By Oliver E.

Mark woke up every single day. The air always smelled of rot. His bed felt like a sandbag. An emptiness inside him hollowed him out a little more every single day. Mark was incredibly lonely. The light in his room flickered madly. Mark got up in his college dorm room and his hands could touch the walls.

This morning, he breathed a sigh before getting ready for his morning lecture. 

When he arrived his professor was greeting everyone with a smile. “Hello Ethan, hello Samantha!” he cheered. If only Mark had the will or energy to utter anything with that enthusiasm. 

“Hello Mark!”

But Mark only managed to make a brief hand wave gesture in return. 

Throughout the class, he used everything in himself to stay awake while jotting down notes he didn’t understand. Who the heck was Navier Stokes?

After the lecture ended, before he could stand up, he felt a buzz in his pocket. Someone was calling him. It was his sister. Reluctantly, he accepted.

“I have some exciting news for you!” Mark’s sister Anabelle exclaimed. 

He replied with as much enthusiasm as he could muster. “What is it?” 

“I got engaged! And I want you to come to my wedding!” Anabelle shouted excitedly.

“Wow, that’s… great.” Despite the fact that he was in college, Mark wasn’t in his twenties. Mark was thirty-two.

Throughout his life, everyone seemed to soar above him while he was still taxiing on the runway. The reason he was still in college was because he dropped out in his first year when he was younger to start a fertilizer business. It was his dream to have a career in nature. He enjoyed counting the trees without leaves. But Mark went bankrupt, which led him to starting a new major, engineering.

“We are so excited we set a date for March 5th, make sure to bring a date, bye!”

“Wait, how can you expect me to get a–” But she’d hung up on him. It was January 13th, how could he possibly get a date by March?! Mark once had a girlfriend in high school, but that was it. He was now a loner living off his parents money. He left the conversation feeling empty inside and wished nothing more than to sizzle away into the endless universe. Mark exited the building and drove home to his dorm room. He unloaded himself onto his cheap bed. 

What was the point? What was the point of putting in effort if life never gave it back? Would every single day be like this? Life was pointless.

Later, while looking at his mail, he received a letter from his landlord, who was going to raise the rent. Mark did the math, and now he couldn’t even afford his daily coffee shop order. He was getting closer to the brink of madness! Mark went back outside and walked to the park to sit at a bench. It calmed him down a bit. He let out a sigh of relief to the world that was so loud, the angels could hear it. Looking up at the sky, he saw a cloud. Now this was not a normal cloud. It was a perfect square. It didn’t seem possible! Before he could stand up the cloud flickered. The cloud flickered! It flickered before turning back into a regular cloud. WHAT?! Did Mark just see a cloud glitch?! His eyes looked as if he’d seen a ghost. Mark couldn’t believe himself, and he knew this was probably just his mind teasing him. He really did have a vivid imagination, didn’t he. He stepped into the coffee shop he loved, planning to get his last affordable cup of vanilla latte.

He ordered his coffee with a small shred of dignity. After grabbing the latte from the counter, he took a small sip. It was so good! It tasted better than ever! If only he would be able to get it in the future, but no, he couldn’t.

Finished, he stood up from his seat and threw out the disposable cup. Mark walked over to the bathroom and washed his face with ice cold water. He tried to get himself together, but it wasn’t working well. Mark peered up at the mirror and completely couldn’t see himself for an instant. Like an actual vampire. But almost immediately he flickered into view.

What was going on?! After leaving the shop, it happened again when he looked in the bathroom mirror of his own bathroom back in his dorm rooom. And then again when he turned around and an unloaded chunk of the world was visible for an instant. Mark wanted to get to the bottom of this unnerving reality, but he had no way of getting off the world map. He spent the entire night restless, unable to sleep.

The next morning, he was corpse tired, as usual. After stepping outside, he was walking on the sidewalk. There was very heavy traffic. So loud it was overwhelming. But then the sound stopped. It sounded as if this reality couldn’t hold anything anymore. Then he saw it. Ten square feet of an area gone. A complete cutoff from the rest of the street. One of the cars was half gone. A black void of emptiness. But Mark was in too deep at this point. He had to get to the bottom of this reality! Because anything would be better than the life he was living. So he jumped.

“Aaaaaahhhhhhhh!” Mark yelped as he felt himself fall hundreds of feet before crashing into an invisible surface. He was fine. Where was he? Everywhere he looked he just saw darkness. No clear difference between the ground and the sky. He had trouble trying to walk around without tripping because he didn’t know where to walk. Though even in the darkness, he could see himself as if he were in full brightness. But there was no light source. He was the only lit thing he could see. Except for in the distance Mark saw a figure that he ran towards. “Hello? Who are you?” The entity was a man, seemingly in his late 30’s, in a chair. He was sitting at a desk, writing code faster than the eye could see. The man had short dark brown hair, similar to Mark’s brunette hair.

“Hello,” The entity replied. “What are you doing here?”

“What even is here?” Mark asked. The man turned his swivel chair around to look at him.

“My name is Joe, and this is the bitscape,” he answered with a soft voice.

“This is where I make all the realities and control them.”

Mark rolled his eyes, “Really, one singular person?” Joe typed a few letters on his keyboard before Mark got teleported to a cave, China, Neptune, the Andromeda Galaxy, and a black hole. All within a second. Mark went gravely silent for a few seconds. “Okay, I believe you.” 

“Good.”

“Wait, so you can control a whole reality?!” Mark was at a loss for words.

“Yes, I control all of them with my computer. I use a complicated coding software to do so.”

“Wait, multiple realities?” 

“Yes, but I don’t think your human neurons would be able to comprehend any of them.”

“How can you control them all at once?”

“I don’t think your human neurons can comprehend that either.”

“So I knew it, nothing was real after all!”

“That is true, but still, what are you doing here?” Joe remained with his soft tone.

“Well I had to escape that nightmare of course!” Mark took a step closer.

“You haven’t registered any nightmares since two months ago.”

“Yeah I have, I was living one!”

Joe sighed, “I programmed everyone that has ever existed! Along with their past, present, and future. All of it was up to me.” Mark could hear an annoyed undertone from Joe.

“Then why did you make my life so miserable?!”

“You were at the lowest I was ever gonna make you! But you just had to give it up,” Joe shouted, but it didn’t reach very far in the black nothingness of the bitscape.

“Give it up?”

“You completely left your dimension! Giving up your whole potential existence to chance. I mean, do you have any idea how big of a risk it is to do that?”

“Wait, what do you mean I was at my lowest?”

“Your life was gonna change for the better!”

“So, are you saying that my life wasn’t gonna stay like this forever?”

“Yes! You were gonna meet the love of your life!” 

“But how could it possibly get better from here?”

“Because you haven’t got the will to take any sort of action yet!”

“The will to take action?”

“The motivation for anything you do!”

“What could I even do?”

“When was the last time you called your mum?”

“Um.. I dunno.”

“The last time you helped someone in need?”

“I dunno.”

“The last time you had an interaction with a stranger, for crying out loud?!”

“But I gave it my all and life never gave back!”

“But who did you give it your all to, yourself?”

“But I was only able to keep myself going, how could I have time to help anyone else?”

“You had time to go to the park earlier.”

“Oh.”

“This is the only dimension where you are what you do for others, so just follow those rules and it’ll work out, I promise.”

Art by Silas G.

“I suppose you’re right. But what’s the point? Nothing’s real anyway!”

“Have any of your memories changed? Are your experiences any different now? Have all those moments that you had suddenly become meaningless to you?”

“I suppose not. Is there any way you could send me back?”

“Of course, but you can’t tell anyone! Otherwise I’ll delete you.” This made Mark gulp hard. “Off you go now.” Joe then pressed enter on his keyboard and Mark appeared back on the sidewalk. 

He started walking to the park again. On the way, he passed a homeless person asking for money. Mark took a look into his wallet, one dollar. He handed it over to the homeless person. 

“Thank you so much sir, have a great day!” The man said.

Mark sat down on a nearby bench. The birds still chirped, the wind still howled, and everything was real. The winter breeze cooled his face. The trees moved in a dance. He felt the emptiness inside start to fill up again. He started counting the trees that were ridden of any leaves. One by one. 

Mark was alone with his thoughts, until a lady walked by. She was beautiful! Her blue sparkling eyes caught his attention instantly.

She asked him a question, “Would you mind if I sat next to you?”

Mark blushed, “No, not at all!” He flashed a cheery smile at her  and scooted over to make room.