3 of 5

I walk along the dark night street, the waxing moon the only illumination. Other silent bodies join me in my meandering but they seem aimless in their steps, a herd with nowhere to go. I on the other hand have a destiny, a purpose. I can smell it in the air, taste it on my tongue. It keeps me going, drives me forward one step at a time.

If I let myself think about the meaning of this, it’ll drive me crazy. I know it will. My feet follow an unseen path and I don’t know why. I don’t know how they know where to go. I’m not strong enough to question it anymore though. I’m tired of the questions. I’m tired of having no answers. I’m tired of being ripped apart on the inside by my lacking understanding of myself and my surroundings. So I just go. I follow my feet and let them lead me to wherever they need to be.

Despite my underlying sense of being meant to be somewhere, somehow, with someone, I mostly just feel empty; lost, and alone. I can sense the scenery around me moving, changing as I travel but I haven’t bothered to look up from my own two feet in what feels like forever now. The world around me doesn’t matter. It doesn’t hold my interest. It has no effect on me. Did it ever? I shake the last thought from my head, forcibly removing it. No more questions. No more pain. No more self-doubt. From now on I’m just going to go with the flow and keep everything else out.

As I watch my feet continue to trudge forward, an unusual sound catches my attention. I stop in my tracks, tilting my head to the side and wait. That was a sound I heard, right? It’s not my imagination? I wait but nothing more comes to me. My feet are no longer willing to remain idle so I take a step forward only for the mysterious sound to break through the night air once again. This time I know it came from my left. I finally look up and note that I’m surrounded by asphalt under me and low brick buildings all around. The faint noise comes yet again and I try to zero in on it. I think it’s coming from somewhere around this building beside me? My feet seem to be arguing with one another, the first wanting to keep to my original course while the second wants to find out what is making the sounds.   

Suddenly I feel as if I’m stuck in place. This is a first. I can still feel the draw of my original course but the low sounds coming from around the corner of this building in front of me is an equally strong pull. An image of a taut rope springs into my mind, bodies on either side struggling to pull it away from the others. It’s a strange image but even stranger is my understanding of what it is to be that rope.

The vision is quickly chased away as two bodies round the corner of the building, moving quicker than I can remember ever seeing a body move. The sounds I heard are coming from them I realize, their unintelligible murmurs dancing through the air. I have a sense in the back of my head that I could once understand those sounds but all meaning is currently lost to me.

The two bodies stop their forward momentum as they seem to take note of me standing here. A look of abject horror fills their eyes and I can feel a part of me break. Why are they looking at me like that? Is there something wrong with me? I know part of me is broken but do they know it too? How? They shouldn’t be able to know just by looking at me, right?

A breeze wafts from behind the two bodies, ripping me from my forlorn thoughts because I can suddenly smell something and it’s euphoric. My mind grumbles instinctively, a need taking over deeper than any need I have ever felt. My stomach twists and I now remember what it means to feel hunger. It’s ravenous, a destructive power that clouds my mind and, without thought or intention, my feet take a step forward. It seems they have finally made up their mind.

I can hear the sounds of feet shuffling all around me as the others seem to take note of the two stopped figures still staring at me with wide eyes. They’re each carrying something almost familiar to me. The items… sacks?... are loaded down with what appears to be weighty objects yet the tops manage to rustle slightly in the breeze. A latent part of my mind tries to identify the shapes through the plastic sacks. Cans? Food?

That second word seems to unhinge something inside me and a low moan of voracious desire bubbles up from within my chest. I watch, my feet subconsciously moving forward, as the two bodies bounce off one another in their haste to turn and run. One of the plastic bags catches on the corner of the building and rips open, the contents spilling to the ground with a loud clatter.

As I follow after them a part of my brain screams for me to stop and search what they have left behind. It’s obvious they are moving faster than I can contend with. The others around me however don’t seem to be aware of this fact. They stream in mass after the two bodies.

When I reach the spot where the cans have fallen, I squat down in front of them, picking one up. Holding it to my nose, I inhale deeply. Nope, this is definitely not where that amazing, maddening smell was coming from. Part of me knows this can contains food; sustenance. But it’s not what I want. It’s not what I need. A flicker of the two faces in my mind’s eye is enough to make my mind scream, pangs of starvation causing me to feel as if I’m losing my mind.   

I stand to my feet again and round the corner of the building. It’s easy to track the runners with my eyes as they reach a metal contraption… a ‘car’ the recesses of my mind provides. The others around me stream towards it but with two loud bangs, they are swallowed by the car just before it begins to move, quickly gaining speed and leaving the area, a loud squeal all that is left in its wake.

A pungent odor takes to the air following the car and it seems to erase the mouthwatering smell from around me. I feel as if my head is clearing, as if I have just awoken from a dream. My hunger is forgotten as quickly as it came and the familiar tug takes over once again. It’s easy for me to set what I just experienced aside and continue on like nothing ever happened. After all, in the end, nothing did happen. Nothing changed. I’m just still me; broken and alone and being pulled along the face of the earth with nothing waiting for me on the other side.