched. My vision is crowded by ghostly green readouts—the closest, perhaps, that I come to organic pain. Stats confirm what I can physically see—my legs are glowing stumps. Actually, the legs themselves are fifteen meters away, the joints that once connected them burped into gas-rich froth. My arm is back there too. My other arm is firing a blast rifle. It will be destroyed, too, by precision fire, according to the probabilities running through my processor. Not that I care. A downed droid is a dead droid. The Roh don't bother repairing anneks who've sustained this percentage of damage (56%—now 87% as a green bolt eviscerates my weapon-arm). Cheaper to recycle the soldier for scrap. But I wasn't built for emotional complexity. My only concern is how many I can skyfall before a burst takes my processing unit.
Weaponless, armless, legless, I must no longer register as a threat, and I find myself staring at the enemy—those flying black squids—with the patience of stones.
#sciencefiction #robots #colonize #theroh #spaceandstuff
Empty Space
Words whisper around me, but they are not the soothing blankets my mother placed on me. They roll around in space, useless but not unheard. I let the gentle murmers of apologies and offers sway around my head, not understanding but hearing. I am trapped in a cloud of loneliness, but I am not alone. My world is untouched and broken. I am lost in a bubble that is all my own, and no intrusion bursts it. I am lost in memories that slip me out of reality. Any true thought is painful, sending sparks of fire through my body until I am woozy with agony. So I force myself to believe that you will still do everything we used to, that you are just taking a break. Every memory is a safe place, a drug, a sedative, for my torment. I live like this. Unbelieving, refusing to accept the truth. I lay with my head resting on the mossy bank, quiet and peaceful, away from people forcing me into healing. I see a snail creep across a strand of grass. It moves small and slow, but I see it slipping away. I think of how it reminds me of life, so slow you don’t hurry up, and so fast you don’t rest. And I think of you crawling, crawling out of my sight, and for the first time, I let the sharp pain in my chest consume me.
A picture worth a thousand words...
Feeling numb is something I am an expert at. If this statement is true, than why is it so hard to offer you a description in words? Don't take my word for it. Look at me. There is proof in my photographs. That far away look. Eyes down to the side. Hands clenched on my tight stomach. It is me in the picture but I am not there.
Feeling numb is a condition of living in the abstract. The body is alive in real time while the mind is fraught with worry blocking any opportunity for real time experiences. If I could give advice to my numb self I would say to myself, "Find a way to take a vacation from you."
Numb
You were gone so very long
The pain I felt turned into song
I wrote about our history
My love for you no mystery
As time went by I only waited
For your release, anticipated
I would have given anything
For safety that your arms would bring
Then I felt it dissipate
A month to go, was it too late?
Finally you returned home
By then I liked to be alone
You tried for that long waited kiss
I turned my head, it was a miss
I couldn't feel the victory
There was something dead in me
My heart no longer beat for you
It started singing it's own tune
Time had come and done it's thing
The pain that losing you would bring
You touched me but I didn't feel
The hurt inside started to heal
My defenses were in place
I was numb and couldn't taste
Nothing you could say or do
Convinced me that I needed you
Over me, you held no power
It had weakened by the hour
I tried to spark up the old flame
But only ashes there remained
You no longer held my heart
From there we slowly fell apart.
Oftentimes i feel
as if i were covered
by a light dusting of frost
like baking sugar.
My skin blue as irises,
smothered by pinpricks
of slender ice like a mountain
blanketed by snow.
My blood itself congeals
like sleet in my shallow veins
and my breath is suspended,
searingly bitter, in my throat.
My fingertips grow ashen
with frostbite as if charred
and the lashes of my eyes
are powdered by rime.
My heart, my soul, are numb.
Awash (a kyrielle)
I wonder what I'll do alone
My world has turned away from me
I feel like I'm a senseless drone
In times of grief our hearts bleed tears
Where have you gone that I can't come
A place that I can't even see
Inside, a stirring like a hum
In times of grief our hearts bleed tears
Ashamed I am my eyes are dry
I can't release my deepest fears
In solitude I wonder why
In times of grief our hearts bleed tears
Please tell me how I find my way
Release the sorrow inside me
The darkest moments seize the day
In times of grief our hearts bleed tears
(c) 2018 Miriam Ruff
Retreated Into Numbness
You’re in tune to everything.
The way the bird chirps at exactly 2:04.
The position of your pencil and how it was before.
Then a blinding flash of light.
An explosion of sensory emotions as everything staggers downhill.
In a second life snaps your will.
The struggle of years only builds.
You can’t keep your head high.
Because who you once were has all but died.
Fresh pain every day.
In a derogatory comment.
In words uselessly spent.
Then there’s nothing.
No pain at all.
And your problems will surely start to fall.
Now you only need yourself.
To prevent your demise,
you’ve hardened into a shell in which the only holes are your eyes.