Solitary Confinement

This picture has a deep connection to me in several ways. One, Max Payne was one of my favorite video games as a child. Video games compose a huge part of who I am, my childhood, my memories, how I interact with people, my humor, my reflexes, my humanity. I was and still am very much into console and computer games. Well not so much now because video games can put me in a hole if I play them too long. Max Payne was one of those rare games where the story was just as good, if not better, than the actual game play which is absolutely fantastic. It changed the shooter genre forever with its deep raw soulless narrating, excellent comic book style animations, and gory gruesome tonality. The game was truth in a concentrated version. The second reason this photo means so much to me is because it was the perfect depiction of how I felt for three years. This is my attempt at the describing the genius of the hole…

Despair, sadness, suicidal daydreams, murderous night dreams, eternal darkness, confusion, unanswered questions, hopelessness, emotional calamity, and endless thought. These are things that I encountered down there. Dark gray was the only color I could see, as far as my vision could go. Stumbling around in the dark is a frustrating feeling without all of your thoughts involved. What a clusterfuck. I just wanted to be happy but I didn’t know what that meant. I just kept searching and wandering, completely lost and unsure of where to go. I must have inadvertently traced my steps at least a thousand times down there. I can’t say I didn’t learn anything though. The most creative and imaginative enigmas are birthed in the darkness. Entities with no name or purpose that seem to shatter any soul they come in contact with. Embracing the darkness is a difficult and brave thing to do and just like Bunny, I want to be brave too. That’s why I write this for her. Chris would never do this but Fox has no problem obliging. Just as your steps seems to get firm and planted and a direction seems to be decided you trip over another thought that completely derails you from your destination. One good thing about being down there, if you can control it, is the over abundance of time. The clocks are warped moving at a snail’s pace and the ticking is incredibly loud. So distracting. Everything is a lost cause which only pushes you deeper into the void. Space is endless. Once you create a monster in there it will never stop growing. They always seem to feed on the blackness so why would it ever end. But that only creates more questions that you will never answer. Weighing you down and sinking you further, down into the deep waters. The only color besides gray and black you seem to find is red. I think this is your unconscious trying to save you. Throwing you a rope to grab onto so you can pull yourself out. But in this state red can be a very scary color. The color of love and passion and blood and lava. The soul burns sour and yearns for something. Your attention span is pushed to the limits. Everything that catches your attention just completely consumes you. I wish I would have written during this time it would have been interesting to read at least. Welp that’s enough for now. Writing about this makes my head spin.

I have dug my way out and now I scavenge for life’s greatest treasure. I know they are all hidden beneath the dirt, underneath the water, above the trees so I keep my nose to the wind like a hungry fox. My unlit beacon, I keep searching for you Bunny.