ERNIE AND ERNESTINA: Searching

Book Two, Chapter 32: Emptiness

I awaken.

It seems the middle of the night, but when I check your watch — it’s two a.m. — I realize I was asleep only an hour or so. I was dreaming, but my awakening chased away the dream.

I’m awake in an empty house. I’m empty inside, too, but for these words. I must fill myself with something else. The words are almost all out of me now.

It’s scary, this emptiness. But I realize it’s what I’ve lived with all my life yet didn’t know. You were my outside force. I must find an inside force, something from within that will move me forward.

What will it be? I have no idea. I just know that no one else can put it there. Only me.

That’s scary, too. Everything scares me.

I feel so empty.