1 Death of a Troubled Mind

Dying… It's a funny thing, really. Especially when you don't realize what happened.

Closing your eyes for them not to be opened ever again. That is the way it should have been, anyway.

For some, death is a relief. For others, it is a dreaded fear. Now, there is the minority. A very quiet minority who just couldn't help themselves to care. Not even a little bit. For them, for us, whether you lived or died was inconsequential. Not a big deal. As important as the twig you stepped on during your morning walk.

Now, don't get me wrong. I am not saying I wanted to die, I just didn't care. It was the same as living. Now that I think about it, it might have been a very concealed depression that made me think that way, but it is ultimately irrelevant. Maybe even a little comforting. After all, my life was not something a lot of people would envy.

I guess it all started when I was six. I didn't lose any family or anyone I cared for. I didn't get diagnosed a terminal disease. I sure as hell didn't get abused. So how did it start? Well, I finished my homework.

Yes, that is all there is about it. A finished homework.

In my school, you got your homework for all the week on Monday, so you could finish it that same day or during seven days. It was a good system, if you ask me. But it didn't account for little wierdos like myself.

It was my second week of the school year. I got home, ate, did my chores, and then started doing my homework. Funny thing, when you are smart and have read half of the encyclopaedia by the time you are six, doing basic math and spelling is not precisely stimulating or challenging. I think that was it.

When I finished my homework, I just felt empty inside. Like, really empty. Not joy or tediousness, just empty. Just… nothingness. I could've told my parents, but I didn't. Guess that was my first mistake.

Week after week, month after month, year after year, I just stayed the same. I wasn't happy, but neither was I miserable, or even sad; I just… was.

My parents started to notice, of course, so they decided to do something about it. A nine-year-old being depressed was something weird, especially with such a good life as the one I had. Her conclusion? I was lonely. Dumb diagnosis, if you ask me, but my parents seemed to buy it, so they acted based on it.

And what did they do? They adopted a young boy. His name was Ethan.

I know I doubted the therapist's opinion, but when I first looked into his eyes, my world melted. I still didn't care, not much anyway, but I felt something, and that was something new for me.

The first time I gave him a single piece of candy and his eyes almost sparkled, that's where I lost it. I was so… happy. Yeah, happy, that's the word. After that incident, I started living only for the sake of my little brother. Anything he wanted I got done, until he asked me for money to buy my parents a gift.

Where could I get it? I had no money, but I needed to give my brother some, it was the only thing in my mind. A one-tracked resolve, you might say. So what did I do? I stole a hundred dollars from my mom's safe.

Seriously, birthdays are just the worst combination for anything, ever.

Now, I had money to give him, but I needed to place back the money before she realized. So, as any normal, smart —way, way smarter than what I should've been— girl, I googled how to earn money quickly.

I got a few methods, including credit card fraud, but I just settled for the top three. Lottery, gambling, and stock market. Seriously, I was a weird little girl.

So, I got my dad a new bank account on a tax paradise and started working from there on. It was surprising to see just how many things can be done over the internet, really. But that just finished preparations, not much more. For the next week, I studied harder than I ever had. I studied everything I could gamble on. Football, soccer, baseball, tennis, horse races, you name it. If there was human factor involved, I studied it.

Just now I realize how much of a genius I had been to be able to pull that off at 13, but hey, it worked. I went to a convenience store across the street from our place and bought a gift card, which I then sold for 90 dollars straight to my —dad's— new account. I started placing bets from then. The first one was on a soccer match. I was really lucky there had been some big tournament going on in Europe, so I made a killing.

Who would've known that a small club would defeat a titan? Well, numbers did. But, apparently, only I could listen to them. The odds were a 1:12 and I bet all 90 bucks, so now I was 13 with 1,080 dollars at my disposal. The hardest part was to cash it out, but I managed. I withdrew 280 dollars, keeping 800 in my account. I the repaid my illicitly acquired debt and gave Ethan some money.

He got my parents a gift and they asked me for where I got the money. I told them I found it on the street. They believed it. Fools.

The following five years were spent making more money so I could give my little brother everything he wanted. A good education, a dog, or maybe even a car when he was old enough. I dropped out of college because honestly, what could they teach me? By the time I was eighteen I got my own account and transferred all the money. I started paying taxes, too. Greedy bastards of the I.R.S., taking my money.

Anyway, gambling on sports and investing a few thousand dollars here and there, I got pretty wealthy. Obscenely so, If you so wish. 12 million dollars. Nothing bad for a girl who couldn't buy alcohol yet.

Then, it happened. My happiness went away.

It was a car crash, or an engine failure, I don't remember the details, probably repressed them. The important thing was, they were dead. All of them. Mom, dad, and Ethan. After that, I closed myself again, and stayed like that for a very, very long time.

The only thing I felt was sadness, and on very specific occasions.

Ethan loved anime, like a good spoiled socially awkward boy. Dragon ball. One piece, and Naruto. Oh boy, did he like Naruto. His birthday was coming up so I bought him all the manga and anime arcs I could find, but he died before I could give them to him. So, I watched it the night after the funeral. Which I paid, of course. Funny thing how nobody asked me how I did it, but it worked better for me anyway.

Naruto was… surprisingly satisfying. I could see why Ethan liked it so much, his character was pretty aligned with the mc, after all. But still, I cried every time I watched it.

And for god's sake, don't get me started with the Hokage's Funeral scene, I literally had to call an ambulance. Mi airways closed up. But, some time after a lawyer came knocking to my door. My parent's will and inheritance. Not a small number, but not big either. About 3 million dollars. Plus the house. I sold the house and gathered all the money into my account, then I moved 100 thousand to another account and placed all of my money in a company that was most likely going bankrupt. I then travelled the world for seven years.

By the time my money got all spent, I was living in a dirt-poor community in Central America. Around the frontier between Belize and Mexico. And there, there were so many kids. Skinny, dirty, but happy. Like Naruto, like Ethan. I decided to help them, mostly on a whim, but I had no money. Not anymore.

It was then I decided to check my stock, hoping to get out even 1,000 dollars. Much to my surprise, I was filthy, ridiculously, laughably rich.

Apparently, with the stock price back then, I had managed to buy more than half of the company and gave them enough money to get back on track. It worked. They were now a corporate giant. Top 20 companies, to be precise. And now, those shares were worth 8 billion dollars, and the dividends in my bank account amounted to another 5. So, I was worth 13 billion dollars, give or take.

I moved some money, sold some stock and bought a few other, and, of course, helped these poor kids. To my surprise, after building them a school and gifting them clothes, after seeing their faces, I got happy again.

I spent the rest of my life doing the same. I even got a name on the media, "The Hazed Saintess", they called me. It was to be expected, though. One of the wealthiest people in the world, who has never shown her face, helps poor communities all over the world without expecting anything in return. They called me the second coming of Jesus, among other ridiculous names.

Just how wrong had they been.

I did everything on a whim and only with selfish motives. Making other people happy made me happy, or as happy as I could be. Anyway, I was up there in the level of a pope.

That is why I am curious about just how exactly the world took the news of my death. I don't remember how it happened. One moment I was there and then I wasn't, but I do remember feeling… nothing. Once again, I returned to nothing. I floated in the darkness for what seemed like years, or maybe even seconds. It is hard to explain, like explaining a song to a deaf or the sun to a blind. It was just too… abstract. But there was darkness. There was nothingness.

For once in my life, or well, afterlife, I felt at home.

The nothingness outside matched the nothingness inside, and it was beautiful. Peaceful. Comfortable. Perfect.

I laid there for I don't know how long, not even bothering to think about it. Just resting. It was then that it happened.

A blinding light in the darkness, in the nothingness that was no longer nothing, that now was something, and it pained me. Pained me with existence.

"Well, aren't you a weird one." The light… said? Well, a voice sounded in my head, so I guess it was the light. After all, it was the only something in this nothing, it felt out of place with it's somethingness. "Usually they try to get out, not just stay here and rest, you know? The nothingness repels all human souls. But then again, yours looks… comfortable."

Of course it looked comfortable. I was comfortable. For once in all my life, I felt… nice. Wasn't this the way it was supposed to be? Wasn't this the well-deserved rest of the afterlife?

"I see why you would think that, but it's not. This is but a pathway. You shouldn't be able to stand the emptiness of it. Because you should feel out of place, because the nothingness cannot hold something. No matter the lack of somethingness, something still exists, always exists. Only broken ones that had shed all of their somethingness should tolerate it here. But you aren't broken, you aren't even cracked. You are just filled with nothingness. Strange, strange indeed…"

"Can you read my mind?" I asked half-expecting an answer, really. Not that I cared.

"But" The light spoke again ", I guess nothingness is just a different kind of something. The broken ones are nothing because their somethingness got out of them when they broke. You are intact, and yet lack your somethingness. That could only mean you have always been filled with nothingness, which is something. Do you understand?"

"I guess." Honestly, this thing liked monologues. I just wanted to get out of here.

"Truly strange… Your somethingness is, paradoxically enough, nothingness. And a very big amount of it, for that matter. Another paradoxical thought. Your nothingness is very dense. But nothingness, by definition, should be nothing. So how, do tell, did you manage to have a lot nothingness as your somethingness?"

"I don't know." There, that should do it. If I answer just like that, this thing should be quiet and leave.

"Well, I will help you with that." The light seemed thoughtful. "Logically speaking, Your nothingness is a type of somethingness, not just your garden variety absence of somethingness, so it could simultaneously be considered somethingness and nothingness. Maybe you lost what made your nothingness somethingness, but it still managed to maintain certain aspects of somethingness, like its somethingness itself. Truly interesting."

"Okay." When is it going to shut up?

"But, logically speaking my logic is faulty since your situation is in itself illogical. So why would I think that logic can be used to deal with the illogical? Oh my, you are just a bunch of paradoxes, aren't you?"

"I guess." Seriously, when?

"Well, despite your paradoxical absence and simultaneous presence of both nothingness and somethingness, you are pretty high up in the karmic ladder. Do you even realize that you never did anything selfish in your life? You were one of the wealthiest people in your world, but still never bought yourself anything more than what was necessary. Instead, you bought those things for other people." It stopped for a minute. "You are very strange indeed."

"I was selfish." Okay, I'll bite. Maybe if I answer it will shut up quicker.

"No, you weren't. Selfishness in giving brings pleasure in the act of giving itself and the way others look at you after that. You, on the other hand, took pleasure in other people's happiness after you helped them. That, in itself, is a selfless act. After you take into account the fact that all of the world was looking for you to thank you and you didn't even know, nor cared, your selflessness rises up a notch once again. Although that could be caused by your nothingness, it is remarkable."

"Whatever you say. Listen, can you just please leave? I really need to rest again. This is comfortable."

"Nothingness is comfortable, you say. You know, comfort is something, so that means you just said that nothingness is something, therefore becoming your somethingness. You are a strange one indeed…"

Nothingness, somethingness, I didn't really care. I just wanted to go back and rest. To feel comfortable. Where I don't have to think about anything, just go with the flow and shut down my mind for a while.

"Oh! That's it! Your somethingness isn't nothingness, your somethingness became nothingness! A natural transition! Fascinating! That's why your nothingness is somethingness! Hey, I got it sooner than I expected. So, why is your somethingness nothingness? Emptiness I could understand, but nothingness is indeed weird."

"Because emptiness implies that there is something missing, while nothingness is the absence of things. It is better to be nothing than to be empty. It is better to feel nothing that to be… empty. Emptiness reminds you of your fullness and how it became emptiness."

"Ohh, so that's how it is. Your somethingness, when you gained it, was fullness, but then you lost it and it became emptiness, but emptiness implies a hole to fill, so it was better to empty your emptiness and stay with your nothingness." It seemed to think about it for a while, but then it spoke again. "More than interesting, your case is sad. I can see why you chose nothingness."

"The can you please leave? I am comfortable here, and want to return to… well… nothing, but it is what I want."

Silence spread for more than 10 minutes. I could almost hear it's breathing, even though it was just a blub of light. I was starting to fall once again into nothingness, when the presence of something in my nothing disrupted the feeling. It didn't feel nice.

"Well, I can't do anything about the tragedy that befell you the last three times, but maybe I can help you just this once. Just so you know, this will cost me dearly, but I guess it will help. It is the only something that isn't somethingness inside your nothingness. It almost looks happy. But oh well, the worldbuilder already abandoned this place, so you can take it. You won't have enough authority, but it will be enough."

"What are you talking about?" Worldbuilder? Why does it sound so familiar?

"Well, you will have to suffer in order to gain your somethingness, but I guess it is to be expected. After all, you are nothing deep, deep inside."

"Suffer?" My non-existent eyes widened and my absent heart raced. Death I couldn't care less about. Suffering, that was another matter entirely.

"Don't worry, you won't even remember. Your soul, as yourself, is in a state of non-existence being in this nothingness, that is why you find it so comfortable. And why you won't remember anything we have spoken here."

"Peachy." I was annoyed. Beyond annoyed. Then what was the point of this conversation?

"But still, adding this life, you hold six straws. I will take three from you so I can give you some things, so the other three you can use at your own will and discretion. But remember, they are hard to get by, so use them wisely."

He started glowing more intensely, almost to the point where I couldn't see anymore, to the point I was blinded. But I still managed to stay conscious to hear its last words.

"Oh, Simon. Just be strong. Your lives have been full with suffering and sacrifice, but it cannot be helped. Samsara dictated it so. But, at the very least, I can help you. I mean, I was kind of a dick the last time."

Simon? My name is not Simon. I am… what was my name again? God, I don't remember… Saintess? I think it was…

I started to get sleepy, very sleepy. Until I couldn't hold it anymore. I fell asleep.

31/06/18