This is something I wrote during the term break as a result of rather sleepless nights and a strange excitement that came over me.. I had fun writing it, but it isn't something to be taken too seriously..

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Running through the dark streets, knowing your foot has touched the cold, worn stones slippery with rain, I search for you. I do not trip, I do not fall – my feet, dark and muddy, grip the piercing ground. I can feel your prescence around. I shake as the frozen air penetrates me, yet I must keep moving – soon, I will find you! My eyes twirling madly, caressing every small detail around me, I search..

That was the bar you went to – I know, for the voiceless ones told me. “We saw him, dearie,” they said with their creaking whispers, smiling at me with their non-existant mouths. I open the door, rush in, my chest endlessly moving. My breathing is loud, it's like the sound of a fish struggling to breathe the air to live..yet its noise is lost among the voices of the voiceless ones. My gaze searches the small, dusty, red room, my lungs breathing the strange air – the air that you breathed.. Perhaps here, I will find you. And then, I see it. That glass with the crystal-clear liquid inside it. Not much is left, but even a drop of that would help me trace you. I see the mark your lips have left on the glass – pitch black, like liquid poison. I run as fast as I can, for I need that glass, yet I hardly seem to be moving as I lunge forward. One of them, one of the others, picks it up slowly, those dark pits of eyes turned to me mockingly. And as he makes his way to the other side, he glances at me once more and drops it. I fall, I break into pieces simultaneously. Now..who will collect me, how will I go on with my search..?

I gather myself once more, though not quite as strong and stable as I was once, before. I carry myself with the cold night breeze, to others' memories. I search for you once more, in those dark visions; lacking any sound, any voice, I try to find your traces. There are so many small thoughts, so many impressions surrounding me; yet I can not read them – they belong to the voiceless ones. And yet, I go on that boat; I go there, where I know you will be. I ask them for you, my pride and my fear both defeated, now.. They look at me oddly, expressionlessly – is that a smile on their lips, even though..even though they don't exist? “He's not here anymore,” they say. “You see, he has switched places with you!” I gaze at the colorless sea for a moment before closing my eyes, returning.

My next stop is a collection of pictures.. All of those small pages, slippery to my touch. I see you, frozen.. I wonder if you can see me through that lens..can you..? The pictures, I'm afraid, are of no use – after having studied you for a lifetime, what more could they give me?

I lay down at last – it is still dark; both the outer world, and this small corner I call 'my mind'. Perhaps it is fit that I should turn myself in, turn myself in to the sweet and bitter veils of slumber. Perhaps it is in sleep that I will find you – yet who knows which course the kaleidoscope of dreams will take us? Perhaps I will be searching for you in the past once more, running through the deck of that board, the white walls illuminated by the water's reflection – perhaps this time, their expressionless masks can truly be removed, and I will be able to see their true faces..if they have any. Perhaps I will find you in that nightmarish school, completely empty this time. To give you a large, rusty key you may use to open me, and then tell you the greatest secret of my life. No..I can't. We might be standing on that wooden bridge, standing in the middle of that green pond. A sunny day; I might be gazing at those snowy lilies, an equally white dress surrounding my body. Perhaps..perhaps you will walk over without getting me to hear or see. And would I, then, feel you wrap your arms around me gently, and hear those words from you that I was once too cowardly to utter? Now, my dreams have picked their pace, I can not stop dreaming..I can not wake up. And I see you in that chamber, filled with so many others. I watch you curiously, you do not see me. And then she walks over to you, so much better than I! And she kisses you, even though it is not love she feels. I open my eyes slowly – relieved, perhaps, that it was merely a dream. I can not find you hidden in slumber, either..

As I go out, out to breathe the fresh morning air, surrounded by a sky smeared with colors by the fingers of dawn, I find you. I find you as I walk, on a faded page, yellowed and dusty and crumbling from age. In my memories, you are walking by..And then, then I see you once more – seperated from the voiceless ones, yet standing among them, smiling at me mockingly. I take a step forward, you do not budge. I stare at you with eyes filled with tears and awe..and then I run to you once more.

Where are you? “He has disappeared,” they say to me, cackling among themselves silently. I stop, staring at the passing crowd; knowing, fully, that I will begin my search for you once more.. Knowing, fully, that this is all a game. Knowing, fully, that you loathe, despise, belittle me..