The Nothing Man.

"In the darkness of dreams he lived..."

It is often said that during a man's life, his life and opportunities are defined by his actions.
But what of his dreams? Rarely do we pause to consider the impetus for change lurking within our own conscious, toiling and laboring away from prying eyes to provide visions of a kind never before seen - shared by all and yet unique to one only; the dreamer himself.
It goes without doubt that dreams, though nepenthe they may be, are fleeting and disappear as quickly as they arrive, leaving behind the smallest of dissociated fragments from which to piece together what happened - or to be more accurate, what was imagined to happen. Men blunder and grasp at the ether with mortal tools to decipher the meaning of these singular experiences; in childhood we wallow in realms imagined, limited only by the power of imagination and creativity. In time, the outside finds a way to slowly but surely grind away at our passion, our drive, our thoughts, dulling man and woman with the prosaic, the tangible, that which can be seen and felt and heard and proved to be real. We scoff at our dreams, never once realizing just how powerful they can be, instead clinging to a reality our own five senses struggle to conceptualize and form and bring into a shape most pleasing and most comprehensible to our own minds.

Once, many years ago or perhaps even mere days in the past, there walked upon the green earth a man for whom the poison of human experience had not yet become manifest. His name was Nothing, and his features unknown, for never did anyone record any impression of him, nor did they have any need to, for he would be wandering from city to country, from town to village, from new to old, never once remaining in one place for more than he needed. His clothes were of a most peculiar demeanor, and it was evident that the man carried incalculable age - yet his peculiar tongue and wandering visions indeed led people to shy away, so much so that the man was more often than not left to his own devices to go about his merry business. When he spoke, he spoke not of current affairs, nor of any topic the twittering people would indulge in. Rather, he told the people of the realms unexplored within their own minds - the beauteous lands uncharted by any explorer or found on any map, realms which anyone keen of mind could access and wander in for interminable spans of time. His words however, were not heeded, and rather than acceptance, he found only derision and scorn from the ungrateful masses, who jeered at him for his fantastical imaginings, finding him and his proclamations too fanciful, too idealistic for such a world as theirs.
He lived in the darkness of dreams and the light of imagination, for the real world held no promise for him, and its inhabitants he found too capricious, too brooding and mercurial to ever understand what he spoke of. Within his heart, he held hope that even a few would listen to what he had to say and join him in his reverie, leaving behind their worries and entering a realm many brushed past without ever considering its significance. Not one soul listened, and as the days rolled on and as seasons changed radiant summer to subdued autumn, and once more to dead winter, the man faltered in his step, his detachment from society growing and growing, opening a chasm so wide he soon believed himself unable to ever convince the ant-minds of the blissful cities unexplored, unfathomable empires at the service of those willing to envision and look beyond the squabbles and worries of their pale blue dot.

He was alone in his musings, he realized, for not one single spirit had joined him in his quest to capture that innocence, an innocence lost once the malignancy of mortal existence sets its hideous tendrils into the hearts and minds of all human life. Seeking much-needed comfort, soon he slumps into into dreams once more under the influence of ataractic opiates, seeking the joy which remains oh so elusive in the corporeal world.
The dreams are nepenthe to him - a balm against the sorrow and tragedy of reality, yet also they are his downfall, entrenching him further and further from those who would reject him and even those who would join him. In time, he was truly alone, as no longer did he walk the land of men; he walked among stars and danced with the divine, the pleasures of this world and the radiance within defined only by the limits of his
vision and the zenith of his senses. Roaming along melodious gilded fields of gold and silver, diving in murmuring opiate oceans of limitless color, and soaring in susurrating skies truly endless, there was no sight too humdrum nor a pleasure too lackluster in the land of endless sleep; a singular land belonging to him and him only.
Whenever he was roused from slumber by the prying hands of corporeality, his opiates grew in strength, and for longer he dwelt more in illusion after illusion to avoid all that would harm him and all that would worry him. This cycle of awakening and dormancy, the battle between the physical and psychic worlds waged on, until soon his precious sedatives failed to manifest and now for many an age, he was trapped in the grey of hideous life, confined by the chains worn by so many before him and the countless after he too fades away from terraqueous existence. Attempting to conform with the world he had for so long defied, he could not find anywhere that would take him, anyone who would love him; or anytime to walk back into the lands he had been denied, and even though he would still dream as before, his experiences lacked the color, the hue... the life which had been present in his reverie and step for as long as he could remember, and all came off as tawdry imitations of a splendor far greater than he was able to visualize.
Beginning his journey, this time the man did not stop at any cities, nor at any towns; instead he kept walking, down winding roads and gnarled woods, over curvaceous hills and lapping rivers, into the wild expanses that still lay beyond
Arriving in a field of feldgrau to meet equally bleak skies, turning around, he could see a singular tower stretching up, but never quite reaching the scudding clouds above its own height.
Initially, he felt confused, wondering whether this was truly real or just another wishful imagining, and all he knew was that he felt a strange compulsion urging him, beckoning him towards the top and onto the balcony present. Without hesitation, he ran into the tower, ascending the stone steps with greater bounds the further he ran upwards.
Before he knew it, he had arrived upon the balcony - yet nothing happened.
Disappointed at first and downright disheartened a few moments later, he prepared to disembark down the stairs and away from this place, when it was at this time that he heard a certain shimmering above his head. Looking up from his position, the man was in awe as the skies above coruscated with the very sights he had once seen in dreamless days and endless nights; a veritable bevy of all he had once loved and still longed to touch, to feel... to behold.
Luminous angelic stars and shimmering constellations shone across the once-grey sky, the eyes of Andromeda glittering down and filling him with child-like awe and wonder, the very emotions which had eluded him in his adult, mortal life. Murmuring around him rose to an almighty crescendo, harmonious unseen seraphs singing all the praise of the known and unknown earth without pause or needless inflection. Colors known and colors unknown flooded his vision, and all throughout he certainly could feel himself no longer bound to the earth and instead dissipating into the empyrean currents of wanderlust he had fleetingly rode upon under feeble narcotics, and it was now that he knew he would be safe, free from mortal quandaries and free to pursue the fancies of his secondary, disembodied life in an ethereal, eternal realm that would exist for now and forever more so long as the ant-minds who mocked him still had breath to give and dreams to live.
Now he was gone, and at last, out of reach.

Once, many years ago or perhaps even mere days in the past, there walked upon the green earth a man for whom the poison of human experience had not yet become manifest. His name was Nothing, and his features unknown, for never did anyone record any impression of him, nor did they have any need to, for he would be wandering from city to country, from town to village, from new to old, never once remaining in one place for more than he needed.
At long last, after years of toiling in transient life, he had ascended towards the stars of his own ecstasy, enraptured by a beauty only he could behold, now within the cities and streets where dreams live and sleep.
No living soul had known of his visions, though a few babbling folk may have glimpsed the motionless body of who appeared to be a vagabond, lying below the crumbling balcony of a once-proud tower.
Though his corporeal shell lay broken, it did not matter, for his name was Nothing, and it is now that he dances in midnight skies, living in the dreams he once could only imagine.

Picture of silhouette: http://phoenixstamatis.deviantart.com/art/Storm-Silhouette-75785688