Was I always like this? I haven’t felt any great changes within me, but that never felt like a problem before. It stands to reason, that I’ve been this way all along. It’s a fact that I have never given a second thought to, much less worried about. How can I not worry now?

I went to see him. It was in the midst of that much needed rest. I don’t mean to be overly dramatic, but I was starting to get desperate. I suspected that the insomnia was caused by him. He had somehow found some avenue of resistance that I had overlooked. I could never be sure though. It was all I could do to keep us functioning, moving through life. Now, I was looking for answers.

It's hard to explain the small pocket in my mind that he has inhabited for so long. It’s a place that things often go when I’ve forgotten about them. He transformed it into his own little facsimile of our old bedroom. It was childish, but it’s hard to judge a space that is only as real as he is. That statement was more comforting when I was fairly certain that he was just a figment of my imagination.

The room itself was bizarre. Two realities had been compressed on top of each other. The walls of my childhood room looked like a tapestry created by a mad man, each one adorned with matchbox cars, a rain-soaked basketball, stacks of trading cards, and other dregs from my life. This strange collection from my past would have been strange enough, but what made it unsettling was the way each object begun to sink into the walls’ surface.

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The swirling void’s infection of the old room wasn’t limited to the walls. It wasn’t as noticeable at first. Nothing appeared to be firmly held into place by gravity. It felt as if everything had begun to slightly tilt as whatever was holding this space together loosened.

I wonder what would happen to him if this entire place unraveled. Would he cease to exist too? If that were the case, I’d gleefully pull apart what is holding this place together. After all, I knew what I was trying to do when I kept us working late. Knew the punishment I was exacting when I took us into the room, to shred paper until the early hours of the morning.

I had only ever spoken to him in here. Even when we weren’t speaking, his presence was indistinguishable from this place. What did it mean if he couldn’t be found here either?

As I continued to look around, trying to find some clue as to where he went, I became aware of a much broader change that was happening to the room. It had taken me so long to notice because the change was broad, affecting the whole room at once. It was like the darkening of a room as the sun dips behind clouds. Only it wasn’t just that things were becoming darker. It was as if the very color in every belonging, object, and even the walls itself had started to bleed away.

I did not watch the room decay for much longer. Like in photos from Chernobyl taken after the meltdown, there was a force that filled the very air. Staying there for another moment felt like I was irrevocably infecting myself with toxins. Perhaps he has already been dissolved. I suppose that only time will tell.