"What's the point?" The thought echoed in his mind. It was an agonizingly rhetorical question with no answer. "Even if I achieve everything, all my hopes and dreams, will it really make me happy? What am I doing? Where am I going?" Nobody heard him, but his own tortured self. Pity was has one true companion. The world around him went on with its shallow thrills and pointless happiness. "What are they smiling for? What have they done? If only I could find joy in those empty pleasures. We want, we desire, we get, and then we just want more. It's an endless cycle of longing. A longing that begets longing. It hurts, it makes life miserable, yet all these people walk around letting the fleeting happiness be their ultimate goal. Nobody wants to help anyone. Nobody wants to really make a difference. Everything is selfish. Even the 'good' things. Why does this miserable place exist?" Every thought was negative, tinged with hopelessness. He stared down into the ground, cursing the Earth for being there in the first place. "This little rock that spawned life, full of maggots and death, infested with selfish beings that care about nothing but themselves. Suffering goes on, people are dying, there's rape and slaughter going on at this exact moment, but these people don't care. They have their cars and gadgets. Simple, stupid. They think they're happy. Good for them. Let them smile and live in constant denial of the way things truly are." He overheard a meaningless conversation at the table next to him. "Nothing they're saying is important, yet they take it so seriously. Petty things that don't matter. They make us either happy or sad. Bring joy or pain. Our whole lives revolve around petty bullshit that doesn't mean a thing. We'll be devastated if our phone breaks or elated that we got a new one. All the while, the world is full of suffering. People cry over their phones at the same time someone is crying over a murdered loved one. Tears fall for cracked screens at the same time tears are falling for a bloody corpse. Why? Why can't we all just snap out of our blind existence." The shuffle and noise continued all around him. He sat there, still. Like a rock in a river. Unmoving, unflenching, but feeling the rush of water pushing against him. The rush of a humanity in a hurry to go nowhere. But he sat still, feeling disconnected with these people. He wanted no part of it. The river flowed, but he wanted to stop it. Tell these people to wake up and look around. "Nothing matters!" he wanted to scream at them all, one by one as they passed. He wanted to see the fear in their eyes and watch the joy wash away from them as they realized their meaningless place in existence. He was a simply a messenger, telling the truth. But he knew no one wanted to hear it. "They're too busy living out the fantasy cultivated since the beginning of thought. Desire for triviality. Happiness, sadness, the measure of a life's success is all triviality and nothingness. Empty. Shallow...Things." He knew all his efforts would be in vain. "Nobody wants to change. Nobody wants to realize that their entire life is simply a wave of ups and downs based upon simple desire that will never be satisfied. Nobody will ever be truly happy. Nobody wants to be. It's enough to feel the momentary, artificial pleasure of artificial things. That's all people want. Things. It's too much and never enough. Chasing idols to show off to their 'friends' and disappointed when they have something better." It got to be too much. The anger and distraught overtook him. He did the only thing he could do. He stood up, gave a pleasant smile to a person that passed by and re-immersed himself into the river he had just hated so much. He disappeared back into the illusory existence. The rock had turned back to water and flowed along with the rest. In a hurry, but going nowhere.