They say that if you fall into a black hole, a person watching you from afar sees you slow down until you stop, taking an infinite time to fall in. You, on the other hand, witness a finite period of time before you are subsequently destroyed by the forces tearing you apart, atom by atom.

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The lights surrounded me as I cradled the life I had destroyed. I never knew how much one life could mean to another until that moment when I placed my hand on the head of the misshapen corpse I held in my arms.

Where would that person be in ten years if I hadn't rounded that corner?
Would he be dating a pretty girl?
Would he be top of his class?

What was this thing that I now felt so close to? Why was he now a part of me? Why would he torment me for the rest of my life?

All perception of time ended for me right then and there. I can't explain in words how unsettling it is to watch everything crawl so slowly at the speed of light. The human mind is an amazing thing. All it takes is one experience to distort everything you know and love into a monstrous aberration that slowly kills you from the inside-out, while you know that at the same time almost everybody else is experiencing the illusion of happiness.

Forgive me, I shouldn't say that happiness is merely an 'illusion'. Happiness exists, as intangible as it is. But what point is there to try and achieve one seemingly simple goal when thousands of other horrors are out to prevent you from ever reaching it? Why should I listen to the doctors who tell me to move on and make the most of my life when I know that there will be so many obstacles in my way?

And even if I somehow attain this impossible goal, would it ever heal me? Or would I still be forever plagued with my scars burning inside of me, reminding me of how I cried as I held that boy in my arms and how I screamed every night for twenty years in that cell that replaced my home?

I have come to accept the nothingness my new world gives me. This is all that I can ask for. I won't bury my scars away with my prescribed medications and useless mental exercises. Just let me live with my apathy.

For if I neither love nor hate, perhaps nothing will strike me down in whatever future I have left.

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Black holes exist a lot closer than you would think. The one in my heart consumed me and destroyed me on that day. For everybody else, my life seemed to come to a screeching halt. For me, in that one moment, my universe collapsed onto me and tore me apart. I have fallen into an inescapable void where I know I am dead, yet my image lives on for an infinite time. It's funny how the nature of things work....

I suppose I should be grateful that my son taught me this on that day that I killed him.