Now Here

I was dreaming about something, something that I didn’t know. Something far, far bigger than myself.

Or maybe I wasn’t dreaming of anything at all.

No, no. That’s not right at all. I was definitely, or at the very least, likely, dreaming of something.

But then, maybe nothing is, in fact, far bigger than myself.

Bigger than any of us, really.

In that sense it is entirely likely that I was dreaming of nothing. But not nothing as in nothing. Nothing as in a vast space of darkness.

I suppose darkness is some type of something then, even if it is entirely empty.

I know I was sleeping, or at least not conscious by any means, when I began to hear a voice. It was less like a voice than what we know a voice as, such as words from a human mouth, and more like the voice of a calling of fate.

Fate speaks in tongues.

There I was, floating, if floating is what you do in nothingness, at least I was doing something similar to floating, when I started to hear it. I turned my head in one direction, then the other. There was nothing around me.

But in a sense everything was around me at the same time.

I managed to turn my entire body. But it wasn’t turning anywhere. It was like my eyes were able to see in every direction at once. I could hear the voice but it wasn’t coming from any direction in particular, it was just there. Like when you talk to yourself in your head.

Is that where I was? In my head? Had I managed to implode into myself?

If I imploded into myself, then I would be nowhere at all.

Was it my own voice I was hearing? I tried to call out.

“Hello?”

No sound escaped me. I was entirely silent. Everything was entirely silent, not even ringing in my ears. Except for the indistinct voice calling me.

Possibly my voice.

It sounded as if I were under water and somebody from the surface was yelling for me. But not yelling, more like talking.

Yes.

It was like I was on the floor of the ocean and somebody was having a conversation on the surface.

I opened my mouth to yell out again, and again no sound escaped me. I almost expected water to fill my lungs.

It didn’t.

I looked around me again, my eyes seemingly the only part of me that could move. Around and around they went but there was nothing for them to see.

Suddenly, as if an earthquake had hit me, not around me but actually hit my body, I felt something around my arm. It was warm, soft, and gentle. But the feeling of it was like my body went entirely through an earthquake.

Almost as if I was the earth. As if I were crust, mantle, and the outer and inner cores.

I sat with it, only for a minute, that thing wrapped around my arm.

Or maybe it was two seconds.

Or an eon.

A decade.

Or five thousand years.

It was a hand, that warm, soft, gentle thing wrapped around my arm. I tried to hold it, to grab it, to place my hand on top of it. I was frozen.

I felt my eyes open and I was weightless. I saw the universe flash before my eyes. Every inch of it, and I was flying through it.

I was on the sidewalk and a woman, gentle and kind, was holding onto my arm. She was knelt down next to me, brown hair pushed behind her ears. I looked at her.

Not in a weird way, but in a way that somebody looks at something interesting.

I watched people pass by, cars drive, birds fly, and this woman mouth something to somebody. I couldn’t hear a thing.

Was there somebody else there?

I tracked her eyes as she mouthed something.

Yes. Yes, there had to be somebody else there. Her eyes were looking behind me.

I moved my eyes to look behind me, and it felt odd to not be in the nothingness I was just in. I had to use muscles to move my eyes now.

It was a man. A short man with gray hair, or at least gray enough. He had a clean face, not a single piece of stubble on it. The two were talking, and I could start to hear that voice again.

The one that sounded like fate.

Like I was moving through a tube of gelatinous liquid, I pulled my eyes back to the woman that was mouthing something to the man behind me.

Her eyes caught mine and she mouthed something to me.

I felt more pressure from her hand, as if she were squeezing it.

Squeezing it.

As if surfacing from the bottom of the ocean I could hear the words she was saying.

That woman.

“Are you hungry?”

Me.

Nothing.

That woman.

“Can you hear me?”

Me.

Nothing.

Her voice trailed off again to something else. As though if she weren’t talking directly to me, I couldn’t hear her. But her voice, her voice was as gentle as her hand.

I hadn’t realized it, but I was lying down. I felt my back stiff and hard against the pavement.

But was I lying down? I had just been floating.

Or at least the equivalence of floating.

I was back under the water, words filtered through the thick waves.

I couldn’t hear anything.

Nothing.

The only senses I had were touch and site. I felt the sidewalk underneath me.

It was warm, hot almost.

It was grainy, as if I were lying on the black and white static of an old television.

One that had lost connection.

Slowly, like a small stream flowing into the river, then into the vast ocean, my ears filled with the static noise of an ancient television.

Not ancient in the way the beginning of the world is ancient. But old.

Yes, not an ancient television but an old television.

I opened my eyes again and this is not where I had remembered being. Even before I had imploded into myself into absolute nothingness, I was somewhere else completely before.

Where, I do not currently know.

Maybe I do.

Yes.

I was at home. At least a place I called my home.

I was on a couch and there was a cat, an orange one, lying, purring on my chest. I was petting it, stroking it from its head down its back and to its tail. I remember it loving the way I did that.

Was it my mother’s house?

My house?

Or was it a shelter. I’ve been in a few of those.

It definitely wasn’t here.

Where is here?

Here is nothing.

Here is nowhere.

Now here.

I could hear again. As if I had never lost my hearing. I could hear everything around me. The cars, the people, the birds, the wind, the grass. Everything was as if nothing had ever changed.

Me.

“No.”

The man behind me.

“Do you know where you are?”

Me.

“Yes.”

Him.

“Where are you?”

Me.

“I’m on the sidewalk.”

The woman.

“Do you know your name?”

My name.

My name.

What was my name.

Who was I?

Was I anybody? Did I have a name? I reflected on that.

Put a mirror in front of my soul and reflected on who I was.

It was hideous, my soul was. Disgusting and putrid and rotten.

I don’t know how it got that way, but that’s how it was.

Me.

“Robert.”

The woman.

“Robert, what’s your last name?”

The questions. All of these questions. They were starting to piss me off. I felt myself getting angry.

I wasn’t angry at her for asking them, but at the questions themselves. As if they were alive, living and breathing, questions. Like they had a face and a name and a history.

These questions.

Rage.

Rage.

Rage.

Me.

“Somewhere.”

Was I still dreaming?

I could be.

I could not be.

There probably isn’t that much of a difference.

Not really.

Not between the human experience and a dream.

The woman.

“Do you know what happened to you?”

Me.

“Nothing happened to me.”

Was that right?

No.

Yes.

Yes, something had happened to me.

What was it?

Me.

“Something happened to me.”

I had only just realized that the man and the woman were paramedics, that they had on blue uniforms with badges and they were wearing latex gloves.

I got up, all the way up onto my feet and I was extremely dizzy. I managed to catch myself, to find balance.

Or at least something similar to balance.

The man.

“Hold steady now.”

He let me place a hand on his shoulder. He was shorter than me. Not by much, but by a little.

Enough.

The woman started talking into a radio that was clipped to her lapel.

I didn’t hear what she said.

The woman.

“You tried to kill yourself last night.”

Me.

“Kill myself?”

That would mean I was something. I had to be something. You can’t kill nothing. Nothing has never existed.

But it has. I’ve seen it.

Nothing is absolutely everything.

Now here.

The man.

“You remember that?”

Me.

“No.”

The woman. Why were they always switching?

“Will you go to the hospital with us?”

Me.

“I don’t want to kill myself.”

The woman.

“What happened last night?”

If I knew, I would tell her. She seemed nice enough. If I had any way of replaying the previous night, I would tell her all about it. The entire thing. I would tell her my entire life story if she had time to listen. Explain to her every single thing that I knew.

But there was nothing for me to tell.

My name wasn’t Robert. It was something else entirely. It wasn’t Justin or Zach.

Not Theodore or Alabaster.

It ran and hid from me.

My name did.

Leapt through the forest and hid in the shadows. I could not catch it, could not catch anything like a breath.

My breath.

Long, raspy, and heavy as it was.

I focused on it and it was difficult, trying.

I was still leaning on the man. I now expected him to hold me the way we expect floors to not collapse beneath us.

The way we expect misery to follow grief.

Me.

“I don’t want to go to the hospital.”

The woman.

“Do you know today’s date?”

The date.

The date.

If I guessed the date, I would have an infinite number of guesses.

Monday January 19, 1280.

Friday September 2, 1934.

Wednesday April 39, 0000.

0000.

As if it existed.

Me.

“I don’t want to kill myself.”

The woman.

“Do you know today’s date?”

I forgot that I never answered her, only myself.

Me.

“It’s Monday.”

The two people looked at each other, confusion in their eyes.

Not confusion, concern.

Yes. They were concerned.

For me?

The woman.

“Do you know where you are?”

I was still leaning on the man. He didn’t seem to mind. Like he was doing a duty for me.

Now here.

Me.

“In Kentucky.”

Her.

“Do you know which city?”

It was frustrating me that they never told me if I was right or not with my answers.

I couldn’t ask if I was right because then it would seem like I was guessing.

Me.

“Lexington.”

I had lived there before.

Ten years ago.

Again, the two paramedics looked at each other. If I had thought about it, I would have looked at the badges on their uniforms before.

Atlanta Emergency Squad.

Atlanta?

There wasn’t much difference between Atlanta and Lexington.

Not much at all. Other than geographic location.

I was in Atlanta.

The night before I could have been in Lexington like I could have been in San Francisco.

Or like how I could have been on Neptune, or Pluto, or some other galaxy all together.

Now here.

Me.

“Atlanta, Georgia.”

Me.

“It’s Wednesday.”

Me.

“I don’t want to go to the hospital.”

Me.

“I don’t want to kill myself.”

Me.

“I was in Lexington. I came here to visit my sister. She doesn’t live far from here.”

I had no sister.

The woman.

“We can’t force you, but if you would sign here indicating you are refusing medical assistance, then we can be out of your way. Are you sure you don’t need anything? I have a granola bar in the truck.”

I signed her papers, it was on a clipboard. I signed them with no clear letters, just a line of loopty loops.

My name. 

What was my name.

It wasn’t anything.

I had no name.

No past.

No future.

No present.

But I had to have a name. Somebody had to name me. I had to be somewhere.

Atlanta, Georgia is where I was, but I don’t mean somewhere in that sense. I mean somewhere in the sense of existence.

They left, the man and the woman. I was left alone, all alone.

Entirely alone.

I laid back down on the sidewalk, hoping to be transported back into the nothingness that I remembered.

But nothing happened.

I felt the hard concrete underneath me.

I was back to life and could never go back to the dark nothing.

But what did that mean.

I didn’t know.

I wanted to sleep.

Yes, sleep. A long, deep sleep.

Not death.

I did not want to die.

That was,

is,

the truth.

I stood up again, stared directly at the sun for a few seconds, and when I couldn’t see anything because of big, flashing blobs of black circles, I began to walk nowhere in particular.

Nowhere.

Now here.

Repeating.

Repeating.

Repeating.

Now here.

Now here.

Now here.

Nowhere.

Nowhere.

Nowhere.

Did I want to kill myself? To stop. To cease.

To end.

It is possible, but not entirely. Not completely possible.

My pockets were empty. I walked into the nearest gas station, asked to use a phone, dialed a number that I had memorized.

It could have been centuries old. The first phone number ever invented.

The voice.

“Hello?”

Me.

“Can you pick me up? I’m in Atlanta.”

The voice.

“Who is this?”

My name escaped me. I was alone.

Completely,

entirely,

alone.

Me.

“It’s me.”