His head rested on his hands. He did not care for sleep, nor did he care for the time. He just wanted to leave. The droning, the dirtiness, the warmth: he wanted to escape it all. Sometimes he would look around the class, but nothing ever changed. That same lack of life was always present. That same bleakness. He would always put his head back down. 
        A strong emotion of regret sometimes went through him. Other times, it would come on as anger or depression, but it was always the same feeling, the same remorse for himself, the same hatred for the remorse, the same remorse for the paradoxical.  
        He always waited for the bell to ring, but it never did. He would just stand up and leave with everyone else. Perpetual silence and everything colorless. He was tired of following; he wanted to hear the bell. Than the regret or the anger or the depression, always on time. But it all returned and started again.  
        What if he did it? Ended it all in one motion. A slice of the blade, or maybe the swallowing of pills. And so the story would come to an end, but would he continue to be blind? Would he ascend to some level of new blindness? Or descend into a level of new sight? Maybe it would end, everything. Maybe there was no new blindness or sight, but there was only incomprehensible lack of comprehension - a lack of existence. As if comprehension or existence were present at any time. Than the regret. Than the anger. The depression. All again. 
        They always pissed him off. All of the lying and fakeness; maybe he was just jealous. What man would not sacrifice insight when approached by an oncoming train, a train that never stops coming, yet cannot be escaped. But finally, it gets there. It ends it, or you end it first. You cannot run, nor can you hide, but even in the face of death you can sacrifice all that which can be of pain, be of misery, or truth. The final defense is insanity; unless, by some twist of fate, it is the ultimate poison. 
        The sun was glaring and the lies were still copious. A new level of dirtiness and lethargy overcame him. Each step was a thousand miles, each mile a thousand steps. Divinity: was it there? What of its consideration? Of course, he had thought it before, the sacrifice of insight was better than the pain of the oncoming onslaught. Or maybe it was this thought, this very weakness which proved to open him in ways that allowed more pain to enter. Maybe it was his indecisiveness. No, he had had moments of pure confidence, yet the pain was even more poignant, the Nihilism even more hopeless. 
        Such an awful thing. Awful, awful, awful! The sun grew hotter, the lies seemed less understandable. The universe itself grew blurry, yet somehow he felt the blurriness brought him closer to seeing the complete picture. His throat rose to his head as he nearly stumbled. What was he? Where was he? What was anything. Regret, but more powerful. More overwhelming. It was insanity. 
        The key would not go in the hole. It taunted him. It was not in enough, and then it would not turn. Finally, it would not come out. Filled with both anger and relief, he entered. There was a moment of consideration, invariably ending in nothing. He stumbled to his room and fell on his bed, the dirt not leaving him for a moment. Why was everything so hot? Why was there still droning? 
        Tears formed in his eyes, and for the shortest of seconds the composure of his face left. He cried, but the release was not satisfying, fulfilling, or close to long enough. He almost instantly returned to his natural state - to THE natural state. Shame, weakness, hopelessness.  
        Seconds turned to minutes, minutes to hours, and hours to days, yet no time passed. He prayed to some God, no more real or fake than any other; all precepts of vanity had dissipated predictably fast. His hand went up in the air, reaching for something. It was saddening. His hand went back down. Why fake it? Why categorize it. It was: what it was. 
        Off the bed and into the bathroom. He used the toilet, out of compulsion, not need - slightly burning. He looked at himself in the mirror, then looked at the bathtub. Regret, anger, depression. He looked at himself again. It was hidden in a crevice behind the mirror. He pulled it out. It was a chance to be free. 
        In his hands he held an instrument of remarkable beauty and power, of limitless destruction and rebirth. He had a tool to challenge God, the universe, purpose itself. He could transcend and see there was nothing. He could die and never see again. Nothing could stop him. Nothing. One slice and it would be over; just a little patience and then freedom. A moment of horror passed over him, an incredible fear and helplessness. It had stopped him before. It was will. He wanted life, power, love, beauty, art... He did not want to die, but he had too. He had to escape the dirt all over him. He needed to leave the warmth for eternal frost. The Nihilistic holocaust called for him. 
        In the bathtub he went. Into the light and darkness. Into the paradox. The one question with no comprehension: Death. Hopelessness. He thought about his mother, about his friends, about his interests. Where would they be? Where would they go? They would not be better. To use his tool to show them enlightenment would have been the most holy of things, yet he lacked confidence in himself. He could not risk them. He could only risk himself.  
        They would suffer, but all pain is limited. Limited to the folly of human creation. Where folly had entered was of no concern anymore. It simply had, and could no longer be remedied. No, it could only be removed with the core that it had infected. He brought up the tool and looked at it. He saw himself in the reflection. 
        Blood ran. A new kind of pain traveled through him: physical. But the endorphins would validate him; they always did. 
        Where was he headed? To what new world of thought was there waiting? Maybe nothing. That was what he wanted. Freedom, true freedom, freedom from everything, absolute nothingness. Nothing cannot be taken away.  
        The light started to fade. 
        He felt the dirt leave him. The pain was present, but it made more sense. It was easier to comprehend. Easier to rationalize, like all humans do. 
        Images blurred. 
        Finally he felt coolness over take him. 
        He didn't shift uncomfortably any longer. 
        His eye lids started to close. His lips formed a smile. Freedom, and soon, complete release. 
 
        He waited for the regret to leave. He waited for the anger to leave. He waited for the depression to leave. He waited for the horror to leave. But it never did. He could see the fleshy minions, pikes on hand, coming for him. His heart beat heavily as the skeletal servants of hell grew closer. The woods closed in around him, the trees blocked out the sun. The warmth became ice, the dirt became fire; the droning became screams. The ground collapsed to blackness. The regret overwhelmed him. What had he done? Where was he? ... What was he? No, there was no more regret - only insanity. He begged to some God to help him, but there was no answer. Tears formed in his eyes. His last moments of terror; or would they continue forever? Was it not life that brought pain, or did life bring happiness? Were all things not life: pain? What a mistake; a mistake of all mistakes! The betrayal upon which he made his bed and laid his friends. Err in such a degree that his mind failed him, or maybe it was panic, maybe exhaustion. Something failed him; maybe his sight. The light was blinding him. The train was coming.