Not Alone

'Absence coincides with loss, not loss of what is missing, but your own place therein’  

Since I can remember, I’ve felt like I’m solely an observer.  I felt that people who acknowledged my existence were experiencing an anomaly, and my actions were never anything more than meddling. But maybe I was meant to be this way…

Two years ago: “Robert”, the wolf says, the wolf that’s in all my dreams, “their time is almost up.” I know it’s a dream. I feel as conscious as someone awake. Though for some reason I can’t speak, I can’t question the strange animal or delve deeper into this mystery than my subconscious would permit.  It always starts in a forest, a very enchanting, almost surreal forest. It feels like in here there is nothing threatening like in nature. I tilt my head at the wolf, body language being my method of communicating with it since I got used to the fact that this was where my mind wandered at night.  It raises its ears, looking at me momentarily, gauging what I am telling it, before it whines softly. “Watch” its mouth doesn’t move when it speaks, but I am certain that it is the wolf that talks. It sits, before bringing its tail around to its side, and lowering the front half of its body to the ground so that it is perched like a sphinx.  Its ears fold back and it closes its eyes, putting its chin to the ground between its paws. Either my vision, or the world itself distorts like a pebble chucked at a waters reflection. When it clears, we are no longer in a forest. 

Brooklyn Bridge Park. I’d come here to read on my days off. We’re behind the bench I usually sit at, and there is another person that looks like me reading… it is I that we watch. Though I am not alone. The park bustles with regular activity, activity that I have no part in, but my isolation provided a tranquil and quiet life that I enjoy. The wolf rises and stalks towards my double, or past self it seems. This is a memory. It licks my doubles hand, though it appears invisible to it. My double shivers and looks up worriedly, before making a longing expression. I remember that….  The sudden chill and the fleeting sensation that some integral part of my existence was within arms reach…  Someone screams in the distance. This never happened…  the trees darken and wither like the grass; flowers wilt and animals turn to corpses. Most distressing is the fact that people fade to nothing. I feel empty, hopeless and broken. Reality had died and forgotten to take me with it. A gentle nudge of something wet at my hand restores me, healing and filling my soul. As I turn the wolf sits at my side looking at me.  “Do you remember me yet?” its words fill my head. If only it had a voice, but instead I hear it with my own.  “That’s fine.” It says. “You’re not alone”   

One year ago: I was a medical laboratory technician, something suitable for someone who doesn’t like to think too hard or talk to people. At home I played piano and heated soup to eat with a nightly dose of TV sitcoms. It was a comfortable and routine lifestyle, one I was more than happy to pass my days with.  It was a routine that was abruptly halted when important news headlines interrupted my usual shows. ‘The world is ending’ it’s so absurd that you don’t believe it for a long time.  There had been so many false scares and rumors. Strangely enough, I didn’t care. I was happy in a way actually, my whole life was so insignificant. The thought of perishing with the world seemed happy to me.  

This morning: Each day gets colder, while each person gets a little closer to starving.  There was an outrage over the shelters for the people who could afford it compared to the facilities for the public, but eventually people realized that rioting would only waste their energy.  Food stamps are down to two a week, barely enough to keep a person alive. There is a limit to how many stamps a person can cash in, to avoid crime.  Eating another person would be easier than stealing their stamps, and it has happened….  I’ve stopped going to get supplies, I’ve stopped going out of my house. I haven’t eaten in a week.  I write, I sleep and dream, and slowly, I wait to die.  There is nothing outside but death and chaos garnished with a bitter cold, it’s much nicer when I’m asleep, there’s the wolf.    

Now: “Robert” the wolf says. “Your time is almost up” I know it’s a dream, but is it strange that I feel I belong here more than I ever did anywhere in life?  The incomplete feeling, the unknown goal of my life, it all seems clearer here.  I nod at the wolf, content in its presence, immersed in this splendid forest.   Its tail wags softly. “Do you remember me yet?” it tilts its head at me, a typical questioning gesture of a canine.  I shake my head. It is so familiar that it is frustrating; this things origin is right at the tip of my tongue. “Watch” it assumes a sphinx posture the same as two years ago, and a tear rolls down its eye before its muzzle reaches the ground between its paws.  Near us, the forest begins to bustle with activity, strange animals and large wolves like the one I know. There is a silent and still wolf on its side, with the wolf from my dreams beside it, whimpering and resting its head on the ground, sniffing at its dead companion. The world distorts like a pebble cast into a waters reflection and the scene changes to two wolves playing under a starry sky.  I… I remember. You don’t have a name. You don’t have words, because you aren’t human… neither was I. I loved you and I left you alone, and I spent a lifetime alone because of that.  You found me… I was so many worlds away, but you found me…  Wherever I go, wherever we end up, I won’t ever allow you to be alone. I promise on my soul.