The Letter

Dear Fred;

I am writing letter to you to say goodbye. I'm going to disappear, my friend. I wonder who will notice? If I do it right, the answer is "no one".

If I know you, you've stopped reading this by now; tossing it aside with a snide laugh and thinking “what is he on about now?”. Tomorrow, you will have forgotten both this letter and me. I'm okay with that, now.

I don't know why I seem to need to say goodbye to someone - maybe it will make things more real for me ... which is ironic since my purpose is to become less real to everyone else.

So: I am going to disappear. And yes, I am serious.

I have known for a long time that I inhabit the fringes of our friendship group, just as you are one of the stars the rest of us revolve around. I'm the last one told of our pub time; the last one in the invitation list. People listen politely whenever I do manage to put a few words into a conversation, but I doubt anyone has actually heard anything I've said for years.

I stopped resenting all of this a long time ago, when I realised that it gave me a wonderful opportunity to be the proverbial fly on the wall. The things people will say when they think no-one is listening! I could probably be a blackmail millionaire, ha ha!

It wasn't until a few months ago that I realised that I truly was invisible to all of you. I think it was Martha's birthday party. Sean told one of his horrifically long shaggy dog stories and Dave said something about it being too bad I wasn't there because I would have hated it. The awkward silence that followed me handing Dave his beer and saying "You're right, I do" was, I confess, wonderful. I still laugh at how red he went.

Anyway, as I was walking home I said to myself "I am truly invisible to my friends" and shook my head, as I always used to do. But the thought got lodged in the back of my mind, I guess, because I started noticing other people in other groups who seemed to be just like me: welcomed, possibly, but – really - unnoticed.

Then it wasn't just pub groups. I came to see that my office mates treated me the same way - somehow there but not there at the same time. Store clerks, street vendors, bus drivers; I understood how it felt to be one of the street beggars, with a sign and a hat.

I spent quite a while angry about that. Not that anyone noticed it or that I did anything about it. I was quite depressed, honestly. I even entertained the idea of moving to a new place and trying to start over, but ...

Then, one day, I was at the grocer's, standing in line to pay for a few items and an older woman - a tiny woman, about five-four; maybe in her fifties? - walked past me in the express line carrying a couple of items in a cloth bag. Before I could say anything about queue-jumping, she looked me straight in the eye, put her finger to her lips, winked, and walked out of the store! And no-one noticed! No alarms no shouting, nothing!

I walked home deep in thought.

It happened again a few weeks later: I'm in a queue being quietly ignored, and I watch someone else stroll out without paying and it not being noticed, bold as brass. So it wasn't my imagination playing games. I wasn’t losing my mind.

Remember that miserable cold that went around at the beginning of the year? Well I managed to catch a good dose of it, or course, and was sick as a dog for almost a week. I was so laid out that I even forgot to phone in sick to work. When I finally did get back into the office I had been AWOL for four days; Friday to Wednesday. Two days is a firing offense in Mr. McCallum’s book, so I was pretty careful to get to my desk as unnoticed as possible. Old McCallum didn't stroll by until 2, and his only comment was to tell me I should get outside more because I looked a little peaked. That was it! Four days! No one ... NO ONE noticed. I didn't know whether to dance or hang myself.

So I went to a different, quieter pub and had a long hard talk with myself. Something must have broken, inside me, that night because I did two things I never thought I would ever risk: I ordered, and drank, three Scotches and I walked out on the tab. I say I walked out but, really, I carefully sidled out of the pub - trying not to be too obvious in what I intended - and didn't start running for home until I was a good ten feet away from the door. I felt a complete idiot, if course, and sat on the floor in my darkened apartment for probably three hours, waiting for the police to show up.

But they didn't, did they?

I was pretty sure I had either gone insane or that I was in a coma. For the next two weeks l did nothing even the slightest bit differently; I lived up to the image everyone seems to have about me - dull, quiet, and unutterably predictable. I think the retired man at the end of the hall started to set his watch by me.

When my nerves had settled and I felt I could stand a risk again, I created a plan. The Plan, as it turned out. I laid out a schedule for taking time away from work: a 3-hour lunch here, an early leave there. I figured it would take me seven weeks to move up to taking whole afternoons off. I moved my office to a less-trafficked spot in the pretense of a problem with noise. I stopped doing the morning coffee dash with the others. Of course, no-one noticed.

Two months in, I was sitting in a bench at Lakeside Park feeding the ducks in the sunshine every three days. Not a peep from anyone, especially not McCallum. There was less crap hitting my desk which meant more free time for me. No one seemed to care if I had to pop out to do some errand or other. I kept making these announcements but I was really the only one who heard.

Two months ago, I stopped going to work at all. I still stopped by once a week just in case but that soon became a kind of walk-by observation: I felt like McCallum on patrol. What a laugh! But I was free! I was getting paid at a job I never showed up for: what could be better?

I actually started to go out more. I went to shops, museums, art galleries, pubs. I explored all the social places I would never have tried before. And stopped paying for pretty much anything: free entry, free food, free drinks. It’s been heaven. I’m doing all the things I’ve never had time for. I’ve taken up hobbies.

And I found my people, Fred. Everywhere I went, there were people just like me: anonymous, unnoticed, unwanted. Extras in the movie of life. Sand at the bottom of the ocean. They told me about this new world of ours; taught me how to live Apart. Took all my guilt and shame and tossed it into the bin. Now I’m living life the way it should be lived. And watching you Drudgers toiling away, keeping the world running for our enjoyment. Watching the misery that we left behind.

We are the free. We are the real. We are the Apart.

And we are Legion.

Goodbye, Fred. Keep up your good work, please; we’re counting on you.