An Empty Life

By Michael Nycek

Barry has a hard time moving forward in life. He desperately holds onto the past when he was a child and the truth about the world was hidden. He believed in love, he believed in peace, and he believed in his dreams but once his childhood was over everything had changed or everything had stopped lying to him. The world appeared empty and he refused to be a part of the emptiness. The more time goes by the less real the world appears to him and the less time he has in finding true love and true happiness.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: Sep 20, 2013
• ISBN: 9781493101634

Book preview

Copyright © 2013 by Michael Nycek.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the copyright owner.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to any actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

Rev. date: 9/18/2013

To order additional copies of this book, contact:

Xlibris Corporation

1-888-795-4274

www.Xlibris.com

[e-mail]

141266

Contents

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

Chapter 20

Chapter 21

CHAPTER 1

I wish I knew why everything had to be so empty. It never used to be empty. It used to be beautiful and I thought the passing of time would bring more beauty into my life. I was wrong. The passing of time only brought emptiness and soon the world I thought I knew has become completely empty. My life has become completely empty.

The emptiness has appeared and the wind is blowing hard as a man stands near the railings on a bridge. He watches the water pick up speeds. This man begins to speak to the sky above, I was innocent. We were innocent. Then we grew up. He holds a photograph inches from his face. In the photograph shows a boy smiling as he holds onto the family dog and his family smiling as they hold onto each other. His eyes water up and he smiles imagining a better time when there was fullness in the eyes of the little boy in the picture, the little boy that was him. The happiness turns to sorrow when it sets in his mind that was the past. The present is without the family and the family dog. He drops to his knees pressing the picture against his face and speaks, I am sorry. Tears begin flowing down his cheeks remembering the life he had years ago and the life he is living now, a life without everything from the past that made him so happy. He looks deeply at the picture of himself as a child with all the love he could ever need and want. This picture was real. It was a real life to him. He had love, he had innocence, and he had dreams and the dreams he had certainly was not a dream for the present life, the fake life he calls it to be without what this picture represents to him. He never imagined the world would be so different now that he is a man and not a child.

He pounds on the curb angrily. His eyes are empty. He continues to pound on the curb releasing his anger at what he had lost and with all the movement a gun falls out of his pocket. He notices the fallen gun. He grabs a hold of the gun. The gun represents an evil life to him, a life he wants no part of and would do absolutely anything to change life’s plans for him to never experience the evils of the world. He looks up to the sky and says, this is my life? This is what it has become? Can I ever go back to the time of this picture when life was about love, when it was real or must I live in a fake world where the bad wants to be my life?

Barry gets no response from anyone and is annoyed that his words go unanswered says, answer me! Have I become one of them? Did I follow the same path everyone else has once they reached the adult life to become empty? He raises his voice, is that the plan? You have my magical world to disappear into a world of complete darkness, full of evil, full of emptiness and pain. Did I lose my innocence? Am I living an empty life?

His words continue to go unanswered. He is left to ponder those thoughts in his head as he watches the wind splash the water back and forth from atop a bridge. The wind blows stronger as his eyes are firmly locked into a motionless stare at the gun. He looks at the gun deeply and directs the gun on his head. He wants to end the emptiness. Barry’s finger is shaking back and forth from the trigger. He’s contemplating pulling the trigger and getting out of this world. His fingers stop shaking and he starts to pull the trigger back and before he pulls the trigger his eyes look down at the photograph in his hand. He looks at the photograph of his childhood deeply. The past photograph has made him lower the gun and the past photograph has saved him from ending the emptiness. He softly speaks, I look at this picture and I am right back when I was a child. I believe I had lost nothing. All of my dreams, my innocence . . . everything is back. I know what I have to do I have to get rid of this gun and get rid of everything that wants to pull me into the present.

Barry takes one final look at the gun. He tosses it off the bridge watching it fall all the way down into the water and disappearing out of his life. His hold onto the past has allowed him to stay strong and not give up on his dreams. Barry smiles as he feels like he took a step in the right direction. He calmly steps away from the bridge and as he walks away he hears words spoken from afar, you are worthless and pathetic. You need to jump off this bridge and let the sea swallow you and before his eyes turn to capture an image of the man who said these cruel words the man becomes out of sight. The only image he saw was his shadow. He wishes he could put a face to these words that repeat in his head, words that become very unpleasant to his ears, words that make him want to burst his own eardrums so he may not ever have to hear these cruel words again but what his eyes captures is a man looking down at the water standing on the railing. Don’t jump! a concerned Barry hollers. The man remains from turning around so Barry is unable to see his face as the man asks, who said that? My name is Barry. I am here to help you. The man responds, you can’t help me, no one can. Barry says, you don’t have to jump. I thought I had to end the emptiness but remembering the past especially when I see photographs of my childhood I knew I was full. This is all I need to trap myself in a beautiful time. I take one look at a past photograph or watch something from my past life and I feel like I am still in the past when everything was beautiful. All you need to do is find what makes you happy and hold onto it. The man says, nothing makes me happy. My world has become meaningless. I lost everything . . .

Barry interrupts, but you have to remember everything you lost is back with you and this present world of emptiness where everyone appears the same and thinks their bigger than this world does not exist. Do you honestly want to hear some insignificant punk call you worthless and pathetic? You have to block all that bullshit out and think about the time when you were happy. When were you happy last? The man responds, when I was a child. Now that I am an adult, everything has changed, and it sucks. Barry accepting the truth that he has known all along about the world responds, it only does if you allow yourself to be a part of the emptiness. I allowed myself to get very close to ending the emptiness. I . . .

Barry pauses as he remembers the beginning of his life and the dreams he had when he was a child. The time when you think everything is beautiful and good unaware of the evils that existed. The awareness of evil came at a later time when everything started to slip away, leaving him along with the passing of his childhood.

Barry continues, I miss when I didn’t know there was a world full of bad people. I wish I could be a child again and think there will always be good in my life. The only way I can believe that again is to forget the present and remember the past. If you do that then you don’t have to grow up. You don’t have to let the world win and turn you into a monster . . . The man interrupts him, the world has already won. The man leaps off the bridge and Barry runs to the railing looking to the water below but sees nothing in the water. The sea must have swallowed him and now another empty life has left this evil world. Barry shakes his head and speaks to the sky, this didn’t need to happen. This world needs to change. This world needs to be the way we were told it was when we were children. This world needs to be saved from the evil. I need to save . . .

An unseen voice interrupts Barry, not one person can save this world and flush the evil out of this world. The man that jumped was in the line of people that keeps moving, people keep jumping out of this world whether there in control or without control, the humans try to fight evil but they always fall to evil and you to are in that line. You have fallen to evil. Barry says, who are you? The unseen voice responds, I will show you my face very soon. I will return and you will discover why you are here at this point in life and why you are not living a life that you dreamed you would live when you were a child. I am coming to save you. Barry responds, I don’t need to be saved.

The unseen voice hollers out, yes, you do need saving. You have been whining about your life, you have been whining about humans living the same empty lives, you have been whining about how you need to save these humans but this world can’t be saved by someone that is not saved. I am here to save you so that you will not be like the rest of the world. You will be above the world, free of emptiness, free of pain, free of emotion, and free from the human life. That is what you want right? To be free from the pain you hold close to your heart.

Barry starts to respond but stops remembering everything that he had lost. The unseen voice asks again, is that what you want?

Barry softly responds in a voice that sounds so empty, I . . . want to relive the past, my childhood. The unseen voice remarks, the past is nothing compared to what the future will hold for you if you allow me to save you. Barry responds, I don’t want the future, I want the past. The unseen voice yells, the past has left you! You need to move on and accept your purpose in life. You need to come with me before you fall. I am offering you a way out. I am offering you to be free from this life and you can live forever away from the world. The world never wanted you. I want you. Barry asks, why won’t you tell me who you are? The unseen voice responds, in time you will gain all knowledge of who I am and why you will embrace me and embrace life away from this world. Think about the words spoken and I will return whether you have your eyes opened or closed. Barry informs him, I will never embrace you. The only life I will embrace is the life in this picture and once I return to the life in that picture, I will never leave that life again.

The unseen voice has stopped talking to him and Barry quickly forgets everything that just happened, especially when he can easily block out the present and be back in the past by becoming lost in those memories. He wants to always be lost in those memories of his childhood so bad that he quickly pulls out a photograph and looks directly at the picture. Barry immediately becomes crushed and realizes this is the wrong photograph. Barry says, I thought I threw this away? His eyes are forced to see the present photograph that was built on lies, a present photograph of himself and his girlfriend holding onto each other. He looks deeply into the picture completely crushed.

Barry found the love he had been looking for and he thought the love was real. It felt so real. It felt right. It felt like the girl in the picture was the one. He never thought there could be anyone else and right now in this present moment there is nobody else. He often wonders if there will ever be anyone so nice and so sweet like the girl in the picture.

Barry softly says, I blame myself for the breakup. I know I didn’t have enough money to make you happy. Maybe if I wasn’t poor and had lots of money than you wouldn’t have cheated on me but I didn’t have money to buy your love. I just had my heart and that wasn’t enough.

Barry releases the present photograph into the water and watches it disappear from his life and the memories of a love that left a hole inside his heart sink down with the picture. He takes a moment as the painful memories fade away and than his eyes return back to the past picture. He closes his eyes remembering the past than reopens them and a smile appears on his face as if none of what he has seen or heard in this dark night has ever took place. He innocently smiles at the beauty in this picture and at the beauty of this world forgetting all of the emptiness in the world.

"Barry has shut out the present once again and is living in the past, a world that has kept him happy and free from tears. People may call that an empty life but for Barry that is his only way of ever having a full happy life again even if that really isn’t a full happy life. In his mind it is full enough to get through the days in this