My chest feels heavy, my mind shutters at every shadow, my vision jumping from each corner, each wall, and each room, scanning for the chance of life. I hold my breath, counting the seconds that pass, each minute, each hour, each day meaning nothing to me, for no matter how long I counted the second, and glared at the clock… the sun could come crashing down, and to me… it could still be night. I hold my breath, and count the seconds, and hope to hear the sound of someone new. The thought of a host in such an abyss echoed in my hollow heart, ricocheting in my very core. One, two, three… but still no one is there, but who was I to expect? Who would come to see the lonely man who counted the seconds? Whom I may ask? A bell that would not ring a lock too rusty to turn, and a door too dusty to tempt anyone to knock on it, surely there was no one for me to expect… four, five, six… my face grows hot, my lungs shrink, and I gasp loudly releasing my breath. “Holding your breath is all fair and good” I would say, “but breathing quietly is much, much easier”. And so I did, I breathed so quietly that even the mice felt challenged to match my soft breathing. I then began to wonder; “where am I? In this room that is… am I by the book shelf, am I on the couch, perhaps I’m about to take a nap… I wonder if I’m sitting down, or standing up, or lying down by chance…” I feel so still, that my legs could not remember when they were last crossed, my throat so chap, that it could not recall the last note it sang, a piano collecting dust, an oven brittle cold, and a fridge lukewarm. As if there was no life in this little room, as if in this moment, in this second, I was not at all. “Not at all” what? You may ask, well simply not at all, like I’ve faded into the paint, or vanished into the floor boards. Whatever or wherever I was, I wasn’t there, for once I saw a piece of the world as if no one existed, as if I wasn’t anywhere to begin with. For all I know no one else existed either. I feel heavy and hollow… and I begin to choke on the heavy apple of nothingness.