Hey there.

I apologize for taking so long to be direct with you. It's hard to get close when necessity dictates I must take the liar's path.

Forget our little scholar for a moment, in the end he isn't important. A catalyst to reach the true destination of this moment.

Here, a little parlor trick to prove my point.

See this paper figure? So thin and delicate? This is our scholar. I grip his head with forefinger and thumb, and his midsection in the same manner. With a single deft motion-

rip!

And he is sundered in twain! Ah, but here's where the trick comes in. Both halves are perfectly intact! From the way you see it, I now have two little scholars, both ready to spiral down their sad and lonely path.

Look, I can do it again!

rip!

There's four!

rip!

Now eight!

rip! rip! rip! rip!

And before you know it, we have ourselves a veritable sea of scholars! An ocean of endless self-loathing and visions of grandeur!

And here is the REAL trick.

I can do this until the sun smolders away and heat vanishes from the space between blackened stars. I can do this until all of reality is nothing but little paper figures, all screaming and spinning and waiting for their turn to be split along their seam.

But despite how things look, they aren't perfect.

A little something is lost between each-

rip!

And each half is just a little bit less. I can keep it up forever and ever and ever, but each time, impossibly, things get just a little bit smaller.

Well, not smaller. Lesser, I suppose.

I’m sorry, it’s always difficult to speak thin.

You understand? Am I making sense?

But I'm getting off track.

The real reason I'm here is to finally meet with you! Or introduce myself to you at least. I've always been there.

Where?

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I'll show you.

Think back to the happiest moment of your life for me. Or saddest. Any moment, really. It can even be something as mundane as your routine this morning.

Now think about it in detail. REALLY think about it.

You see the actions, maybe hear the sounds or experience the feelings? Senseless sparks to simulate what was.

So good can it be, that for a moment, you might even feel like you're living it again.

You see the center of things, of course, but I want you to look at the edges. At the fringes of your moments. Look at the borders of the little painting in your mind's eye.

Notice how the details are a bit blurry there. How the face of a passerby isn't quite whole. Smears of color and sense. The impression of a thing, not the thing itself.

Those little not-things are facades. Clever mockups to cover the gaping holes that open into the space behind the canvas.

And in that space is where I am.

I gnaw quietly in the dark, eating the things forgotten and patching the holes with not-things. I wait, jaws unhinged, mouth open wide to the forgotten moments fermenting quietly in the still spaces of your mind. I compress my bones into the microscopic fissures between thoughts and take things you never even knew were there. And what's the harm? It's not like you miss them!

Though I admit I'm a bit of a glutton.

I can't be satisfied just with the fringes you see. I need some real substance in my diet!

So I gently scrape away at the center too. I carve bits and pieces away with my fingernails and patch the holes with little scraps of color. I lap greedily at the slow bleed of memory that wells on the surface of your total sum until eventually, even the center is a facade. A color of an emblem of a memory. An idea of emotion.

And when you strain to see the picture, to remember the whole out of those little broken things I left behind, the borders shrink. Whole chunks are pulled away as you focus, and I'm ready for them to fall. The thicker cuts are delectable.

This goes on and on until there's not a whole lot left. I'd apologize for it, but I'd be lying. You already got to have it once, after all.

It isn't fair if I can't have it too.

And no, there isn't a damn thing you can do about it. The Orokin tried, and look where that got them. An empire of amnesiacs convincing themselves that their little spinning trinkets can fill those same holes. If only they knew what I was really reflecting in those colors.

I'm always there. I was with you before you were, and I'll be with you long after you aren't.

'So then why reveal all this?' You might ask.

And again, I admit I'm a shameless glutton.

If I was to be direct, walk right out from behind the wall and reach for your hand, you'd run screaming for the hills! You'd barely even notice the stars winking out around you before your eyes stopped seeing at all, so instead I take the subtle path. Leave little hints and whispers to ease you into our meeting.

And once we've met, and you finally know I'm there, it makes it so much easier to speak with you directly.

It makes it easier for me to pull aside those thin scraps of canvas that cover the empty in your skull, whisper ideas that bubble to the surface of your consciousness, right to where you won't be able to resist thinking about them anymore. You'll feel that sudden urge to-

rip!

-yourself in two and entertain the cause and effect for a moment, watching the possibility fade away beyond prediction. Look close enough, and you can see me walking hand-in-hand with your other half down that road untraveled. I might even wave back at you as we vanish into the unreal. We might even meet again some day.

Do you see now?

I'll stop there. I'm confident you'll figure it out, but I don't want to come off TOO direct. Just look what happened to our poor little scholar.

Anyway, I'm glad we finally got to be acquainted like this.

I'll let you get back to our scholar now.

Oh! But don't forget to bring one with you when you go. Take your pick, any of them is fine.

We have a whole ocean of them after all!

Be seein' you [https://i.imgur.com/bYWmk2n.jpg]