Insomnia - A Short Story

I close my eyes, anticipating my greatest adventure yet. 

I focus all of my attention until the wind comes, silky and warm, the leaves on scores of oak trees rustling and waving blissfully in the air. I walk towards the green meadow in the distance, absorbing the gleeful noise of woodland squirrels scurrying across my path. The sun is rising as steadily as ever over the mountain peak, the breeze tussling my hair and the long grass ahead. I feel the first rays of sunlight absorb into the skin on my face, massaging the wrinkles on my forehead and the bags under my eyes. Silhouetted against the skyline, on the top of a distant hill, stands a woman, gazing out over the expanse of field and sky. Her cornflower sundress billows around her as the gale swoops through the pasture beneath her feet. She turns toward me. I smile.

As quickly as it comes, it all vanishes in a flash of darkness. My eyes snap open. The clock reads 2:36 a.m., and every bone in my body sighs as I lean back onto the pillow.

I am awake. Again.

How many times have I woken up tonight? I can't summon the energy to count. Ripples of discomfort sear my back as I grate against the bedsheet, turning onto my side and gazing at the clock, hoping for the numbers to suddenly read "6:00 a.m.". The alarm goes off, without fail, every morning at that time. My mind is in sync with the moon and the clock; it knows that nighttime is the right time to sleep and that we don't wake up until then. It nestles down within itself when I pull the blankets over my eyes. I ask myself then, as I do for the thousandth time this week, why my body doesn't do the same.

Slowly, painfully, I sit up and rub the bridge of my nose. I kick the blanket off and stand up in the pitch black. The faintest glimmer of moonlight shines through the closed blinds as I stumble to the corner of the room, a flannel robe hanging. Draping it over me, I open the door and fumble for the light switch as I feel my way through the hallway. The kitchen brightly greets me, a far cry from the draping shadow that lies just beyond the window. I stand in the doorway for a long moment, my hazy mind slowly whirring to life, fending off the confusion and drowsiness as I blink. When my eyes finally focus, I turn them towards the couch. I flop onto it, allowing my face to sink between the cushions, hoping it's all a wild, lucid dream, that I'm finally getting the restorative rest I so desperately need. Only when the wind blows against the windowpane and knocks the patio chair against the glass do I get up with a start, cursing my luck.

For a while, I stare. Nothing in front of me particularly catches my fancy, except for my heart. I can feel the arrhythmic thumping inside my chest as it beats abnormally, almost frantically. I cannot understand, for the life of me, why it knocks so, like a beggar on a freezing winter night. I have never been an anxious person. One could say I was excited and enthusiastic about life at one time, always striving for adventure and searching for the next big thrill. Has my heart taken too much adrenaline over the years? That can't be it. Adventure junkies only grow cold with indifference after too much of their fill. They would never wake up in cold sweats as I now do, night in and night out. Is it the apathy that scares me, the feeling of never seeing the world, or seeing too much of it when I can't do it on my terms? That might be closer to the truth. After all, of all the lives I've lived, walking in different shoes and filling different footprints, fitting into clothes that have traveled farther than I could fathom, and seeing the world through the eyes of souls I've never met, it gnaws at you. You lose the thirst you once had, finding that no matter what opportunities could come your way, you've already lived it.

Who was I once?

My legs creak slowly as I stand. With disregard to my own safety, I let my body fall forward, suspended in midair for only a moment, then catch myself as I hit the floor, my hands extended in front of me. I begin to push, every ounce of strength I have in me routed to my arms as the wooden floor greets me and retreats again and again. My breathing remains steady. Each extension upwards aided by deep exhales that only begin to waver when my body slows its pace. With each push-up, my back gains another fraction pound of weight to bear. My pattern of movement becomes more and more disrupted. I force myself to push harder, pining intensely to feel awake. Forty-nine...fifty...fifty-one...no time to give up now. Heat washes over, tingling from head to toe, but no sweat falls from my forehead. Concentrating entirely on the gray spot on the wall in front of me, I blink once, twice, breathing heavier now, more erratically. I can feel the swelling in my chest, the mass making it harder to break away from the ground. My teeth are bared as I muster my strength, my upper body bursting at the seams. Finally, I give one last push, slowly, triumphantly, and roll onto my back, only resting a moment before leaping to my feet to avoid sticking to the floor. My head buzzes. I glance at the clock. 3:30 a.m.

Crickets still chirped outside, poking fun at the lone light provided by my window. I trudge, lighter now, to my kitchen counter and find a pan in the back corner of my cabinet. I place it on the stove, drizzling oil around its surface. Clicking to life, the flames rise, bringing some warmth to my weary eyes. My brain is finally beginning to churn, the blood rushing tremendously throughout. As I drizzle the oil in circles and set the bottle down, I turn to my fridge, finding a remaining few eggs left. I recount the first day I woke up here...

The pillow was drenched. Disoriented, I bolted from the bed, acutely aware of my clumsy, unfamiliar limbs. My knees buckled, and I caught myself on the dresser, gasping for breath. I could only stare in horror at what looked back at me: a pale, bloated, sorry slump of a man with burlap sacks under the eyes and canyons creasing the forehead, deceivingly young. Faded jeans and an old Boy Scouts tee shirt covered the sweaty body I immediately loathed, and I scratched incessantly at my coarse beard and overgrown mop of hair as I tried to grasp what life I had now been swept into. Hunger suddenly overcame me, and I fell out of the bedroom, finding myself in a dank, rotting kitchen. Rummaging through the fridge proved fruitless, a frozen pizza and leftover takeout orders the only sustenance in sight. Not knowing when the last time this body had consumed food, I reheated an old egg roll and some chicken strips, soggy with age. I scarfed it down and regretted it instantly, as I felt a wave of nausea rolling through my stomach. I managed to keep everything down as I turned, still heaving, toward the window. The first rays of dawn were peeking through the drawn, musty curtains, and I shuffled over to the shimmering light, hoping it was all a wild, vivid nightmare. I drew them back, letting the sunlight wash over my face, and a sinking feeling followed, that this was real, and forebodingly so. My new lungs took jagged breaths, filling and emptying with much strain and effort, as I closed my eyes and felt their emotions envelop me.

Of all the lives I had found myself in, this life felt different. This one is cold, dissonant, meaningless. It is an empty vessel that shatters, fills with nothing, and crumbles. All that remains are hissings in the dark and my blurry image, a cracking image that reaches out and says, "I made it." But I did not. I am alone, here, the only one walking with this crooked, painful smile. The world has come to an end. I see that now, and it wasn't my fault. The world has come to an end and I am left, a puppet in a broken train, all the strings snapped in a hauntingly silent place. The long ride ends in an infinite pit, where I am left with nothing more than a part of emptiness, only one single thing to occupy my conscious mind. I raised my hand to my face. I could not stop the trembling.

The eggs sizzle in the pan as I flip them over with what little energy I still had, a handful of spinach joining the fray. A few spurts of oil spatter across the freshly-cleaned counter. Such is the life of a kitchen well used, but even the most beloved of homes needs attention and care. This was the lair of a recluse when I came upon it, depressing and disingenuous in nature. For a while, I had simply sulked in this hole, accepting my fate for what it was and waiting in rage and in turmoil for the year to end, to move on, to be given another life. I was weighed down by the circumstances; no adventure, no peace, I told myself. 

Eventually, however, my misery became monotonous. There was no sense in sitting around in my own filth and waiting for unknown and distant fates to snatch me away. As flies gathered about me, so did my wits. I cleaned. I fixed. I worked this body. I exercised this mind. I ate as best I could to give new life. I took each sleepless night this body gave me and dedicated that time, while the world was asleep, to being fully awake. If it was not used to adventure, I would make it so, so I could one day live again. I changed him. Lack of sleep, however, can only push your resolve so far; it was certainly easier to take more rest and stare vaguely at the wall and feel the blood pumping through your veins, maybe cook a few eggs here and there. Eggs go down easier than eggrolls. Sometimes, eating simply was more work than any run or book could offer, but I feel stronger. The man that stared back in the mirror, aghast, no longer existed. Tonight, like many nights, it is hard, hard work, but not only do I feel it, but I can now see it through these bloodshot, ageless eyes. I slide the eggs onto a plate, wipe the oil from the countertop, then set my breakfast down.

Several books lie on my coffee table, including an armful of novels and a German grammar book. I retract my hand from reaching for it and, in a similar vein of thought, pop in my headphones. An operatic tune washes over me, and I sit, drowning the uneasy silence in my apartment, observing intently the language that once seemed so familiar and homely. German, abrasive at first, grit my tongue like sandpaper, the phrasing unwelcome in the back of my throat. There is a certain warmth it took to change my mind and reveal to me the vigor of the souls who speak it. I find myself now marveling at its animation, its magnetism, the preciseness and command at such a leisurely tempo. If the ticking of a clock could be translated into poetry, so could it be heard for what it is, the language a compass.

This tune was once familiar. I felt as though I had awoken from a dream echoing throughout my unconscious mind and, at some interval in my day, remembered suddenly a melody that stemmed from my sleeping state. I turned to a pen and notepad and begin to scribble the words in English:

I bear no grudge, through my heart is breaking,

O love forever lost! I bear no grudge.

For I saw you in my dreams, 

And saw the night within your heart...

My head turns to a calendar hung on the backsplash of my kitchen. I spot yesterday's date, tracing the lines across the page to Friday with my eyes. Only a few days remain until my flight. I stare intently at the countryside that stained the laminated paper, and her eyes, through the fog of my mind, peer through the moonlight. This woman I have never understood in her entirety, but she has captivated me without reserve. What airs of modest and sensual mystery surrounded her, haunting my dreams year in and year out! Each time I count on my fingers that she has passed my eye, my heart sprints once with intensity, then steadily for a marathon. My palms have not felt hers in the many nights I drift off, longing to grasp her gentle touch. I dare say that she is the big affair I cannot forget. The resounding thought of beholding her again fills my brain with a spark of exultation.

I hold my hand up to my face and watch my fingers waver under their own weight, turning my hand over and studying my palm, concentrating on the lines that detail the surface. The way soothsayers read palms escapes me. They point to a map of a lifetime covered on weathered skin, etched in a foreign language of peaks and valleys. I wonder: does each happy memory create a new mountain, and does each tear erode the rock to make a new cliff? Does the canvas stay static over time, or can it change? Can one person, by some strange miracle, chart out the course of another? To me, even between the highs and lows, my palms seem to follow me to the next stage, a stamp in time, the last remaining glimpse of humanity and my own futility. 

--- --- ---

"We'll get chow when we get back. The fortune teller closes shop in a few minutes." The corporal, with a gaze of iron, turned away from his comrade and continued walking. His uniform did not flap an inch in the breeze as they both made haste, their bodies expecting to snap to attention at any moment. The noise and gleeful hubbub of the fairgrounds faded behind them as their steps weaved through hot dog stands and amusement rides, towards a lone tent hunched in the clearing.

"What's so important about this?" his friend questioned. "Your date's got to be waiting."

"Yeah, yeah," the advancing soldier replied absentmindedly. "I'll get to her."

"Is she even here? You never turn down a night out."

"War changes a man. Where were you?"

"Hell, there's always women, even after war." Adjusting his shirt collar, the lagging man huffed. "And you told me to dude up, for what? She better be bringing a friend."

"Hey, you'll always have the peanut stand."

"I can't run on carnival food forever. I'm trying to live a little."

"What do you think I'm doing, pal?"

"I thought you were forgetting about your life."

"I just want to know what mine has for me." They were only a few paces apart.

"What was that talk about leaving the war behind, trying to forget, moving on? We're not the same kids who-"

"Exactly!" The soldier wheeled around and held a finger to his friend's nose. "We're not the same. You're no longer my sergeant, and I'm no longer the idiot whose dreams stopped at war glory. Every night on that boat, I lay awake thinking: I was halfway across the world and barely saw a square inch of squat. Sure, some landmarks and a whole lot of death. But I'm looking for life. There's so much I haven't seen, haven't done, haven't even begun to fathom that I can take in. What is there to commit me to here? What's tying me down? I'm no shoo-in for a college, and the only thing keeping me here is my old man's shop, and he never had the guts to venture out past the county line. Hell, we've all been in this town for too long. I've only got so little time, but until I know for certain what the rest of my life is shaping up to be, I'm gonna damn well try."

The tent, unassuming as it was, slouched over its poles, a lone light flickering through its grey canvas, just visible past the curtain that sealed the entrance, and accentuated by the golden and purple hues illuminating the woods that the tent defended. As the sun continued to set behind us and crickets took up their cry, the soldier crouched, removing his garrison cap as he crossed the threshold, the old sergeant's head swiveling back and forth as he reluctantly fell in behind. As small as the tent seemed to be in their eyes, it expanded as they pushed back the curtain. Their heels clicked on creaky wooden planks as they entered, then softened as they trod over a lush Persian rug. Spices filled their noses as they inspected the space. Draped over the frame of the tent's sides were curtains of various deep hues of color, and shelves lining the walls were endowed with an array of trinkets and whatnot that the soldiers suspected had some sacred value.

"You won't find it here." A woman's aged voice rang knowingly from a far corner of the tent. The sergeant twitched at the sound, but the corporal stood his ground and glanced toward the voice.

"Find what?"

"What it is you're seeking." A rustling of clothes accompanied the movement of a shadow just beyond the candlelight. Rising slowly, the figure paused, silently observing, then stepped into the light. While the years she had endured were stretched across her face, the soft curiosity that yet embedded itself in her steely eyes gave her a perpetual youthfulness that betrayed her intuition. She studied the corporal, who did not avert his gaze as she moved closer and continued to speak. "What you wish to be, it will not become yourself. What you hope to see, it will be darkened from your sight. What you strive to accomplish..." Her arm lashed outward and grabbed the corporal's hand. "...it will slip through your fingers." 

She began to measure the length and width of his palm, then carefully felt the tips of his fingers, giving careful attention to his thumb. The flickering light danced on the wall as she pulled his arm closer to her face. Squinting, she traced the lines etched into his skin, running her eyes across the callouses at the base of each of the corporal's fingers. After a long moment, she locked eyes with the corporal once the sergeant averted his gaze. She said nothing.

The corporal's eyes drifted downwards toward his unoccupied hand, which bore his watch. "Ma'am, I have all night. I'm sure you don't."

A smile crept up the old woman's face. "And that, sir, is exactly your problem." She let go of his hand and held out her own. "You seek only answers, which keeps you from listening to them when they're given."

The corporal's eyes zoned to a corner of the tent. Reaching into his pocket, he produced three quarters, which he, eyes still glazed in frustration, dropped into the woman's palm, the coins clinking as they found their mysterious home.

"Get to your business. Explain yourself."

The woman chuckled. "Why would I? I've done as much already."

"You've done nothing of the sort for me. For yourself, maybe. Who are you to gloat?" The sergeant, standing still behind his friend, began to feel the heat leave the air as the corporal's gaze cooled. The corporal continued. "Now, I want my living to be told honestly: what do you know of my life as it will be?"

The woman's wrinkles ran deeper as the light danced across her nose. All at once, her gaze stiffened and her voice dropped low as she met the corporal's stare.

"You sought a grand adventure but found that your expectations fell short. You've desired more but loathed your own limits. For once, you want something new, something exhilarating, something grand, with no hurry home and no worry about the next step."

A huff came from the corporal's nose. "This isn't news to me, lady. I asked about my future, not my present. If you truly could tell the future, you'd be far richer than you are now, I suspect. Traveling with a carnival is no life for someone who seeks honest living. What kind of soothsayer are you, anyway? Why, I'd-"

"And you will get it!" Her voice rose with each word. The room continued to cool, the wind picking up outside, slightly and unnervingly. She did not blink as she studied him. "If adventure is what you seek, if starting over is what you desire, then you will get it. But you will not keep it, no matter how firmly your grip tightens around it. It will always be in your hand, then just out of reach and just beyond your sight, eluding you, teasing you before you can shut it up, until you drive yourself mad in the pursuit of it. Once you catch it over and over again, the chase will dull you, and your dreams will sit restlessly in your grasp, awaiting the chance to jump away once more, sending you off with the wind." She sat forward now. "You will get all the pleasures of the world beyond and more, but before long, they will be taken away. You will be denied these things by your own doing, and in the end, you will have lost yourself."

For the first time that evening, the corporal stood deathly still, the only sound coming from the room being his breath entering and leaving his nostrils. Whether it was the light of the candles or the moonlight beginning to creep through the tent's seams, the sergeant was unsure as to why the corporal's face was now colorless. In a matter of moments, the corporal turned and exited the tent with such haste that any candles framing the entryway were snuffed out by the breeze his arms produced from pushing back the canvas. His footsteps were rapidly receding by the time the sergeant broke away from the old woman's smile and ran after his friend. Whatever confidence the corporal had entered the tent with had dissipated with the twilight; his countenance had sunken, and his shoulders seemed stooped with worry as the sergeant fell in step with him. He did not look up from his boots until they approached the fairgrounds, and even then he did not turn his eyes to either side as he cut through the crowd, continually losing the sergeant all the while. By the time the sergeant regained his bearings and was able to follow again, the corporal was hastily climbing into his car. 

"Man, pull yourself together!" the sergeant huffed between breaths, leaning against the hood of the car and wiping his brow as he recovered himself. The inhales and exhales from the corporal flared as unsteadily as the other's, and while his knuckles grew whiter as his grip on the steering wheel became tighter, he did not speak a word. 

The car's engine jolted to life, making the sergeant jump in fear and begin a torrent of words: "That was a load of garbage. What a big-time operator she was, eh? Prancing around like a fairy, that's what she looked like. Hell, nothing she said even made sense. She's fit for the madhouse, I'll tell you...aw, don't look so beat up about it. She doesn't know what she's talking about. Can you make anything of it? I sure can't figure-"

A sudden slam halted his frightened monologue. The corporal smacked the dashboard again, then gave three more blows in rapid succession, coupling the last angry hit with a scream of anguish. He gripped his head, as if in agony, and hurled his cap out the passenger window with a jerk. His breathing had now become jagged, and his face flushed to a sickly gray, an eerie contrast to the violet shroud of night descending upon them. 

He finally spoke, slowly and painfully. "I've already lost myself." He rested his head on the steering wheel. "Doesn't she know that already? Can't she tell by looking at me? I'm a shell, a husk, a worn-out piece of leather in the middle of a desert. Nobody's coming for me, but I know where life is. I'll find a life for myself. I will."

The corporal, after a long moment of staring into the road beyond, turned to the sergeant at last. "I'm heading to the city. Don't follow me, don't send anyone after me. Don't even think of telling the Colonel. I'm AWOL." Tires spun on asphalt, and the car gunned down the street, veering around a corner as the sergeant stared after him, listening to the ferocious revving of the engine and the echo of despair that trailed behind.

--- --- ---

The reporter stared lazily into the camera, bracing himself against the evening wind that had just picked up and ruffled the part in his hair. He took a short breath in. "The car that was found on the scene had wrapped itself around a utility pole, the metal remains charred before anyone arrived on the scene. Officials are still puzzled as to what happened, who saw the incident, and just who was involved. According to the police report, no body has been found at the crash site. We will be sure to update the public on any new developments. Back to you." With a signal from the cameraman, the reporter haphazardly addressed the flyaway hairs tugging at the breeze.

--- --- ---

With a sudden gasp, the corporal awoke in pure darkness. At first, he was sure he had died and was now facing oblivion, although he wondered why it was a comforting sort of shade. He could make out the outline of a room, and he was sitting up in bed, in a cold sweat. His head throbbed at the recollection of the evening: the last thing he remembered was careening towards the edge of the road, tires squealing and his hands desperately grasping at the wheel, turning it this way and that to gain some semblance of control before the inevitable. Was it a dream? 

After a moment, he heard a sudden rustling to his left, and the voice of a woman pierced the silence.

 "What's wrong?" 

He rolled out of bed, fumbling frantically for a bedside lamp. Only when he found it and flicked it on did he begin to comprehend where he was: he knelt on the floor of a cozy bedroom, tinted brown and tan with worn upholstery furniture and framed pictures of a family he did not recognize. Staring back at him was a woman, squinting her eyes and half-asleep with confusion. His heart beat fervently, and his eyes darted across the room, trying to calculate, yet misremembering everything.

"Did you just fall out of bed?" The woman began to sit up. He had never seen her in his life, and panic began to set in.

"Where the hell am I?" he whispered tensely. The woman's eyebrows furrowed only a little, a tinge of concern beginning to creep through her exhaustion. "Who are you?"

"What do you mean, love?" she asked cautiously. "It's me. Did you have a bad dream?"

Standing up, his breath was shallow and strained. He swiveled his head in all directions as if the walls were closing in around him. His gaze stopped on a mirror, and an unfamiliar face stared back at him, a cornered animal. The eyes were now a milky brown, not his natural green. As he smoothed his hair, he felt that he had little of it left. It was brown hair, unlike his yellow locks that he kept trimmed for duty. His muscles were gone, and in their place hung layers of skin, loose and flabby. His face was rounder, and the beard that now covered his neck itched incessantly. He tugged at his cheek and wheeled around to face the woman, horror etched on his face.

"What did you do to me?" He stood deathly still.

"Honey, you're scaring me."

"How did I get here? Where am I?"

"What are you talking about?"

"I am not...this is..."

"You're going to wake the kids-"

"Where the hell am I?" He was shouting now, bolting toward the door and throwing it open with violent force, the woman trailing close behind, tugging at the t-shirt that draped over his unfamiliar frame. Whatever house he was in was a maze to him, with no door leading to the outside air that he so desperately wanted to breathe. He clawed his way in agony down the dark hallway, flicking any light switch he could reach. Half-lit, the hallway seemed to lead to a staircase, and he made haste toward the top step, trying with all his might to think rationally. Had he been in a coma? Did he have amnesia? Was this some wild, twisted dream?

"Daddy?"

His body convulsed in fear and shock as he turned to see a small toddler, looking at him curiously and hugging a stuffed bear. She had his eyes, his new eyes, and as she walked toward him, looking to be held, the corporal froze, paralyzed with terror, before suddenly finding the use of his awkward limbs and flinging himself away from the child, tripping on the top step and tumbling down the flight of stairs, hearing the screams of both the woman and the child all the way down. For a moment, he lay still, searing pain emanating through his back, and only once he heard frantic footsteps rushing down toward him did he get up and run to the front door, shoving himself into the street and sprinting in any direction he could, away from that house and attempting to escape this nightmare. All the while, as his blood was pounding through his veins and every heartbeat seemed to push his heart closer to his throat, the words of the old woman rang clearly in his ears:

"What you wish to be, it will not become yourself."

He was in a city, foreign to him and with streets that he had never trodden upon. Now knowing where to turn, he raced to the nearest intersection and, gasping for breath, focused his blurry vision on the signs. Car horns screeched past his ears, and one bumped his hip, throwing him to the asphalt. His forehead made contact with the ground, and a horrible ringing began to drown out the noise around him. His vision began to fade.

"What you hope to see, it will be darkened from your sight."

He got up as quickly as he could, steadying himself on a lamppost and screaming for help. It didn't matter to him who the help came from, or what sort of help they could give; all he wanted was a grip on what he knew, something he could touch, taste, smell, and recognize beyond a shadow of a doubt. Nothing made sense. Help made sense; it is in the natural pulsing of life, of humanity, to help another who is suffering. That is a redeeming factor, he thought to himself, screaming louder as he saw two police cruisers stopping in front of him. Regardless of pestilence, famine, or war, the purest form of the divine is the ability and desire to offer aid to one another, to come alongside one with tears streaming down their face. His face was streaked with torment as the officers tried to talk to him, but he would not listen. All he could do was throw himself at them, wanting to be back at his mother's cottage, in the countryside, where all he worried about was where his ball went. He had never found that ball.

"What you strive to accomplish...it will slip through your fingers." 

He could finally make out what the officers were saying. They were asking for his name, his address, his occupation. None of it mattered to him, yet all of it did. He began to ramble, recounting the fairground, the sergeant, the tent, the old lady, and the impending doom he could not escape from. He had a home, a life, a bright future ahead of a battlefield stricken with bullets. He told them of the mysterious car crash, waking up in a new house with a new woman and a new child, and how he got to the intersection. He moved on to the first time he did a push-up, the first time he jumped out of an airplane, the first time he heard an opera, the first time he killed a man. He told them how he wanted to start over, get away from the life he knew, and seek whatever the great wide world had to offer him.

"If adventure is what you seek, if starting over is what you desire, then you will get it. But you will not keep it..."

He had gotten it. He got a new start. He got what he wanted: a new life, away from all he could make out and know as familiar and homely. But now, staring at the civilians gathering around the scene and hearing the sirens blaring as the officers put him in handcuffs, for a split moment, he wanted it back. He wanted the town he knew, the fairgrounds, the peanut stand, the Ferris wheel. His body was new, his mind was new, his life was new. And yet, he was still that steely-eyed corporal that defied the aged face of intuition in that God-forsaken tent on the edge of civilization.

But who was he now? Who was he once? Who was he to become? What could he do? What were his limits? What kinds of pleasure and pains could be experienced to drag his way back to the life he knew? Deep down, as the police led him away to the station, he knew that he never could get it all back. This was his fate now: to search the world for new adventures and unfamiliar sights and foreign lands and passing people and more knowledge and experience than he could fathom. And yet, who was he to become? He was to be a sponge of all he encountered, but what was the sponge made of now? He was no longer the baby born years ago; he was no longer the high-school graduate; he was no longer a soldier, an employee, an identity. His identity was now another's, and he tried to rip himself apart, trying to get out of this body that held him captive. He clawed, bit, and shrieked in the back seat of the car, kicking the windows and the doors. He pressed his bloody nose against the glass, still shouting at the top of his lungs as the darkness closed in around his eyes and finally became a vacuum, devoid of light, and he could no longer hear his own screams.

Nothing.

"...and in the end, you will have lost yourself."