I'll admit that maybe I spoke too soon about vanquishing vapid social norms. Pathetic though it may be (is), my recent surge of emotional interest is proof that part of me feels unfulfilled. Or could it be that part of me feels bored? In no small part, I suspect it comes out of just needing something to pass the time. And true enough, it is a largely harmless pastime in its current incarnation. The adverse effect that I see is simply that, should the day come when I decide that actually some norms are not worth fighting against, it further delays any genuine progression. That's a bridge that exists only hypothetically now, though.

Perhaps this is as good as I can hope for. For someone so resistant to change, working up the gall to even claim to have flipped a fundamental mental switch is something. And in a way, there are some positives to take out of this. The far more pernicious issue with my previous state was an entrapment in the past, which absolutely prohibited anything from the present to make its way through. That I should even find myself in this situation indicates that I'm not beyond being moved by something I see before me, no matter how perfunctory.

He and She

I am lost in my own maze. It's possible that what I said was true, and that all I am doing is repaying a debt. A debt I created willingly, and am paying back most obtusely, but it remains a possibility nonetheless. The alternative is a possibility I shudder to consider, because it would imply that my is shame unbounded. But, as always, I have a feeling the most pathetic option is the most likely. Even I have to ask this time: what am I doing? Fortunately, this can only end with the last laugh being on me. Some things, no matter how vulnerable, can still be unattainable.

Our outing is set for the afternoon, but it's five past five and I'm up thinking about it. Morning rituals are replaced by a jittery blur, as I try to picture the scene in my mind. Several hours to go, and I still find time fixed on that hallowed hour. I iron my best shirt, and devote time to finding the best accompanying soundtrack. The last failed weekend of boredom and nihilism is a distant memory, and I'd almost say there's a spring in my step. I'm doing this because I want to help out someone who's feeling alone, I remember thinking. I couldn't have been more right.

I rebuffed their invite because I felt betrayed. By who, or what, I don't know. There's enough blame to go around, likely a lot of it to me (as always). Why do I turn my back on every olive branch sent my way? What, realistically, do I want out of them? An apology? A song of praise? Or maybe, a grand gesture, like calling the whole thing off. Perhaps I want them to admit, We can't possibly go on without you. Except, I know that'll never happen, because I know that's not true. It appeals to my vanity to imagine that I am the only thing standing between them and irrelevance, and that my absence will make them question whether they have let down. In truth, I imagine the show can and will go on without me, and be a splendid success. They will pay my absence as little notice as they do me, and who can blame them?

It was a big step for her to open up; never mind that I already knew her secret. Left alone with her quiet tragedy on another quiet evening, I wonder why I have to keep myself from smiling. I've mistaken a confession for closeness, no doubt. But even that granted, that I should derive pleasure from her sadness, however tangentially, makes me reflect how impossibly far I feel from most everyone around me. I'm ready to grab any hand in the darkness, be it from kindness or pity.

I'm alone this evening only because I let her secret hang in the air, slowly press down, and push me out. Before walking away, there was perhaps an opportunity to keep our brief candle alight a while longer. I think she's lonely - I know I am - so I should have asked her if she wanted to walk awhile, perhaps. It's not entirely implausible she would have agreed. But somehow, I sensed that she knows there are worse things than being alone, so I just left.

Why did she feel it the right moment to invite me into that private world? It is perhaps that I offered my plea first, conscious that it would encourage an unguarded moment or two. I held nothing back, and said my piece without a hint of self-pity. So calm was my acceptance of perpetual defeat, I doubt she had ever seen anyone quite so pathetic. Is that what it takes for me to seem human?

She ended with an admission of despair, meant perhaps to comfort me: I too wonder sometimes, she said, what am I doing here? I almost wanted her to say, I too wonder sometimes, what good am I? Only because I could then counter with a private truth of my own: People see no worth in you, but I do. But she held her composure, and the moment passed. It's just as well, because I don't know that I could have explained myself if pressed. Even if I could, why would she care to listen? Anyone can see her eyes are fixed elsewhere; anyone can see that I am blind.

I am also taken back to another who told me her secret. Then, like now, I knew that the beginning was also the end; then, like now, I had my sights already set on another city, another life. I have places to go, always, but never people. Only as the day fades can I make out where the light shines the brightest.

Scum

So universally unwanted and cosmically crippled, the ground itself would reject my footsteps if I kept on walking. But I can come to a complete stop now, because there is no sense in going anywhere. The days are a waking nightmare spent sitting in a quiet corner, shunned by civilised company. The nights are spent sitting in a quieter corner, grasping for words to explain what it is I feel. But words crumble too in the face of the shadow I cast. All living things must die alone. And some must live alone too.

Challenge

Can you make it one year without visiting that gaping hole that is open to any traveller, offering a room for a night that lasts a lifetime?

Open City

I have no particular mission in mind as I walk the streets. But as I go by the unchanged buildings plucked out of my memory, part of me feels like it is almost taunting them for a response: I have come here unarmed, and don't mind if the past defeats me; I am just curious how far along I have gone in this game. Each footstep into a prior battleground however sees no victor either way. Sometimes, there is a brief moment where I feel my throat constricting as I recall some forgotten horror, but it usually passes quickly. Most times, there is hardly any reaction at all, just a mutual acknowledgement of continued existence. I'm not naive enough to call that a victory, but from where I was three years ago, a truce is good enough.

Though they do not mind my presence, I can feel that I have become a stranger to the streets that were once a home. There is nothing beyond the reach of time, I conclude, but not with sorrow; at least, not today. Today, I'm just glad to be able to walk the streets with no expectations. I don't have particular illusions about all of this signalling anything significant. But the tangible proof that life can go on, both for me and my onetime tormentor, leaves a trace of hope I'm not above being grateful for. My heart feels lighter, having to carry around one less burden. For a moment, though I'm just a stranger walking alone, the future seems a wide open space.

Longtime readers will know the careful secrecy I've attempted to maintain as to the real-life events forming the seed of my writings, no matter how strongly the events in question long to be named. It may come as a surprise then that I recently took it upon myself to share a subset of these writings with someone patently outside the sphere of suffocation that produced them. What triggered this was, I think, two recent developments. First, the realisation that at the parade's end of the glorious 20's, there is only so much time one has to find a welcoming hand in the dark. Second, the insatiable curiosity, harbored since this blog's inception, to see how an ouevre borne of impossible longing and isolation would seem to an unspoiled pair of eyes*.

On the latter point, I might as well add to the reader's entertainment by mentioning that I have thought on occasion of selecting some of the works closest to me, and seeing how they would fare in something approximating the public marketplace. On this note, despite my confidant's protests to the contrary, I see that not everything makes the journey from my mind to the outside world unharmed. But a few slivers do. In the endless hours of darkness that seem to be my public life, this at least gives me hope that the Sun may yet rise.

* Oh, eh, right, and so what did those eyes see, you ask? Frustratingly, but in hindsight unsurprisingly, it's somewhat hard to tell. Receiving something so blatantly personal, I would imagine that the only non-sociopathic response is to profess how the work reveals only the deepest and most universal of truths. But at least the words, and the sickness that created them, have germinated elsewhere. Within one other mind are now fragments of the life I have led, a source of mirth if nothing else.

"I once thought that time
Accentuates despair
But now I don't actually care"

I spoke of the separation of concerns a while ago. This appears to be still in effect, with the consequence that I no longer find the desperate urge to put to paper feelings that would inspire any student of literature or psychology. To be sure, I'm frequently filled with the sorts of grim existential doubts that have made up the vast body of this outpost; but their nature seems frustratingly quotidian, and patently uninspiring as far as writing goes. As far as trade-ins go, it's a little early to tell whether this one is acceptable. On the one hand, I do like the normalcy of my new turmoil. But I can't say I don't sometimes miss drawing a bucket from a deep well of sorrow. It's just that these days, I find I'm just not thirsty anymore.