Ab Aeterno [Furfur Diary 18]

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"I couldn't tell you when it started, nor do I believe that I could properly describe the feeling to one not in a similar situation. For the sake of record I should at least give it a chance. I would feel rather put out if I had not made even the slightest attempt at trying to communicate.

I feel like it should have been different in retrospect. I cannot really fathom what 'it' exactly is. Should I call it my re-death? No.

That was not right either.

I was not dead. I could not be any more dead than what I once was, that was for certain.

I suppose the word I might look for is...faded.

It was a gradual decline and I must admit that at first I had not noticed it happening. I believed it was a product of the easily distracted youth. A passing glance, a sudden loss of interest, a conversation cut short. I thought these were actions on the behalf of the others.

It was normal occurrences, I did not think much of it. I really did not think about much of anything at all these days.

Ah..yes. I suppose that would be one way to describe it to the living..loss of interest. I had lost my interest in trying to be part of your world. It took some time for the realization to set in that my current predicament was a product of my own lack of effort.

I no longer cared to interact with the living, and as a result I rendered myself incapable of doing so.
It was rather pathetic in some respect. I stood silently and became an observer. I would not scold them any longer for walking through me. I would make no effort to walk around obstacles. I would stop obeying those notions of gravity and other laws which bound me to the forest. I was..tired. Lack luster. Fed up with it.

The forest, in turn, became 'fed up' with me.

It took weeks..months...nearly a year for me to notice that I had fallen back to square one.
My form was haphazard, my mask faded, and my antlers barely solid enough to hold the weight of the birds that use to gather around me. In time I lost them. I did not notice. The mask dropped off months ago and with it took the magic of my antlers. I did not care.

I had, unwittingly, made myself what I had always been. A specter. A soul on the edge of the forest. An outsider looking in.

I was careless and now I realized that my own indifference was now a forced reality.
I stood right in front of the friends I had once followed devotedly. Each word fell on deaf ears as they started through me as if I were non-existent.

To tell the truth..I believe that I almost could be. If I had not noticed in time..if I became completely indifferent to the fading and remained stoic. What would have happened then if I had not taken such actions to prevent such a measure? Would I have disappeared completely?

No.
I was done with this fading existence.
It was time to stop being an observer...but what interaction could be done by a broken soul?

It would take time. It always took time. I took months building my own character strength up to the point of receiving affection and allowed my own carelessness to put me back at square one.

Well..I had to start somewhere.

Talking to myself was always a good starting point. I was always proud of how good a listener I was. So brings me to another long rambling discussion with myself. It's funny, really, how long I may have been doing this with no one actually noticing. I could have loud obnoxious arguments, I could scream in their faces, I could stand between them and others they conversed with and my own decisions caused me to become nothing more than the occasional cold chill of air. "

He paused and sighed pressing his face against the nearest tree before looking back at the small gathering of deer. He tried to concentrate and force them to hear. This had only been one of many he had reached out to for days on end. Truth to be told he was far more civil this time, his earlier attempts marked by throwing fits and screaming loudly to try and elicit a response. It was sad childish behavior, but he had no choice.

He found himself less than the undead, less than a specter, far lowlier than a ghost. He was a poltergeist only able to hold small influence on the world surrounding him. This, however, was going to change. No matter how many nights he had to try and force himself back into a steady existence.
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Ab Aeterno has been translated in this context to mean "from an infinitely remote time in the past".

So uh. Hey. Been a while. c:
Takes a certain frame of mind to write for him and finally was able to get back into it for the first time in 1/2 a year.