what did you expect

it was amazing how quickly time lost all its previous significance.  G would have expected to feel frustration, boredom, perhaps mania followed by depression; would have assumed that his mind, formerly so solidly constructed on the cornerstones of schedules, appointments and deadlines would have crumbled and fell when these bearing structures were suddenly removed. he had expected a feeling of loss, of insignificance and even desperation, and had spent more nights than he cared to remember dreading these demons he himself had created.

but to his utter surprise none of his fears seemed to manifest themselves. he felt none of the things he had predicted, and not even one of the scenarios he had pictured in his head took place.  there wasn't a trace of the anxiety he had already resigned to, convinced that it would take over the second his new idleness would reach the conscious part of his mind. G was almost afraid to admit it to himself but he felt rather good -- gone were the insomnia that had plagued him as long as he was able to remember and the dull headaches that had been his companion for years. there were no signs of the occasional but still regularly appearing arrhythmia anymore, and no longer did he wake up with his jaw literally cramping after grinding his teeth together throughout the night.

he woke up in the mornings -- it didn't matter anymore which morning it was, so they all blended in together -- rested and calm; he ate his food in peace and thus avoided the constant stomach aches that usually had followed his hasty refueling sessions. he took a nap whenever he felt like it, or stayed up throughout the night if he so chose. sometimes he didn't leave the flat for days, sometimes he didn't come home for a week. it was like he would have been ripped away from the fabric of what had used to be his reality; like a button that is torn from a jacket he no longer served his old purpose but it didn't mean that he would have ceased to exist, as he had been afraid he would. time melted around him and streamed into a torrent in which he floated, uninterrupted and isolated from the rest of the world. 

and it did occur to him then that he had been wrong; that all his life leading up to this moment had been, if not a mistake, at least a misjudgment. everything he had thought himself to be and everything he had wanted -- now that none of those things seemed to matter anymore he couldn't help wondering if they ever indeed had. on one hand it didn't make a difference; but on the other, what if this current scenario was just  as fabricated and false as the previous one had been? what if he was lulled into something he in reality didn't want at all, what if there was something else, something better? even if his current existence felt somewhat more serene than the old one, it surely didn't mean that it was as good as it could get, now did it? how could he know if this wasn't just the lesser of two evils, how would he be able to tell if he wasn't wrong this time around as well?

at first the question posed itself only now and then; a minor ripple in the stillness of his being. but slowly, so slowly he didn't even realize it, it started to occupy more and more of his thoughts. the ripple grew into waves that grew into a tsunami; and just like that, as inevitably as a stone that is cast in water always reaches the bottom, the calm was gone. soon the question was all he was able to think of, day and night; and as he lay awake staring at the ceiling with his dry and hot eyes and his heavy breath hissing between his gritted teeth, the fact that time no longer mattered, no longer existed even, was more real than it ever had been.