If you look into the abyss

“Do you ever watch the stars from here?” 

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“Never really bothered. Light pollution.” 

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“Lay down with me.” The metal grate was cold against my spine, the edge of the water tower sharp against the back of my knees. “Have you ever heard of this theory... where if you think about it the right way, you can feel like you’re upside down on the face of the planet?” 

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“No, I haven’t.” 

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“That’s fine.” It was more than fine, really. I was grinning, delighted, because it meant I could talk about it all I want and still feel clever. “So you lay down on your back, and you look at the sky, right? And if you turn it around in your head—that you’re not on your back and looking up at the sky, but rather, jutting out into the infinite darkness of space—it's brilliant, really. It feels like you’re about to fall right off. Perfect vertigo.”

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“Is that your favourite eldritch horror, then? The Vast?” 

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I nodded. There’s something perfectly horrifying about it—the pure infinity of everything, I suppose. I went snorkelling, once, when I was eight years old. I had flipped forward, facing the ground, limbs splayed in all directions, and breathed—

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I had a friend, once, who filled his bathtub with salted water, put on an eye mask, and closed his eyes. He said it felt like nonexistence. This was what I imagined that felt like, except more, because I knew my eyes were open. My eyes were open and I couldn’t see anything. I couldn’t feel anything, either – if the water is wet, and your skin is wet, and your suit is wet – where does the water end and you begin? What separates you from the water if not a thin layer of skin? And if I floated there long enough – what’s stopping the water from seeping through my pores and mixing with the water in my blood? How long would it take for me to become water, all the way through, all while I’m still breathing? 

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So I floated there, breathing, looking. Here’s what they don’t tell you about floating in pitch-dark water: if you stay there long enough, watching the darkness, it kind of feels like you fall into it. Like the feeling you get right before you fall asleep, or the swoop in your stomach as you stand on the edge of a cliff, or the bubbling in your throat when you lean out an open window—you flip, and tumble downward. Except you’re stagnant, unmoving. And your vision dances, like visual snow, like light across the water at night. Debris, maybe, or stars, or eyes, maybe, and maybe It b l i n k s—

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(London said his favourite eldritch horror was The Flesh. I didn’t agree. I had seen the fractals in the margins of his notebooks. When he heard the episode about the Spiral he talked about it for days. 

 

I don’t know why he said the Flesh. I still don’t. I don’t think he was lying either – we promised not to lie to each other long ago. Perhaps he just never got the instability of the Spiral. His world so concrete and logical that he never considered the possibility of deception. That the world around him is lying to him. That nothing is real. 

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I envy him, sometimes. Reality has never come that easy to me.)

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“You know, we’re reading about apologists in class now,” London said. “You should have stayed. You would have liked it.” 

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“Haven’t you heard?” I joked. “I’m all blasphemous now. Nate’s dad even tried to convert me back.” 

 

“He didn’t.” London sounded genuinely horrified. 

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I giggled, partly out of humour, partly out of relief. “Yeah. Asked me why I abandoned the faith. I think I accidentally insinuated that I was gay at some point. It was a mess.” 

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London shook his head. “That’s crazy.” 

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“You reckon they’re going to lead a manhunt after me?” 

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“Totally,” London said, dragging the word out. “You… with your… your gender-neutral bathrooms. Communist sympathies.” 

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“Heavy metal music?” 

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“With unholy language—” 

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“Using the lord’s name in vain—” 

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“Sleeping in on Sundays—” 

 

“Wearing ripped jeans—” 

 

“Now listen here young lady, that is two steps too far, I am appalled—” 

 

When I laughed, it felt punched out of my chest like a popped balloon. Like coughing more than laughing. I could feel London’s shoulders shaking against the metal grate. 

 

“But seriously,” he said, when the laughter died down. “What are you now? An atheist?” 

 

I frowned. “More agnostic, probably.” 

 

“Ah,” he nodded sagely. “A poor man’s atheist, then.” 

 

I tried to punch him in the shoulder. I missed, smacking the water tower instead. “Shut up! It’s a perfectly valid philosophical position!” 

 

“Sure. Or you could admit you’re a none who doesn’t believe in anything at all.” 

 

(And the worst thing is, he was right, a little. If you break everything down: who knows if anything is real? There’s a keyboard on my lap. How do we know it’s there? What if colour is subjective? How would we prove it otherwise? If we were born and raised in a simulation, how would we know it’s artificial? 

 

And if we think about it that way, does anything matter? I didn’t want to be a nihilist – I stopped finding it cool after middle school —but it seems I stumble my way back to meaninglessness time and time again.) 

 

My knuckles stung. “Maybe I believe in nothing,” I said. “That’s something, right?” 

 

(I played this game when I was a kid. I was a ghost, piloting my flesh-mecha of a body. Eat, drink, and play, all while holding onto my skin with my fingertips. I played this game when I didn’t feel fully there. Like I was about to float right out of my cage of bones.) 

 

London laughed. “The way you phrased that... like nothingness is a god.” 

 

(And if nothing is real… what greater deity would there be besides Nothingness? If nothing matters, would Nothing be the only thing that has meaning?) 

 

“That’s exactly what I mean, though. Like there’s something out there. Something big, and powerful, and beyond our comprehension.” 

 

“You could say it’s something… vast.” 

 

“You’re hilarious.” 

 

“I know.”

 

“I’m serious, though. Maybe there are no gods, but there’s something. Something overwhelmingly powerful. Space. Nature. The sea. Tree roots. Like something just at the corner of your vision, and if you just reach –” 

 

(And if I let go of the water tower. And if I tumble into outer space, arms wide. My stomach in my throat, like the moment before a panic attack. I wonder if that would feel like nonexistence, too. I wonder if that would feel like existing, most of all. Frighteningly alive. I wonder if my back will hurt. If I could settle into my skin, finally. If the stars would blink. If I would blink back.) 

 

“Do you ever notice,” I said softly. “That it all comes back together?” 

 

He shakes his head. I smile. 

 

“You see how space goes up and up, bigger and bigger, until it’s dark and cold and the pressure is so heavy it crushes you, until you reach the little specks of white; and how the ocean gets deeper and deeper and bigger and bigger, unexplored, until it’s so dark and heavy the pressure crumples you, but if you go deep enough you’ll reach little sparks of light—” 

 

“The world is a fractal echoing endlessly in all directions,” he says–

 

(--because when I listened to podcasts he read the famous Tumblr posts. Because he knew I loved them. Because I met his monsters and in return, he met my existential dread. Because the earth is a gap. Because heaven and hell are just two steps apart, really, and that doesn’t seem like that much of a chasm to cross, isn’t it?)

 

I curl my fingers into the metal gate. It’s freezing cold. And if I shift over, just slightly, maybe, he would hold my hand. And if I reach, just out of the corner of my eyes, he would be there, physical, real. And if I turned, maybe, I would see his eyes. Two dots of pale colour on a dark backdrop. And if I blink, maybe–

 

– the abyss would blink back.