The sky is blue—or, at least, I perceive it as blue. The clouds are gray, holding hands with the endless sky. The trees cover the land and the plains sleep. The endless mountains stand far away and look on. The buildings stand as if they are tired commuters in a train station, and leaves are like the pedestrians on the street.
I walked through the neon streets of Nichivo. There were people walking on the streets—all of them with the same coat, the same hat, the same dead eyes strangled by society’s lack of thought—and I was one of them.
I walked home and saw the wooden nesting dolls standing on the windowshelf. Their scarves are peeling off, and their eyes are chipping. A porcelain bowl of cat food is empty—it has been cleaned by a kind visitor coming in through the window who brushed apart the curtains. There is a box of erasers on the desk, but the box has fallen apart and the erasers have been stolen or used.
A scarf that took many nights to make has become the home of a family of mice—a family home that generations have known. It is still loved, yet not by the people who were meant to love it.
There is nobody here. But I am not lonely here. How funny—“humans are social creatures,” “you must be with others to stay alive”—there is nobody else here, but I know I am not alone. There is something else—yet I am not sure what it is. But what I do not know can’t hurt me—this is a theory that I myself have never proved wrong. There is nothing that I do not know, so I know that nothing can hurt me, correct?
There is absolutely no foreshadowing here. I will not break the fourth wall at any point in this story—for there is no fourth wall. This is reality. I am real, am I not? I am not a plastic doll whose arms and legs can be switched out with a screwdriver. My name is not Aleksei Kholodov, my name is not Viktor Keyankov, my name is Innokentiy Zvezdochkov, and I am a real person who is not a puppet for a government, or for a writer.
The whole world is not like this—yet all that matters is gone. Why bother with the words of an unimportant person on the television? Why make a big deal out of this while you can instead say things of your own that are louder—and better? Free speech is not for only one party in these conversations, it is for both. So why can’t both parties express it? Why shame someone for something he did ten years ago? Can’t people change?
Obviously, they cannot. It is not like the worst of monsters were once good people, and it is not like the best of people were once monsters who wished to destroy. To heck with it, everyone has said something bad in life—we are all monsters! So thus the right course of action is to destroy humanity. If nothing exists, then there is no evil. If there is no evil, then there is only good. This town is not every city—no, of course not. All towns are different. But why must all towns be different? There is no need for variety if they’re all the same. They may have different buildings, different people, but listen—those are different colors of paint. There is obviously room for character development. However, I am not a fictional character. I am not a static comic book frame, I am not words on a page, I am not a plushie. I am a human made of flesh and bone! I am not a magical girl with strong political opinions and a rocket launcher, I am not some fictional guy who “isn’t a self-insert,” I am not “Mary Sue.” I am real!
Now, the writer—no! I must not call myself fictional!—is making me self-contradict. I’m real, I’m not one of the fictional stars in the sky painted by a God or writer!
When I finally get home, I wonder what I had been thinking of. Why was I thinking about society instead of how to get bread for tomorrow? I must be tired. I must be very tired—I don’t think of good and evil. I don’t think of free will—free will is to choose whether to live or whether to die! But even that doesn’t exist, eh? You can get shot at any time. Free will is a lie! What happened to telling the truth to the young? Eh? What happened to the future? You burned it before it even happened! And yet you’re still complaining about the young.
I pick up one of the Matryoshkas. They aren’t high quality. I can’t sell them. A set of matryoshkas with one missing is worthless! The cat bowl seems usable—but who owns a cat here? Who can afford to keep a purring ball of fur alive? I kick the scarf outside. To hell with the mice! They’ve lived enough of a life! They remind me of the pathetic name Malakhov—a leader that killed his own country out of avarice and the hatred of all that breathed. He always comments on books about humanity when he himself is not human. I hate him more than I hate the people who pretend they’re geniuses when they’re idiots. If you’re so smart—what, with that degree from Donskov—then survive for a week without your tie clip and college degree you’re still paying for.