The Story of Non-existence

(Do you know, my dear audience---whoever you are---that I do not exist?)




To give an account for the event that seems to last so long, extended throughout the years still accessible for my ailing mind, dear audience, I have to reproduce within the limit of language the secret sensation of it. Imagine yourself a soul, a kind of dissectible energy that is not only constituted of memories and emotions but of human faculties, dwelling within your body. Begin to sense the boundaries emerge between yourself and your body as sharply as a tenant within his lodge, detaching from his lodge, yet is bind to his lodge. A soul is not an object occupying or squeezing itself into the narrow space that accommodates your brain; but rather, a block of impenetrable space in the form of solidified abstracts--- something so absolute that we aspired to identify ourselves with, yet our daily lives bounce off against it, shattered on it, at times adhered to it, but can never escape from it. Because it is too unbearably dense, and too impalpable, something you can cut it into pieces but cannot be put back like a jigsaw puzzle; something Socrates has questioned for at least more than 2400 years--- the tragically decisive “who am I”.

One day when I came back up from a journey in deep trance, I found hours missing. I stretched my fingers, turned them around and watched them closely as if it helped my eyes to regain focus. A voice aroused, namely, engulfed me spookily--- it wasn’t a loud shriek, quite the opposite; it was a trembling whisper barely found its vibration. Yet it dragged me back into reality with such a ferocity that I convulsed with a violent pulling back. The source of that ghostly whisper recoiled out of surprise and timidity, tears moistening the corner of her narrowed eyes.

“You’ve just drifted away again” she said wistfully, accusingly “right after talking so cruelly to me. But why? Why said you don’t need me anymore?”

It took me a few seconds to recognize her. She, with whom we were endeared with each other both as worthy competitors in the realm of literature and as proponents of Platonic love before I fell ill with this dirty disease, has renounced her own faith in others to follow me as her doctrine; or maybe it wasn’t I who was almost as if her religious belief after all, but her own predatory endearment for an evasive prey whom she followed with blind, womanly instinct.

“I am sorry… but did I?” I asked, nearly idiotically, taking her into my arms, offering her my handkerchief. I always had a soft sentiment for others, a pathological inclination to please others, even if some people really weren’t my business at all. She burst into a series of pert laughter. “Look at you, my darling. Your forgetfulness has already been beyond my imagination! You are always carried away into your subconsciousness; is it why you are so inspiring, so tantalizing? How much I want to travel with you in your reverie!”

I gave her time to recover her emotions, and took a brief survey on the surroundings during this interval. It was very dark outside, pitch black, literally, and the classroom appeared so dreadfully empty that the pallid fluorescent light seemed to clamor when its dazzling whiteness hit against the metallic surface of window lattice, and the deep-greenness of our uniform so bleak and artificial, shadows cast by the light so painfully sharp. Somebody was telling me that I should be away immediately lest I get into devastating trouble with my family, but I refused to. Maybe the fragrance of her hair simply spell-bounded me so that I was unable to budge.

“I know what you are thinking.” She sighed, again, wistfully. “You are thinking that we should part here.”

I wanted to protest that my face blushed with indignation, for she, the true predator, was victimizing herself. Yet I held back--- because it was true, the time was late, and the prospect of my mother niggling at me that invariably conclude with her uncontrollable hysteria lay threateningly in front of me. On the other hand, hurting her feelings, even if unintentionally, was too much for me. I was probably too good at holding back myself to do any good.

On my way home, just about I was gauging the hue of light-contaminated darkness of the city overhead to guestimate just how late it was, I felt Jack’s bony hand squatting at my nape, and he did this so forcibly that I felt as though those fingers bit into my flesh.

“Good job, romantic boy.” He sneered. “For God’s sake who do you think you are? Sir Lancelot? Thanks a lot to you, ass-hole, we will never get rid of that woman.”

All of the sudden I seemed to realize that that “somebody” who was urging me to leave was Jack.