There. A flickering bioluminescence.

It draws me, a hint of a moth to a hint of a flame. It is a glass canister, with metal stoppers and a series of trailing cords like the delicate strands of a jellyfish. My spine floats within the jar, suspended in its own private sea. The blue light of Nora's touch is still flickering along the ridges of my vertebrae.

My head, which had once sat atop that curve of bone, is missing. Depending on which philosophy of the soul you lay your faith, the loss of my head can be read as a kidnapping of the soul, a symbolic reflection of the chaotic personality splinters wreaking havoc within me, or as a simple reminder that he who cannot see nor speak might as well be headless anyway.

Are we not just translators? Interpreters of signs and portents? Are we not glorified fortune tellers, charlatans who run ganglia and neural clusters through our fingers instead of cards? What we see in dreams is nothing more than a welter of symbols, what we read is nothing more than an abstract language of 4D pictograms.

My head is a symbol. My spine is a symbol. This endless darkness is a symbol. Yes. Yes. None of it is real. Nothing is real. My observational viewpoint is also an interpretation, a symbolic representation of intelligence, a reflection of God's original all-seeing eye. I am not real.

(listen to the waves, says the fisherman)

What then? If I am not real, then what is my observation worth? The universe splits into infinite idiosyncrasies, and nothing ever is, again.

This is Bleak Zero. I can feel it whispering to me, crooning its song of dissolution. Just empty this part; yes, you won't need that anymore. Just knock out few more lights. Just a little more darkness. Whispering like a persistent street-faire hawker. Just one more. Just one. Knock it all down. Win a prize.