I’m bored and I hate being bored.

There’s nothing to do.

People are around but they don’t notice me and I have little care to speak to them. I know that whatever they prattle will eventually turn into a self-interest story filled with not-so-personal wisdom and attempts to subconsciously subjugate me. They’re right. I’m nothing and, even in their worst idealism and situations, they’re better and justified.

All the time.
People always do that. I don’t need loathing and disinterest mixed in with my boredom.

That’s all there is in this in-between place.
I’m gray. I’m a shade. Hell judged me not to be horrendous enough to ride on the river. I’m too dark to walk through the gates and onto the streets of gold.

So, here I am surrounded by other gray people.

At one point, I thought this would be the best place to be. This is where the real people go, those not good, not bad, and not baptized. The thinkers, lovers, and philosophers would be here. The prospect of having deep conversations with Socrates, Homer, and other intellectuals for eons was actually my idea of heaven. I would be surrounded by inquiring and curious minds who could explore the entire spectrum of life. That is a dream.

They are all here.
All here and more.

However, this is a place of nothingness. Life, death, and, more importantly, growth does not exist. Even if I wanted to, I couldn’t discuss anything with Socrates. I don’t speak his language and he doesn’t mine. That would mean a growth of ideas and that is forbidden. Beyond forbidden. It simply doesn’t exist in this reality.

Besides, even if I could, I’m sure Socrates would explain how his life was better than mine. His dog could beat up my dog. His lover was more of a love than mine.

Bastards. All of them.

We’re shades because we didn’t devote and align ourselves with good or evil. We’re gray and serve onto to make the brilliant brighter.

All I can do is walk and think knowing that I will never have a new idea again.

So, I wander. I walk in no direction as this place has no landscape. The cardinal directions are unknown.

My thoughts drift to him.
He knows. He must know that I’m here and I have to speculate.

Does he sniff the nightgown I wore the night before?
Ragged stitching barely held together the oversized robe. But, the sandelwood lotion I slathered on every night before sleeping had sunk into its threads.

Does he still sleep on the same sheets that we last made love on?
The sheets hold the sweat of our bodies last touching. I wonder if he curls up on them as he sleeps while clutching the threadbare quilt we used.

Does he?
Does he?

Does he remember me at all?
Does he care?
Does he love?

Doubt fills the gap that the absence of growth leaves behind.
Stillness. No forward. No back. No dread. Only uncertainty.

Still, I know without a doubt that we will never meet.
He was too brilliant for this gray.

And that one certainty is my anchor and so I remain gray.