The New Age Killers

He stood there with a lit cigarette, just like I remembered. He always stood like that, both drawing and diverting attention to himself. I figured he hadn't changed a bit.

"It's been a long time", I said rather flatly. I really didn't know what else to say, and waited for him to start the conversation like he always did. It struck me that I hadn't changed too. It was as though we were both trapped in a reality that occured many years ago. A reality that I for one thought was long dead.

He looked me up and down and gave me a rare smile, for a second breaking the indifferent image he had spent his whole life creating. He didn't however say a word. Nor did he have to. It was always like that; that was the plane on which our interaction existed. It was as though there was a silent understanding between us, although I wonder what exactly that understanding was. I suppose it was just the feeling of familarity that we both recognized, a familarity that meant that we didn't need words.

In another lifetime, we would see each other everyday as I walked past the street. He always stood in the same place, at the same time. It took a while for us to acknowledge each other's presence; and like I said, he was the one who always started the conversation. Conversation may not be the right word, for maybe it strikes you that we were friends. No, we weren't friends, or at least not in the conventional sense of the word. Yet at the same time I wouldn't say we were merely acquaintances either.

Often, as I walked down the streets, I would pass by people and be filled with sadness. A sadness at the fact that I was seeing faces that I would never see again. Yet these were all people, just like me. Each of them has a life, a story, a complex collection of emotions and feelings worthy of recognition. Each of them most likely has a consciousness that seems to them to span an eternity. But I would never know about those things, for they were merely strangers to me, strangers I would only pass by once and never see again. Maybe one of them would lose someone in their family on that day; maybe one would see a baby born. I'm sure one of them would see great success, yet another would receive crushing failure. These were all things that we all experience at some point, but for me, I was but a distant observer, creating images in my mind as to what could have been. If only I could know everyone.

I think he saw that sadness in my face, that realization that I was passing by countless souls who travelled the same path as I do, without knowing it. He offered no solace with words, but it was as though his presence there was good enough. For once, I had seen something from my past not change at all. I saw it as one of the greatest rewards one can receive.

I bade him farewell as I continued my walk. I was rejuvinated, for in that moment there was hope. A hope that not all things fade away, that the sands of time had not caught me yet. Of late, it had seemed that items from my past had vanished, one by one. Slowly, but surely, everything had disappeared. Now, everything existed in memory alone - what's important is that it was probably only in my memory. Memories carry one far in this life, there is no doubt about that. Preserving the past in your mind is a gift, and can give you comfort in troubled times. But to see everything crumble away as time marched mercilessly on, that was a different matter. People tell me it was inevitable, but I don't accept that. How could it be, after all? How could everything be taken away?

I walked by the next day and he was gone. This was extremely unusual, but I thought nothing of it at the time. It had happened before, and it was likely that he would be there the next day.

But the wasn't. Nor was he there the next week. The next month. The next year. Was it a ghost of my past that I saw? If so, what did it mean? Were the fates cruelly mocking me, toying with my mind? For the first time in a long time, I did not care about these things. Time had changed me; I was no longer concerned about any of it. Fate, judgement, morality, even existence itself, none of it made any sense.

On the last day, as I walked by the street, I took out a cigarette of my own and leant against the wall in his usual spot. Sometime in the evening, I caught the attention of a lost soul who was wandering, much like I had been ten years ago. As we had a silent conversation, I felt oddly at peace.

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Another piece of fiction from yours truly, and again it meanders and leads nowhere. But I suppose I'm just trying to get into the groove of things, experimenting a little with narratives and the like. I'm not sure it's a success by any means, but hopefully it's mildly interesting and entertaining.