"Who am I"

“Who am I?” Was the last thought I had the previous night and every other night for the past 2 years. A question always repeating in my mind whenever I feel at ease. Yet still no real tangible answer has come forth, or I just don’t want to admit what I know. I turn from my back to my stomach and heave myself up.

Everything is in a daze as I blink a few times to focus. The sun shines brightly through my open window down to my bed, the rays that hit through the closed window have a slightly mellow touch through the tint. “Already noon”, I think out loud and look around, is that really my voice?

I never seem to be identified with it, not that anyone ever hears it from me anymore. To the factory work I am but the force my body produces and in converse with friends it simply fills a social function, just as my laugh. Gosh I hate that disingenuous sound, couldn't even remember the last time … it must have been at that beach … her … her hands falling through mine as smooth as silk and … and …

The eyes start to taste like the ocean, it starts to feel like me, so vast in expanse and at the same time so empty and little. I could see it clearly now, yes, I truly am but a lost drop of water in an ocean of lost droplets. She loved the shade of blue in the ocean, but not the water. She was the sky I love, and her sky was my reflection, without her I am but colourless.” The last part bursting out with the last breath of air.

“Be quiet you worthless fool!” My neighbors shout piercing through the thin rose-petal patterned walls. I don’t want to hear another word about your damn breakup. Every. Single. Day! And that …

The fresh air of the balcony have seldomly felt better. I take a deep breath of relief, my lungs aching as I shut the sliding glass door, muffling the sounds of my neighbor just enough to ignore it.

But was he right? “Am I a fool?” My voice raspy and barely carries air as I reflexively put a cigarette between my lips and light it. Smoking is one of the last habits I carry from that previous life. Was that why? I inhale some smoke, holding it in the upper parts of the throat, letting it soothe me. She told me to quit, numerous times but I didn’t. I take deeper breaths as I toy with the idea that everything would have been fine if I had quit, that the wonderful moments in time would have been still and last forever.

Looking down at my fingers told me the truth. The palm of my hand being unrecognizable, just as most of my body has been hollowed out.

“I know the answer,” I always knew the answer, the bones of my finger poking the skin as I move the cigarette up to my lips. Still I always found enough distractions to avoid it. Constantly clouding my mind, forcing myself to go through the mist as I give up more and more ground, losing reality one step at a time. Slowly I am retreating into the deepest crevasses of my mind for every passing day, hiding behind what others call denial or even insanity.

I know the answer. The smog fogging my brain and moving down to my lungs as a warm blanket on my chest. I take to a wooden chair and look up at the sky. The clouds seem to ask of the world, is life even worth living? Why not be free like us? Floating around without a worry in the world, raining when needed and providing shade when needed. Really a lot more useful than me sitting in a chair.

“Here you go,” I exhale steam from my breath for it to return home.

Live your perfectly unmiserable experience, oh but you don’t live do you? Stupid cloud being condescending and lecturing me about worth, about meaning. Arguing with clouds now? A lowest of lows even for me. Still I tempt a look down at the street, the pavement calling for me and flirting to me the idea of flying.

I couldn’t die, not yet. Not before I know who this ‘I’ that ought to die even is in the first place.

“This is getting too heavy man,” the voice is a familiar one.

“Am I supposed to call in suicide watch?” One I hear every morning, noon or evening.

“Or worse, having my conscience make me do it?” Still the voice being unexpectedly quiet.

“Sorry, for the inconvenience.” I turn towards my neighbor sitting in a sun stool smoking a cigar. A mismatch to his otherwise food stained wife beater and what could be called grey shorts with a yellow hue.

“You know, I have been there, man. Life is tough, but you hang yourself up on that one girl to much. And then ask all that existential crap. Oh, my soul hurts here, oh it hurts here. Oh, the clouds are telling me to jump.” He looks worried, almost caring if it wasn’t for the ironic voice. You are just trying to find a reason in yourself that made things go to hell. It isn’t even really about her.

“So what if I do, it was me. My fault, my own doing. I was a fool, a nicely painted facade she fell in love with. As soon as my true self shown through, it was over!” The last part coming out as a defiant child would speak to their parent.

“Who gives a shit,” He stands up leaning his meaty hands on the balcony rails staring straight at me. Some people just don’t make for good partners. That’s all there is. But hell if that is a reason to end it all. Have you seen how many beautiful women there are out there, are you crazy?

“And you are one to speak. Don’t see many ladies in your apartment. Never even seen one close to it.”

He takes a deep puff of the cigar, seemingly gathering himself.

“We are keeping me out of this.”

“Watch your cholesterol.”

“Watch your mouth!”

I stand up and rest my arms against the cold steel of the guardrails separating me from a certain death. Only the bud of the cigarette is left.

“Look kid, it wasn’t your fault. It may seem that way, and hell maybe it even was your fault for it all ending. That is beside the point, life is so much more than one other person. There’s plenty to life, look I got my cigar.” Waving it like a wand to dispel my despair. Some part of me had to admit it cleared out some of that fog.

“What if I don’t have anything else? What if that is the only person I knew, without her I am barely human. I mean look at me, am I living! There’s no reason worth living for!”

“Great. If there is nothing there, then you can start from scratch. You are still young, you have plenty of possibilities. Your reason to end it all can’t be that you have no reasons to live. That in itself would mean you have a reason for your existence, which contradicts your reason to not live.”

I can’t help a chuckle escaping my lips. "Yeah, you’re right. Albert Camus would be jealous. Care for a reason to drink?”

“Don’t need one. But it’s already two o'clock in the afternoon, why didn’t you ask sooner?”

I tap the remanence of the cigarette against the balcony rails, the ashes falling down the street as I turn around for a new chapter of life.