the forgotten sense

The street light above flickered a little, but it hardly made a difference with the full moon shining with enough intensity to illuminate even the farthest recesses of this famously dark alley. I was leaning against a wall smoking a cigarette, one foot flush against the brick with my knee jutting out in front of me.

A tall man with a very sharply fitting-trenchcoat and a broad jawline suddenly came through the door just to my left. My back arched slightly, and a slight jet of adrenaline pumped through my body. Naturally, I didn't want to be seen in this place, and at this hour...! When he appeared he was facing away from me, and I thought for a moment with a sigh of relief that he wouldn't take notice of me at all. However, just as he took his first couple steps down the street leading away from me and into more welcoming quarters, he spun around quickly, as though he had been planning to do so at that moment, and looked directly at me. He spoke while he was still approaching, rearing up glaring down at me about a foot from my face.

"What are you?"

I wasn't sure what to make of this question: "I'm sorry?"

"You have to know what you are not. You will not experience any sense of joy, accomplishment, or connection with other people as long as you fail to realize this."

I ignored him, shaking my head. I just wanted to be left alone. That seems to be an impossible feat in this city, even in those narrow streets and back alleys that would seem specifically made for lonely people to wallow in their remorse and cathartic self-pity.

He grabbed me by the shoulders and shook me vigorously. I could feel pain shoot through the back of my neck and my eyes watered a little. I guessed I was here at this moment for a reason, so I didn't make any action whatsoever to fight back or even to defend myself.

"What do you want?" he asked.

Images of everything, images of nothing flashed through my mind. People I've met. Material things. Dreams, journeys, and real emotions, all things that I once knew. There were a lot of things that I wanted, I realized. However, when I tried to answer his question, no single thing, not even a random selection from the infinite list of desired things that I had formed in my mind almost as a reflex, could be uttered. Indeed, all of my powerful desires were stirred into a concoction of filthy grey soup, like the puddle in front of us along the curb left over by the rain of earlier this evening. Mostly I wanted to be left alone.

"Leave me alone. Who the fuck are you, anyway?"

Just then, I realized that I lacked a desire to hear the answer to that question. What was I doing here with this man? Did I, or did I not want to learn his identity? I could feel the weight of my desires descend upon me, as though the Earth had suddenly swelled in mass and the gravity coefficient had increased proportionately.

Before another moment had passed, I turned away from the man and ran down the street without looking back. I sprinted until my mind was clear. I sprinted until I felt my heart would explode. I sprinted until I saw the sky fading from black to the grey of a crisp pre-dawn, and sensed the indiscriminate warming blanket of the sun fluttering down on all things, living and non-living, anything with a surface. I tumbled into the dewy chill of a small patch of grass between the north- and southbound lanes of a major boulevard.

I realized at that moment that I, too, had a surface, and all at once I was freed from desire.