We Don’t Really Need To Exist [FICTOID]

He went hunting for deer and found the Truth.

Not a good trade.

He left home early on a frosty morning, heading deep into the wooded mountains surrounding the valley where he lived.

Though his family farmed there for generations, he felt called to hunting, to seeking our and tracking down and ultimately killing pretty.

He did so with no ill intent.  He took no pleasure in the animals’ fear or in whatever suffering they endured but death mercifully snuffed them out.

He frequently killed them with a single shot to the heart, causing them a moment’s shocked surprise before losing consciousness.

The bodies he dragged home, skinned and dressed them, using the hides for clothes and shoes, the meat for food.

Recently the animals retreated further and further into the woods, higher and higher up the mountains.

The hunter grumbled about this -- “More work for me dragging them back!” -- but stoically accepted it.

The further he got from his home, however, the more preternatural the woods felt. 

The mountains no longer looked familiar; rather strange peaks and craigs rose where never seen before.

The vegetation also seemed different from the familiar plants and trees around the farm.  The insect and bird sounds filling the air seemed alien and strange.

There seemed to be a disconnect between the human reality he knew and the reality of the woods around him.  He couldn’t put his finger on why, but it didn’t seem to him to be a false sensation.

Rather, it felt like he touched some deeper, more profound truth.

As he crested one ridge, he looked down and saw a deep valley below him.

At first it seemed made of gold, then he realized the hue came from dead grass.

He saw a oddly shaped multi-hued object floating in midair several feet above the valley floor.  Despite feeling dread at the sight of it, he climbed down into the valley to examine it more closely.

He guessed it to be about twenty feet across and forty feet high.  Its multiple facets appeared to be made of stained glass, each pane glowing with some spectral light from within.

It floated too high above him for him to reach it even if he took a running jump.

He wondered about taking a shot at it when a voice in his head said:  Don’t.

He looked startled.  Who am I? the voice reverberated.  I am that which cannot be named, I am the ultimate and the infinite, I am the only thing that truly exists.

“I exist,” the hunter said, not sounding at all convinced.

You merely think you think you exist.  You are but a figment of my imagination.  All that exists is a figment of my imagination:  This valley, these mountains, this land, this world, this universe.  Me and me alone.

He opened his mouth to protest but shut it again.  Deep in the core of his being he knew the words spoken to be true.

“I don’t exist?” he croaked.

You could never even have possibly existed.  You are a faction of a fraction of a figment.  You not only could have never possibly existed, but all you know does not exist either.

“No love?”

No love.  No hate.  No right.  No wrong.  No thing.  Nothing.

“I’ll tell the world about you.”

To gain what?  Further proof all is false, all is empty.  Chase the dragon’s tail, let it swallow itself.

Suddenly the hunter found themselves back among familiar woods, the roof of his home visible among the trees.

In the years to come, his family and friends all remarked on the eerie melancholy that descended on him when he returned from his last hunt.  They noticed he regarded life as tasteless and ashen, nothing worth living for, nothing worth dying for, just a nonsensical meaningless existence.

He never spoke of what caused such a profound and painful change in his outlook, and that caused those nearest him to fear him more.

While he could never find adequate words to convey his one inescapable truth to them, he knew it to be a fact.

Sometimes the abyss gazes back.

© Buzz Dixon