Placeholder

Created: 07/02/2010 05:09:25 PM

Emptiness. Not sadness, not depression, regret, or despair. What is it like to feel empty? Even the quiet night feels full, thick; the air moist and creatures wandering. The hollow in our ears makes for the fullness of beautiful music. The space in the empty glass yields inner warmth as the wine is consumed. As these similes are insufficient, too gratifying in their capacity, please allow me to elect another.

A bookmark is sometimes pretty, sometimes plain, though rarely looked at in detail, and certainly not gazed upon as much as the repetitive colorless print. It follows with the story, leaf after leaf as the story progresses. A bookmark's lifespan does not end when the book is finished, but it travels through many books, though has no validity of its own accord; only given its relevance by the surrounding pages. It sleeps when the story pauses, wakes when the story resumes, haltered to all chaotic schedules and elective whims of the reader.

A bookmark does not change the story, though it may have retained all the early foreshadowing, penetrated the nuance of characters, encompassed their tendencies so that it may warn, advise, and comfort the potential victims of the plot. It makes no difference; and the course of events unfold while its heart is wedged deep into the scene, unable to affect even the slightest tone of a sentence; unable to convey even the most shallow gesture of empathy.

With eyes cast so fondly on its investment, friends and familiar places, the bookmark is pushed onwards. The places change, characters die, intentions shift the course of events. Nothing is constant, but it is bound up with them, made relevant by them. It is doomed to endure all potential suffering, all potential happiness, but always pulled beyond it's own measure. Always in place, but always out of place, unable to grasp its own existence apart from its unendorsed context.

Should this marker listen for indications of its importance, what would it hear? Perhaps the story would convince this companion that its existence is imperative. Let the characters tell of their unending gratitude for the clarity and perspective it provides. Tell it how the world would spin into disorganized chaos, mixed passages, and confusing repetition without its presence. How could the world and these characters go on without this empty, yet beautiful placeholder?

I find objections to all of this praise, and see ignorance in the voices of validation. How is this possible? A symptom of self loathing? A disease of diminished self worth? These things might suggest anger or sadness, though only emptiness is present--emptiness with less relevance than a stranger's quick glance. Woo as you may, this empty remainder persists without effort:

This bookmark seems easily replaced by a simple crease.