Yesterday, I was worried about something.

Well, not exactly worried, that isn't the right word...apprehensive maybe, or concerned. I couldn't describe it to you exactly. Maybe something in Latin or Greek. A guttural tribal grunt. Deep in the heart of Africa I'm sure they have the proper translation.

I felt something so basic that it burned the inside of my stomach as if I had swallowed a bottle of bleach. My gut clenched up and my breath came in ragged gasps as i struggled to understand the source of my fear. Surely this panic attack had some basis in reality in which i could justify this carnal emotion. There was something so primal about the way I surrendered completely to the whims of this emotion, the way I gave up all hope and all love, all happiness if even for that fraction of a microsecond.

In my reverie I was blessed, if one could call it that. With a sense of utter vastness. Surely man, in his early days of existence, must have looked up at the unfettered sky with its murky purple arms of the Milky Way and felt much the same sense of perpetual scope. A universe not only of size, but also of opportunity. Never-ending possibilities stretching out across a sea of lights waiting patiently for those who claim it. He no doubt felt much like the narrator in Flatland, displaced from his out sense of dimension at set at odds with himself by a higher being.

Floating thus through my innermost thoughts i decided to explore a little deeper since the opportunity was afforded to me. I fancy myself a psychiatrist, and I perceive the human psyche much as a cavernous network to be spelunked by those who dare. So while my conscious was focused on the archaic scope without, i took a rope and a spotlight and went within.

Forgive if you please my exaggeration, I find that the only way to be truly honest is to break through cultural and personal bindings with over-examination and shameless puffery. My psyche was murky and cooling, recovering from a recent fever that left me worn out and sent me impossibly vivid dreams. Whenever i fall ill, i look forward to the times when i fall asleep and am privy to the imaginatorium that is my sub-conscious. However this is beside the point, and as i stepped through the entrance to my cave, tipping a nod to my power animal, the slowly pulsating warmth comforted me.

It would be a lie to say that Hunter's suicide is adversely affecting me, and truthfully i believe it would be a little disrespectful to those who knew him well and who have a right to continued grieving. His suicide does relate to me though, and has been a topic of reflection this past week on the anniversary of his death. Without going into detail, I found myself on the verge of tears on more than one occasion during conversations with contemporaries of mine. Conversations on the nature of relationships and friendship, on the nature of love and the nature of death. Death, especially violent death, has a way of lingering where it has no business to linger, and of being much too quickly forgotten where it needs to remain.

I stood with the spotlight pointed on his remains, a record player slowly screeching out spirit of radio and broken Trojan helmet stood stacked on granite slab. This wasn't what i was looking for, although it certainly contributed to my overall feeling of unease. The cave isn't a particularly dangerous place, but it is no way safe, and I thought it best not to dwell for too long around this foreboding alter.

Please, do not feel pity for me, and do not mistake my reflections as a reacquisition for it. My circumstances are nowhere near deserving of compassion. Dealing with loss, whether it of life or love or the want of either, has been something i have minimal experience with. However my cave, as is the case with most teenagers on the verge of adulthood, is not without its share of ghosts.

Still though, the question of my sense of worry persisted, and although the sensation itself had long passed, I still felt its trembling ghost pains throughout my chest, like the haunting of a long amputated limb. The pulsating warmth with which my journey began now rose to a steady thrum of heat, and I grew thirsty. Sweat started to drip down my lengthening hair and ran into my eyes. I could taste it in the corners of my mouth, and could feel it running down my bare chest. On my psychological excursions I am always bare-chested. I am slightly narcissistic.

To my left I noticed a freshwater spring, slowly running through the floor of the cave in small rivulets. As I bent to refresh myself from its depths, I failed to notice the girl who crept stealthily up behind me. The girl, who was of course only myself, pressed a shining steel dagger up to my back. I implore you not to bestow all sorts of analytic Freudian judgments to that, as I am sure the symbolism goes deeper than my libido.

When, in my reflections, I meet another person, it is important that I remember that I am talking to myself, lest i lose a piece of me when i leave. This girl, who was really me, did not represent some sort of repressed sexual anxiety or aphrodisian ideal; although I'm sure i have plenty of both. With the dagger pressed to my back and still drinking from the spring I asked her who she was.

"What could have been." Was all she said, and then she walked slowly into an adjoining cavern. I realized that I was drawing closer to the source of my worry, and abandoned the tranquility of the spring to follow her into the darkness.

And darkness it was. So utter and terrible and complete that I once again swooned under the terrible weight of apprehension. And recognition, which was worse. Panicked i desperately tried to retrace my steps, until a voice from the dark commanded me to stop.

"You'll only hurt yourself..." This voice was much more like mine, much more familiar. After sitting still and listening to the echoes die along the walls of the chamber i realized that it was me talking. "Don't try to reply; only listened. You came here for a reason, to understand why you were worried. I don't know if i can answer that question, but i know other things, and these i will share with you. You, and those like you, connect apprehension with future events. This is not true. The future is completely and definitively provided for. The future can be seen with perfect clarity. It can be altered, molded, planned, shifted, manipulated, and created. There is no need to worry about the future.

"The past, however, is not so flexible. What happened happened, and then came the consequences. Your life right now is dependent upon your past, and if even one infinitesimal mote is removed, your present is rendered null and void. And the past grows foggier every day. Soon you will no longer remember what you were thinking yesterday. Thousands and thousands of brilliant ideas have flared and been lost to time. Unlike the future, which grows like the shoreline after years at sea, your past shrinks farther and farther away, growing indistinguishable. Maybe this is the cause of your worry."

The voice grew fainter. Satisfied as I was I did not yet feel ready to leave. "Wait!" I pleaded "This is what could have been, that I comprehend. But why is it so dark."

The sigh that followed seems to come from all around the cave. It engulfed me with the sense of sadness that was not quite sorrow, and not quite pity. "Because..." I said slowly "The things in this room are thousands of times worse than I can imagine..."

Again, that certainly was exaggeration. But nevertheless tremors ran through my body and my sweat grew cold. I sat up in my bed without bothering to make a return trip past the spring where my hypothetical feminine conglomerate lounged and past the shrine to no one. I felt that I had discovered a little more about the truth of myself, and I realized just how thankful I was for my life as i currently live it. I would not trade anything about my life right now, this I can say with concrete certainty. I left my room with a sense of calm and deep affection for those I cared about and who cared about me.

But that cavern is still there. Sitting in the dank blackness with all the ghosts of things that could have been, creatures that hardly even exist they are so terrible. Saturated and defined by darkness. And the lights are slowly creeping on.

This worries me.