Illuse
He should be sleeping. He knows he should be sleeping, but he can't stop thinking. Now that the wonder of the real world has faded he is left with questions, and the incomprehensible feeling that he can't shake, of knowing that he was built on a foundation that never existed. His life never happened.
He gets up quietly, even though he cannot disturb anyone; they are all otherwise occupied.
He finds himself approaching the operator. The other man looks up, and seems unsurprised to see him. He catches sight of two still figures, the occasional twitch of a finger the only thing that tells him that their minds are not at rest, though their bodies appear to be.
"You look like you could use a walk."
The word brings with it memories of another life; a never life. Here, he realises with a pang, a walk is pacing the cold metal floor.
The operator gestures to an empty chair and he understands. In mind, not in body. He stretches out, and when he hears the other man voice something he'd wondered about for days, it does not surprise him.
Just because it happened in the mind doesn't mean it can't have been real.
*
His hands are pushed deep into the pockets of his coat, but the cold still reaches him. Somehow the cold makes it feel all the more real; deceptively so.
It is night. He always used to feel more alive at night. He can see the stars; impossibly bright and unclouded.
He is walking downhill, along a path. In the dim light he almost cannot distinguish it from the surrounding dark earth. There is sound in the distance, faint and faded like his footsteps. Voices too, maybe, and music.
He shouldn't have come here. It is too silent, and the air is surrounded by hazy memories, brought on by seeing the world that he never really belonged to. He does not know where the machine ends and he begins. It was all a world in his mind. Illusive.
And then suddenly he remembers, a real voice in a lying world, telling him.
It cannot tell you who you are.
So who then is he?
The answer is out there.
He wonders if he is asking the wrong question. Maybe it does not matter who he is. What matters, if anything, is that he is. Maybe the answer is that there is no answer.
He reaches the source of the sound – a market – and from it he separates sounds; an indistinct drumbeat, the creak of swings as a solitary child propels back and forth. And through it all, he hears a piano, he thinks. The sound brings with it a memory of slim fingers moving over black and white keys. He wonders who the piano belonged to. He wonders who the hand belonged to.
The child jumps from the swings and runs towards the lights of the market. He follows with his eyes, but the child is quickly dissolved into the mass of people. He follows suit, slipping into the crowd. The never ending flow of people seems to be oblivious to him; he has the feeling that he could stand, still and invisible, and they would stream around him like water.
The market is like every other he ever walked through in another life. Those too he visited at night. He would drift through them, invisible, after yet another search that yielded increasingly elusive answers. He would buy food, the only variation ever in his diet, he would walk through rows of patterned fabric and wooden carvings, and it would all feel unreal and remote. The colours of clothing draped over stalls blur and the conversations around him are strangely muted, as though there is a wall in between him and them. Food steams in his vision but he does not smell it. All that feels real is his hands in his pockets and the cold on his skin.
He slips out of the market easily, onto a dirt path. Behind him, the people continue to weave in and out, as if he was never there. And he wasn't, not really.
The light fades as he moves further along the path. Beside him is darkness; indistinct shadows and infinite shades of ink. Above him the sky continues endlessly. He wonders what it would have been like to look up at a sky full of burning stars and know that they were real.
And then up ahead he sees her, and it all makes sense. He entertains the thought that this was where he was headed all along, but he knows that he never really had a destination until he reached it. She stands still, waiting for him. He slows his pace as he nears her, allowing his feet to stop when he is in front of her. Her arm outstretches, and he closes his eyes. She slips her hand under his collar; her fingers curl to his shoulder; he feels her skin blossoming warmth against his collarbone. It does not matter who he is. All that matters is her skin on his, and all that exists is her.
*
He opens his eyes. Two men - one standing, one sitting - are staring at a screen, intent on the code cascading down. The operator turns and smiles at him briefly before returning his attention to the screen.
He follows the few turns, cold metal under his feet. He pauses long enough to open the door. She stands, back to him. He watches as she downs the contents of a mug, sits it on the bench, and finally, turns. He steps towards her and tilts his head to rest it against hers. He closes his eyes when her hand touches his skin; fingers on his shoulder, palm on his collarbone. He feels her breath fall on his neck. The moment is endless, if only for a moment.
She slips her hand around the back of his neck and her lips rise to brush his. Her skin on his is all that exists; all that matters is her. She is everything; she is real.