Unavailable

This story was never available but now it’s unavailable.

This story was never available, but now it is unavailable. Get your head round that. I did not plot it, record it, type it or illustrate it. I did not spell check or grammar check it. I did nothing. There is no content. But now, despite there being nothing, I choose to keep that from you, or so it seems. I declared that nothing to be unavailable. It may appear one day, if I decide. You might come across it while scrolling, or by following me. A friend might share it. An algorithm might push it your way. But for any of that to happen it must be available and, clearly, it is not. Not now. So it remains unavailable. You cannot get beyond the black screen. The black message.

Nobody can see past the black. I mean the black in front of your eyes, a few tiny pieces of seconds ahead of the present, which sits here, full and working for all the senses, in this moment. Now. Ahead is the black. It is unavailable until you reach it. By then you have forgotten it, because everything is coloured in, rendered, finished, and there is continuity between the present and the immediate past. The black rolls on like the bow of a ship, and you stand at the stern, sailing into it. It sits at the far end, just out of sight. Black.

What is the black made from? The answer, like the story, is unavailable. There is no availability. You could say the black is unavailability. Things that are not black, things that are bright, coloured, loud, or sharp, even things you can taste, become available as they move in time with you. There is, of course, a black that is available. An available black. But it is not the same as the future black. The future black, the unavailable black, plays a different game from the black you know. No one calls it available black. It is simply there. Ready. The future is unavailable black.

Beware of people who are too sure about what will happen in the future, in the black and beyond. They are only guessing. There is nothing wrong with that. Some things work out as planned, out there beyond the black. They may turn out as you imagined, or as you foresaw. That is fine, but it does not change the black. It stays black until you step into it. Then you know, for a moment. After that, the next part is already covered in unavailable black. These are like the pages ahead of you in a book. You still have to read them. Understand them even.

Not everyone likes that. People want certainty. Even if it costs them, they will chase it. Some would kill for it. They want a straight path. A clean journey. They want control. They want you to be available so they can control you. They want to control nature, time, resources and life forces. People get caught in these ideas, but there is too little substance in them. They move into the black at the same speed as everyone else. No one moves faster than time. The unavailable black sits the same distance ahead for all. They learn to anticipate. They use what is available to predict what might come. Maths and science help. Probability and statistics can make the black seem grey. Experience also has a grey edge to it. Useful? Perhaps.

We tell stories about the future. We tell ourselves how things were, how they are, how they might be. We have our brains. Often lazy. But the best of the thinking and dreaming machines. We have history and those lived experiences. Do not repeat the past. Do it differently if you can. Listen to other voices. Move slowly. Play against the black as if it were a game of chess. Move by move. Watch your choices. Watch what might come next. The black is already on its way. Before you know more, you can know this. This story will always be unavailable.