::Ennui::

Disclaimer: None.

A/N: My own boredom something let loose.

Ennui. What a frustratingly boring word. Interesting enough to roll on the tongue for a moment or two, or to check the dictionary for, but beyond that: Boring. Ennui encompasses all. The incessant drumming of fingers on the tabletop, rapping endlessly. From finger to finger, the sound of nail on wood, monotonous and aggravating. The sound of the clock, ticking on the wall, each second pushing a hand forward. A full circuit of sixty minute movements, chasing each other around and around. Never stopping. The ticking, the ceaseless ticking, driving you insane. You can almost feel it vibrate, feel the constant race of a minute as surely as a heartbeat. Ennui strikes more profoundly than pain or anguish or angst or grief.

It is just so... boring.

The flickering of the screen, another black and white film, and in the background an obscure song by an obscure singer on some obscure station you do not recognize. The air so thick with the layers of wasted time that you can barely breathe. Choking you, making you lose your mind.

There has to be something. Something, anything to battle this endless litany of nothing. Fingers rap smartly across the table once again, back and forth, to and fro. Eyes glazed over as if in thought, the visual representative of your mind, drowning in some abyss from far away, an endless abyss of utter ennui. Frustration wells up, a building emotion, festering and hot, but there is... Nothing. Nothing but the dull ticking of the clock, nothing but the sound of your own fingers, rapping, always rapping across the table. It simmers, potent but dormant, under the surface, just beneath your skin.

The television fades out, the sound now merely some crackle on the air. The odd song withers, the melody replaced by a constant whine that skirts the edge of your hearing. Eyes once glazed begin to close, dipping into sleep. Blissful sleep. It seems almost impossible, though, as that saving grace fights its way past mental barriers built up by the lack of working exercise. Stifling air threatens to asphyxiate you as surely as the tendrils of sleep that wrap around your countenance, fighting against yourself.

Ennui. Endless ennui.

Then blackness. Spiralling blackness bordering on the very edge of your conscience. You accept it, welcome it, long for it, but it is battered away. Frustration, your frustration, the one emotion that keeps all at bay, turned against you. The sweat on your brow makes it all the more infuriating. Your ragged breath, a sound almost akin to panting, born of the humidity and silence. Boredom and frustration. Two things ever taunting you, telling you of your own helplessness, reminding you. But there is nothing to do. Nothing you can do.

Tick. Rap. Tick. Whine. Rap. Whine. Tick.

It never ends, does it?