• There was nothing left to see, to feel. Pain? It had vanished long ago, along with everything around him. The feeling of fear? There was no fear any more. He was no longer worried about his life, no longer fretting about holding on one more second. What he once held on to, no longer mattered at all. After all, he had left it all behind, was lost in the nothing, and hopefully, he would be somewhere else, somewhere that he belonged, soon.

    The nothing that surrounded him did not allow him to feel the passage of time, but then again, when everything slipped away, time was a very fickle matter. Besides, what was the point of even thinking about how long he had been laying in the nothing that was his temporary home? This brought a fresh thought to what he guessed was his mind.

    He was no longer in the same situation he was in moments ago, or was it years ago? It didn't matter; after all, he was here now. He felt nothing of pain. He felt nothing at all. He didn't even take a breath, what was the point of taking a breath? He didn't need to. He didn't even have a body any more. He didn't feel the lack of body; he just knew it wasn't there anymore. Then again, why would he expect it to be there?

    It had felt like forever, and yet only a few seconds all at once as he waited, pondering what had happened to him to leave him here in the nothing he found was growing ever confining. How had he ended up here? He didn't remember. He didn't think he wanted to remember. Maybe he would have the chance to ask?

    He didn't have a voice. Now, that was obvious. Without a body, there would be no voice. It took lungs to speak as well, and he lacked a body, and lungs. As a matter of fact, he was missing the vocal chords and the mouth, tongue, voice box, and everything else as well. Oddly, he didn't panic.

    He was still confused. He didn't remember how he got here, or how he had no body, or exactly what his body looked like. He wasn't exactly sure, but he was a male, he was sure of that. That was the only thing that clicked though. Everything else was just so muddled.

    He kept wondering, and thinking, if that was what you could call it, about what could have happened. Not knowing about the world, he had no clue what was going on, or how he could have been here. None of this was making any sense. Why didn't he know what had happened? None the less, it had.

    Now time really felt like it had drawn on for years, decades even. There was no more thinking it could have been seconds. And within this time, small concepts came to him. He had been a person. There were other people. The idea of music, though he couldn't actually remember any of it. He remembered now that there were many other beings. Not all the same as him, though he didn't know his own shape to tell what kind of being he was.

    Nothing really seemed to lead to a conclusion. He understood what a body was, the shape that a being took. He didn't have a body; did that mean he wasn't a being? No, he was, after all, he knew there were other beings that looked like him. He didn't look like anything. Did that mean other beings didn't look like anything?

    Vague concepts stirred alive, one by one, as time flowed endlessly in a stream of thought, and yes, he thought. The concept of thinking was a welcome explanation to what he had been doing all this time. He learned of language, and reading. He even imagined a book, though picturing something without a brain was supposedly impossible. He had also learned that concepts didn't matter here.

    He also began to understand what emotions were, though to explain in language was impossible to him, and he didn't know individual emotions, just that they existed, and that there were many of them. With emotions came the concept of feeling, and feelings. A feeling was another word for emotions, at its base. Feeling was a sensation. Something he had yet to discover. And a sensation was anything that affected you, whether it is physically, or mentally, or emotionally.

    Physical was a substance that you could touch, or feel. This put more definition behind feeling. And Mental was thought, or the sensation of finding an answer that makes sense. In other words, he had had mental sensations, but still no physical. Also, he was aware of the concept of waiting, and now, boredom.

    Waiting was to be at one location, and be there until you could go to another, or at least, so he thought. Boredom was the sensation of having nothing to do, or doing something of no interest. Interest was a sensation that made something worth doing. He knew there were other words, but those were concepts he just hadn't learned yet.

    Yet again, years felt like they passed. Years blurred to decades. The concept of time seemed to be his since the beginning, if not a little hazy. Hazy was something close to incorrect, but not quite right. Incorrect was to be wrong, which was to not tell the truth, and he couldn't explain truth. Right was to be the opposite of incorrect, which meant to tell the truth. Again, he couldn't explain truth, at least, not with words.

    Words were a part of language. Language was the way one being communicated with each other. Communication was the conveying of messages from one being to the next. Every being could convey a message. Some beings could understand others, but what he had been couldn't. At least, not easily.

    It took many Millennia for him to learn everything there was to learn about concepts. He learned from the concepts, and realized everything about what he was, what had happened, what would be happening, and how long he had been within the darkness of the folds. The concept of panic overwhelmed him, and he would have thrashed had he had a body to thrash about with.

    Fear overtook him for many years, when he learned that he was dead, and that the concept of death was varied among many other people. People were the beings that dominated what world he had lived on. On the planet earth, humans lived. He learned that he had been a much older man. He had gone through his prime in life. Had several beautiful children who grew up and had children of their own before he had even begun to die.

    It was suddenly comforting to realize that he had had a good life. One that included love, and family, with no issues then the normal bad days, and occasional argument with loved ones. His father was a loving man. His mother had been a wonderful woman. He felt the great grief that over took him when his mother passed away of cancer. His father died shortly after of a broken heart.

    He had had his first child by then. Sherry. She was a beautiful, bouncy baby girl, with a smile and a laugh as charming as any other. She grew up to be beautiful, and married a man of good character, and future.

    His next child, who was born when Sherry was four, was James. He was an athletic child, who took the time out of his life to help his father with things. He learned how to work on just about anything, and helped his father with the work on the newer model cars. He had been single at the age of thirty-two, but was planning on starting to date a young lady his father had yet to meet.

    The third child was Carol. The child that his wife took care of and spoiled. She was born when James was two. Sherry had been seven. Carol grew up to be a very intelligent girl, though she wasn't the best child, because she was spoiled, she was still very well loved by the family. Though she had started off as a selfish child, by the end of high school, she had learned to care for others. Of course, by seventeen she was pregnant, but he helped her through, no thanks to the guy who got her pregnant. She was married now, and to a man who, though a little cocky, wasn't all that bad.

    And the final child. His youngest son. Stephen was born prematurely, and had almost killed his mother, but they both survived, and they were definitely fine by the time he was one. They had to be healthy and alive to keep an eye on this child. He was born the day after Carol's ninth birthday. That would make James eleven, and Sherry sixteen. He was energetic, and intelligent. He grew up to be a wonderful CEO for some big wig company. He was not married, but he had plenty of time to find a wife, and said he had started looking less then a year before.

    Now, the dead man, he knew his name. Joseph. He was a good man, of kindly nature. He had his good days, and his bad days. His wife died of cancer at the age of fifty-seven. He died at the age of sixty-two. His wife was two years younger then him. He was now proud of his life. Very proud. His children, though they had made some mistakes, were wonderful, and took care of themselves. He was only a little sad now. He was dead, and would never see them again.

    The old man, Joseph, the father of four. The man, who had lived a life he was proud of, also remembered how he died. He had died painfully. That was the worst thing about his death. He had been hit by a car. And he didn't die quickly. He remembered the fact that he drown to death in his own blood, his rib having punctured it thoroughly. His left lung was weak, so his right lung being punctured was a death sentence.

    The memory went away, and he let his mind rest. He had a very good run. He was proud of that run. Now he was willing to rest in the nothing of death, for the rest of eternity...

    ~END