He might have been bored, he’d nothing he had to do although perhaps there were things he might do. He had pretty much everything he needed although, perhaps, not everything he wanted. But it seemed there was something vacant, a hole to be filled, either temporally or materially, or perhaps emotionally. Who knew? He knew he didn’t, but still, he felt incomplete, or perhaps, more accurately, uncompleted. But not an uncomfortable lack of completion.

He’d had a full life, too full all too often, but perhaps, not full enough. More than his share of success and friends and lovers, but then, perhaps not the right ones. And more than his share of suffering and tragedy and disappointment, but then again, not enough to have impeded his progress, although progress towards what he knew not. He wasn’t always in stasis or limbo, that was the exception, but then again, the exception was seemingly the now.

Odd. He usually had an abundance of feelings, an enormous capacity to feel both the positive and the negative, perhaps an aspect of bipolarism. His life tended towards highs and lows with few plains of tranquility. But not now, now he seemed stuck in a comfortable sort of mire, too comfortable from which to seek escape although oases formed all around him, or perhaps they were just mirages and illusions, but in any case, lethargically out of reach.

Colors had faded, as had odors and flavors; as had sensations, both physical and mental, but his imagination was fine and filled the gaps. It was like a vortex leading to a black hole, or perhaps just a wormhole, but he was trapped in the event horizon, spinning around and around, faster and faster, but seemingly static. He felt a need to explore the other side, the white hole, or whatever the opposite of a wormhole might be, just … not yet.

He might have been bored, he’d nothing he had to do although perhaps there were things he might do. He had pretty much everything he needed although, perhaps, not everything he wanted. But it seemed there was something vacant, a hole to be filled, either temporally or materially, or perhaps emotionally. Who knew? He knew he didn’t, but still, he felt incomplete, or perhaps, more accurately, uncompleted. But not an uncomfortable lack of completion.

Entropy.

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© Guillermo Calvo Mahé; Manizales, 2021; all rights reserved. Please feel free to share with appropriate attribution.

Guillermo (“Bill”) Calvo Mahé (a sometime poet) is a writer, political commentator and academic currently residing in the Republic of Colombia (although he has primarily lived in the United States of America of which he is also a citizen). Until 2017 he chaired the political science, government and international relations programs at the Universidad Autónoma de Manizales. He is currently a strategic analyst employed by Qest Consulting Group, Inc. He has academic degrees in political science (the Citadel), law (St. John’s University), international legal studies (New York University) and translation and linguistic studies (the University of Florida’s Center for Latin American Studies). He can be contacted at guillermo.calvo.mahe@gmail.com and much of his writing is available through his blog at http://www.guillermocalvo.com.