The final page

--X--

He had searched for meaning all through his life. He had turned to religion, tried to create his own family, tried to connect to people... he had tried it all. After seeing failure repeatedly and horribly, he decided to quit it all. All in the search for meaning. He decided that he would live with nature and search for meaning within the deep recesses of his own mind. He would leave behind people and their artificial worlds. He would cut himself loose and sink into delicious depths of reason and knowledge. All by himself. He would write and record. He would create ideas. He would observe his own thoughts, catalogue them meticulously. In the end, all of it would make sense and he would achieve his purpose. 

As he wrote, he was consumed. He became obsessed with his interpretation of his world. He created his own concept of time. He created his unique method of counting it. He shed his worldly needs. He lived with nature and cut off any minute reflection of his painful and prolonged search for the answer to the question - why am I here. 

As days became months and years, the writer had became a part of his environment rather than sticking out as the only outside element in the jungle. In his mind, he had achieved much more than if he had remained in his previous life.Yet, sometimes he would sit at the edge of the jungle and stare at the lights in the distance that came to him as a sign of humanity's existence.

On his last day on Earth, he sat at his desk writing out what would be his last page. With his monk like existence and utter lack of contact with another human being, the writer had become the enlightened one. And he had as proof his hut that was filled with stacks of neatly inscribed paper. A lifetime of learning that came almost entirely from his mind alone. He was a philosopher and a sage. His quest for meaning had long passed. He had created a guide, a rule book for everyone to live by. The ultimate gateway to meaningfulness and fullfilment.

That afternoon he lay bent over his desk as the floodgates of the sky opened. The monsoon brought the walls of his hut down as his eyes stared into the distance. The water carried every sheet of paper that the writer ever laid his pen on. The water carried it into the river and then into the ocean. The words that had given his life meaning, the words that had recorded meaning in them, dissolved in the murky waters turning it into inky blue depths.

The End

The writer and other people

--IX--

There was not a single other human being in a radius of a few miles around his hut. It was just him, trees, birds and some unseen animals. There was a time when he was right in the middle of a sea of people and he felt so lonesome. Just the thought of being this far from any means of contact was exhilarating. He had great respect  for his fellows, but there was something that did not allow him to ever connect with them. In any case he had done well in the jungle. And he was not doing much for his kind. It was much better this way, he believed.

The writer's morning

--VIII--

A few hours before the sun rose, he woke up and breathed in the jungle air. A few moments later he was straining as much as possible to convert the vague images and emotions of his dreams in his mind into words before he lost them.  His hand moved across paper in swift motions as though it was racing against his brain - trying to capture its contents before they vaporized. He stretched his limbs and took a bit of time to recall where he was and what was going on. The reiteration of the knowledge of his surroundings hit him and filled him with a strange mixture of happiness for his miraculous escape and bitterness for the situations that caused him to attempt this escape. It was going to be a beautiful day. 

The writer's dream

 --VII--

As sleep crept over him he thought of what he would write the next day and how. Words danced in his head and he slipped slowly and effortlessly from concrete thoughts to wordless dreams. That night he would dream of the ending to his story.

Something set him apart

--VI--

The writer was an ordinary man. He did not have extraordinary capabilities. His teacher would say that he had no talent at all. But what he had was beyond the reach of most regular humans - perseverance. Of course this was debatable. But the writer had a history would prove this beyond a doubt.

The writer's past

--V--

Daylight crept in the next morning and filled his room with a pinkish orange colour. He squinted at the sun and stretched. It looked like a very promising day. Since the time he had left civilization he had barely felt his previous addictive tendencies. He did not need to smoke or check his correspondence obsessively. Yet he could choose to do these and feel no obligation to continue doing this as a necessary activity. The joys of reflecting on past failures, of looking at the long and tedious journey to reach this point.

The writer and time

--IV--

As he looked up at the moonhe realized that it was later than he had thought it was. The concept of time was boring to him. But he had come to terms with it and had understood how to deal with it. Now time worked for him.

The writer's walk

 --III--

He still had 8 hours to rest. That would do. The sun would rise in 10.

The weather was very comfortable and he enjoyed the sensation of movement after having spent all day behind a desk. A pair of eyes looked at him from up a tree. He looked up at it having sensed that he was being watched. He tried to discern the shape of the creature but could only catch a glimpse of a brownish orange tail as it moved swiftly away. He bent down to pick up a pebble that had rolled down to where he stood. Something or someone had caused it to move.

The writer's schedule

--II--

His book was almost complete. He was going to complete his story and give it an ending that was deserved by the intensity that filled the previous pages. He paused and looked at the pile of neatly arranged sheets on his desk. He could see in them an inspired piece of hard work that had taken eighteen hours a day in the last 4 months. He had come to the end of his eighteen-hour period today and was going to go to sleep. Then he decided that he would take a short walk outside instead.

The writer

 --I--

Threads of words held in them flowery metaphors of meaning and flew out of his pen as he drew out shapes on coarse paper. As his sinewy arm worked feverishly, there were a few beads of sweat that formed on his forehead and threatened to flow off onto to the ink. But he stopped it with a swift movement of his free hand. His brow went from being to not being furrowed as he continued to write - as each idea formed it went from one position to the other. His thick grey hair hung onto his head as it moved and shifted with the brow. The effect of this combined movement was that of almost seeing his brain thinking out each thought.