It is empty here. Here, wherever I sit, in a crowded bar, at work with the humming and clicking of work all around me. Here, wherever I run, stand, talk, it spreads, lengthens like shadows. I see it creep over the faces of my friends, the people I don't know in the crowded grocery store, on the street at noon. The shadow doesn't affect them, doesn't hurt them, doesn't cool them enough to cause a shudder. It's only for me to see, my eyes curiously tuned to just the right wavelengths to see it.
I can't break this. I can't reason with it. I can't lie to it anymore, run around it, from it. It's just spreading, and I'm at its center, waiting, closing my eyes against it, trying to smile through it. It's closing me out of this world. Maybe light will catch me less and less, maybe the speed of this shadow will outpace memory's light, and the moments and images of me in the minds of those who know me, love me, like me, hate me, will be like scenes from dreams barely remembered. Maybe it will all just go away quietly. No bang, no pain, no sorrow, no place where something used to be.
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