Testing

“This is your test”, he said.
He pulled an ostentatiously long silencer out of his back pocket and an ostentatiously small gun out of his inside pocket and screwed them together. He ran his fingers up and down the length of the barell, slowly but deliberately.
“It’s like a dance, just like a dance. Just put your hands in the air and do a spin. Good. Now walk to that wall” (he indicated a nearby wall) “look at it” (I looked at it) “closer” (closer) “study it” (I studied) “notice the bumps, the intricate crags and cracks, the perfection of it all. Notice the beauty in its whitewashed absurdity, so blank yet so varied, but with nothing to offer. It is pure beauty, devoid of any meaning. Nothing exists there, it floats in empty space, a brain in a jar. Look. See. Fear. Think. Love.
“A blackened piece of toast tastes like hell. Eat the whitewash, feel the poisonous perfection tarnish the inside of your veins. Lick it” (he pushed my head against the wall) “can you not taste it? Does it not warm your soul? Replenish your spirit? Accomplish your tasks? Better your world? Diversify your palette? Does it not destroy and replenish at the same time? Can’t you feel it”, he moaned, “oh can’t you feel it?” A gast of pure ecstacy escaped him. He pressed a gun against my ear. The bullet slid in with no noise at all, swimming through my ear canal. The beauty is gone now, if it ever was there.