Whiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiie.
You jerk awake to the water kettle going off in the background. You must have dozed off. Looking around, you remind yourself where you are. You stare into the window, seeing the translucent droplets forming on the window. Pitter-patter-pitter-patter.
Ah yes, it was raining. As you stare more into the window, you focus into the reflection. What is that in the background? It seems to be yourself, but not quite. You attempt to focus onto the reflection but you can’t quite make it out–it’s too blurry.
You snap yourself out of it and remembered that you wanted to make hot coco. You rise and hear a thump and realize that something fell out of your lap. You search for the thing that fell and find that it was The Ethics of Ambiguity. You sigh, remembering that you need to finish reading this. That is a problem for later.
You go get your favorite mug and prepare the hot coco, pouring a packet of Swiss Miss into your mug. As you pour hot water into your mug, you can’t help but to stare at the figure at the window. You fixate onto this mysterious figure. It looks like you, but it isn’t you. As you finish pouring the hot water, you take your mug and cup it for its warmth. Curious, you take your hot coco and approach the window. As the blurriness of the reflection becomes more refined, you realize that it wasn’t yourself. No, it was your younger self.
Your younger self points. Not at you, but away into the distance. As you focus onto where they are pointing you realize you can hear something. It’s almost muffled by the rain and the fire crackling in the background but you can make it out. What is it? Laughter.
Nostalgia strikes you as you remember your childhood. You see the friends you played with. You see your parents. You remember how much you role played with your friend. One day you were a spy! Another day you were an adventurer. Another day, an astronaut. You sip your hot coco and feel warmth radiate throughout your body. It is lively, it is bright, it is secure. You are free.
But what are you today? The laughter stops. The children suddenly stare at you.
Their gaze penetrates you, and you feel your mug goes cold. The rain intensifies.
PITTER-PATTER-PITTER-PATTER.
PITTER.
PATTER.
You realize you were none of those things. You could only be those things under the security of your childhood, under the world you were born into. You realize the freedom was an illusion. Today, you are what you are not.
You attempt to stare past the children, beyond their gaze and escape the feeling of anxiety. The children dissolve into the background and you begin to see the landscape. What could it be? A road? A forest? Others? You see nothing.
Nothing is stretched out to you in is vastness. You become alarmed, as you attempt to find the horizon, something to fixate your eyes into something concrete. There must be something concrete, there cannot be this nothingness! When you think you find the horizon, that concreteness, the rain blurs it into the vastness. Nothing.
As you stand with your cold hot coco, you wish you could go back to your childhood, where there was a sense of security and freedom. But you realize it was only an illusion. But the impending vastness isn’t bad you realize. It just is what it is: nothing. And this actual freedom.
The warm cottage around you dissolves and you look around you. The last thing you see is The Ethics of Ambiguity and you remember that you did read it. You remember de Beauvoir’s writings. As that too fades into nothingness you embrace your anxiety. There is only freedom that you can look forward to.
And you go.
