FEEL.

The brown paper box slid though the slot in the wall and Nihil took it to the table. Carefully positioning himself in the chair before pulling aside the flap to reach in. He would’ve loved to simply dump the box over his head—to feel multiple things at once. But that would’ve been it. He’d have nothing else to pass the rest of the day in his chamber.

There was little worse than feeling nothing.

So instead, Nihil wiggled his fingers around the box, searching for a single donated emotion. They were like colors; each with their own recognizable edges, and shapes, and scents.

He took a deep breath and pulled out a rippling navy blue silhouette. It was smooth like a skipping stone, and smelled faintly of the air after a warm rain.

It felt like regret.

Nihil closed his eyes.

A flash of an argument. A woman asleep in a hospital bed, a monitor flatlining, a casket… He’d felt regret before. It was as simple as an ex’s face in a crowd, or passing a school on the way to work.

But it was better than the alternative. Better than sitting in a box of apathy where life is being too tired to die.

His way was better.

Plus, there was always that thing beneath—that feeling. Sure, the mother might have passed, but at least he felt something for her. Seeing the ex, hurt, but there was still a past they shared. Looking at the child was a reminder of a different future, but a reminder all the same.

With the pain came more than the pain. The faint memory of an emotion he’d never experienced.

Then it would fade, as all emotions do. And Nihil was left with the hollow shell of a memory that meant nothing.

And on and on it continued.

Feeling. Day after day.

Anger, rigid and sharp, smelling of spilled blood—Sleep.

Fear, black and brittle and cold—Sleep.

Sorrow, like a heavy, odorless goo—Sleep.

On and on.

~

The brown paper box slid though the slot in the wall and Nihil took it to the table, noting how light it felt. It wasn’t usually so light?

He pulled aside the flap and reached in; wiggling his fingers around. It was particularly empty and he was beginning to fear the worst, when his hand brushed against—

The woman from yesterday, he realized.

He pulled the shape from the box—the locket. It was heart-shaped. A tawny, flat disk of something soft, like lint, or cotton. And the smell—like the corner of a memory.

So familiar… he thought.

But it wasn’t regret. It was something else. Something he’d never felt before.

Nihil closed his eyes.

A flash of a woman waiting beneath a tree. Their eyes touching. Her cheeks rising, arms outstretched, a hug.

Nihil gasped and pulled away.

It felt so warm, so… “Happy…”

The word left his lips like a breath; strange and wonderful. It felt right on his tongue. Not far from the calm that comes after fear, or the light after sorrow.

“Happy.” He breathed again.

And then the locket began to fade.

And Nihil felt something new. Something cold and blue that smelled of ash and dust.

Loss.

It didn’t evaporate like his sorrow. Didn’t disappear into his memories, and leave him unfeeling— It stayed. It was the memory. It was the disappearing.

And it spread: The loss of the feeling. From a mother he didn’t remember, to a love he’d lost. A love he’d lost, to a child he couldn’t have. It spread through every single one of his memories, and tainted each heavy, brittle-black iron.

Nihil didn’t simply feel blank like usual. He felt empty. Like a cup with all the water poured out. Like a man with less than nothing.

He let the hot tears drip down his cheeks. To know what he’d been missing, and to have that joy ripped from him.

“There has to be more.” He whispered, pushing his fingers into the box. “Something. Anything!” He shoved his hand further in, raking his skin against the thin opening. “WHERE IS THE REST?!” He screamed at the wall, dumped the box upside down, shook it furiously.

A door opened in the chamber.

~

To feel something is better than feeling nothing.