Today, I briefly exist for the sake of this paper. Its a strange world that goes around and around and brings us all back to the very beginning.

Despite all my practices to smile and cry like a normal person, I'm brought this reality that in fact, I feel nothing. Why must I overcome that barrier? Well, for my own sake, of course.

"Do you think people are inherently good?", he asked me in the driveway while we waited for our order, that I wasn't remotely interested in.

"No", I answered briefly, simply to avoid a conversation.

In a world that is ending and serves only bland food for the sake of survival, conversations hold no meaning.

"Will you say it today?", he asked, like usual.

"No."

"But it's a nice day."

"It's not."

"Are you sure?"

His question had originally been a plea to say "I love you." Why would those words hold so much meaning? Why, indeed. I didn't even love my parents, the people responsible for bringing me into this world, the first people I knew. So my claim to love anyone else would be a complete lie.

Don't get me wrong, I'm sure I loved them once, just like any other child. But my childhood didn't last long. I could choose to keep up the pretense, but in the end, why should one betray themselves for the sake of a mundane lie?

I simply couldn't look at them, because I was ashamed of not being able to love them. Still, I preferred to feel this guilt all on my own instead of them giving me a reason to not love them anymore. But they continued on their rigid paths, breaking every bone in my body.

I simply couldn't satisfy their fantasy. I couldn't be what they wanted me to be. Hence, there was never any acceptance. I tried my darndest to get somewhere with them, but the futility of my struggle laughed in my face with every bruise. So, I gave up.

"Will you say it if I say it first?", he asked, a naive fool as he was.

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He was younger than me and a total pushover. In truth, I knew how much he worshipped me. But love isn't someone human efforts can instill in someone's heart. If that was possible, I should have been able to love him by now.

Why? Because he was a mutt that had become obsessed with my stone cold emptiness. Unfortunately, I had nothing to offer him. I was overtaken by the end of the world while he didn't seem to care.

His eyes shone as if his world was just beginning. Nothing seemed to be wrong in his world. I could barely stand the look he gave me.

In the end, I hated his big blue eyes that were blindingly bright yet seemed to see nothing real. It wasn't his fault though, but I hate all things hopeful.

Hate is a strong word. I didn't hate my parents.

We hate things we wish didn't exist. It's not so different from fear. And I was neither afraid nor drowning in any hatred for them. I simply lacked any and all feelings towards them. I had no home. I'd given up entirely. I wished that they would too, so that we could peacefully part our ways but they were people who had to have their own way in everything.

I was the same. In the end, conflict was inevitable. I rebelled and rebelled and raged with all my might, when really all I wished was for them to accept me. They didn't have to understand or agree, they just had to accept that I wasn't one of them and no matter what they did, I wasn't going to be.

It was impossible for them. The first people I knew in this world were not on my side anymore. I was alone, finally. It made no sense to pursue them anymore.

Logic falls apart the stronger you hold onto it. In the end, you're cursed to live within the strange realm of irrationality that offers no escape to its favorites.

Disconnection spans far and wide and no change in seasons bridges the ever growing gap. One simply floats across time without any direction, until...well, until they find a bright blue-eyed shining star.

"Well, do you think you'll say it tomorrow?", he asked on the way back.

"Why are you so hung up on this?", I could barely stand his persistence.

He pouted sadly. The world spun infinitely slower around him, such so that I didn't even realize I had been caught in the whirlwind.

Unfortunately, despite all my reservations, I am heavily prone to fallacies. And therefore, surprising as it may, this is undoubtedly a love story, albeit one that ends very soon with the world.

"Will you ever say it?", he asked, unrelenting as he was.

"When it's the last day of the world", I answered mechanically, sincerely hoping either of us would be dead before then, even though the chances looked slim. It was a simple lie.

"Then, I'll know it's ending", he answered after a pause, a rare moment of him thinking.

"What?"

"When you say it, I'll know that the world is ending."

"Why, is there no other way for you tell?", I asked, a little taken aback, though knowing he wasn't one to look out his window.

"Nope!"

This has all been done before more times than one can imagine. There is no unique, original, trendsetter. All things are mundane, repeated again and again...

Insanity is doing the same thing over and over and over again, hoping for things to change.

Isn't that just life? Someone ought to have realized it much sooner. Why do we still go on then?

The irrational is the only place where life can thrive. It's the irrational, the inconvenient that gives birth, that has the capability to survive. The truly logical exists in absolutes. All the most important things in the universe are absolutes. Unfortunately, we're not residents of that world.

Three years later, we stood in a place we never expected to get to. I held his hand tightly and looked into the distance, while his eyes were fixed on me. In the end, he lived in a small world of just two. His world was eternal. Mine wasn't.

"I love you. Madly and blindly. And there's no limit to that", I said, keeping my promise from years ago, watching the end coming near.

He smiled, satisfied after all. And here I thought I could never make anyone happy.

In the end, the mind fights against itself. Its an exhausting, drawn out battle that comes to a conclusion far too late, decimating everything in between mercilessly, never leaving a trace. Perhaps, one ought to be grateful that it ends.

That day, hands held together, we made it to the end of the world.