A DEPARTURE FROM US

1.1 It’s there.

1.1.2 I can feel it. I’m journeying into the unknown - into the abyss. I’m
wondering through the partition into another world. In many ways I am not here
because I live in a zero state but also in definitive space.

1.2 Some people can not see me. I am invisible to some but not to
others. Some people can see me but some others can’t. Dan, however, he can
be seen by everyone. He is never invisible. I envy Dan. They call him ’alive’ but
really he is as dead as me, but I guess it’s all a matter of perception. Perception
goes a long way and sometimes perception is more real than actual facts.

1.2.2 Some people say that I am crazy, that I am a loon. Some people
say that - the ones that can see me anyway. The ones that can’t see me don’t
say anything, but that’s because they can’t see me. But, if they could see me I
wonder what they would say about me. Would they call me crazy? Would they
think I was a loon? Probably. But, they probably wouldn’t actually care either way.
They wouldn’t have the time to think anything at all of me. It’s ridiculous the
amount of time that they give to Dan though.

1.2.3 I’ve never been one for sentiment but Dan laps it up. He’s all over
it, and people love him for it. They all love Dan for his bullshit sentiment. I hate
him for it and I hate the people that lap it up - and that’s just about everyone.
Well, just about everyone except for Chris.

1.2.4 Chris is a man of constant fear. He is in anguish, more than anyone

that I have known. I don’t know why he doesn’t just end it. He’s funny though; he
cracks me up, although he doesn’t mean to be. He's almost a non-entity; a
nothing. He disappears more everyday. He's fading. Soon he'll be gone and no
one will know any different. Things will just go on like before. No one notice's
Chris's decay except for me. I'm the only one who can see it, and that's because
I am the only one who has ever looked at Chris properly. No one else bothers. I
only bother because I've got nothing better to do. Everyone else is only
concerned with themselves - and Dan.

2.1 Once, Chris and I went to one of Dan’s parties. Chris and I went
together because we had no one else to go with except for each other. We hardly
talked all night. Chris just stared down his glass the whole time. Every time I
looked at him I laughed. He’s funny, but he doesn’t mean to be and that’s what
makes him so funny. I looked at the other people in the party and wondered
which ones could see me and which ones I was invisible to. I wondered if there
were any there that I, myself, couldn’t see. I wondered what they looked like - did
they look like me? Where we all different sides of the same dice? I tried to ask
Dan these questions because he could see everybody, but he was too busy
socialising. In fact, I got the impression that he didn’t really want Chris and I there
and that he only invited us out of formality. I didn’t care, I was just glad to be out.
I couldn’t say the same for Chris though; he wanted to be home. He hated
parties, but he came because I forced him. I needed someone to go with. I
looked at Chris and he was swirling his drink in his glass looking all sullen - I
couldn’t help but laugh.

2.1.2 When it started to get late I grabbed Dan by the arm to stop him
moving - he was always moving. But, I grabbed him and I stopped him moving. I
asked him to introduce me to some of the people at the party. I pointed at Chris
and said to Dan: “Look at this wretched bastard, don’t make me hang out with
him any longer. Introduce me to some people.” Dan reluctantly agreed but he told
me that many of the people there probably wouldn’t be able to see me. He said
they lived in an alternate reality, that there were universes of space between
them and me. He told me that it was as if I was lost at the bottom of a dark
gaping chasm while they danced in the celestial ether, and that’s why I could see
them but they couldn’t see me. I grabbed Dan again to stop him moving - he was
always moving. I grabbed him though and pleaded for him to give me some of his
light, to give me the glow of existence, to switch me into his dimension, if only
temporarily. He said that nothing he could do could achieve that. “Damn it, Dan!”
I cried. “Why did you invite me to this party then?” He said that he did it out of
formality.

2.2.1 Why do people like Dan so much? He is vindictive and shallow.

2.2.2 I told Chris that it was time for us to go. I told him that we didn’t
need those people at the party. I told him that he was right all along and that we
should have just stayed at home. Chris just shrugged and I couldn’t help but
laugh at his demeanour.

3.1 But, this morning I saw Dan walking the streets. He walked right
past me. He didn’t notice me at all. I shouted his name but he made no response.
Was I becoming invisible to Dan too? That couldn’t be right because Dan could
see everyone, that was his thing. Maybe I was fading faster than I originally
thought. Maybe I was fading faster than Chris, who was almost completely
disappeared. Maybe I was completely gone. Had I already disintegrated into the
vapour; vanished before my time?

3.1.2 I have to find out for sure. I have to find out if my departure from the
eyes and minds of all sentience is complete. Am I lost to the world, this world - a
world that perpetuates favouritism and austerity? If so am I ready for that? Am I
ready to head into the cold touch of emotional and psychical separation? I know
that I have to see Chris, to find out if he can still see me, that’s the only way I can
find out for definite. I rush over to his house and pound on his door to let me in,
but there is no answer. I shout at his window with fervent panic, but there is still
no answer. Is he not in?

3.1.3 But. Chris never goes out.

3.1.4 I press my face up against his window and shield the glare of the
daylight from my eyes with my hands. I look in, searching, scanning for him, but I
see nothing. Maybe he has now disappeared too, so am I looking in vain? I
scream his name in an attempt to bring him out of the gap that we have both
fallen into, but it is futile. I realise that we had both now disappeared completely. I
can’t believe that it has happened to me so quickly, or is it because I was so
preoccupied with Chris’s demise that I was oblivious to the level in which I was
vanishing? Was my ego responsible for my lack of self-awareness?

3.2 I turn my back to Chris’s house and walk down the street and back
into the society who has now forgotten me completely. To them I had do not exist
and have never existed. My disappearance like water evaporating from a
turbulent ocean. I am a non-entity. I have fallen into the abyss. I wonder where
Chris is and if he is enjoying the experience. He accepted the fact that he was
disappearing fast and I envied him for that - the ability to remove himself from
emotional involvement with his role in humanity. He just didn’t care.

3.3 I’m turning now into the blackness and I can’t see anything except
for my own body. There is nothing in front of me and nothing behind. I am lost at
the bottom of an expansive chasm, but I can’t see any celestial bodies dancing in
the ether. There is simply nothing there. There is nothing everywhere. I am
becoming nothing too.

4. I am nothing.