Before the World Forgot Me

Realization

I stopped. I read what I'd written. The handwriting was shaking.

And then I realized something that made my skin go cold.

I was looking at the entry I'd written this morning. The one where I'd documented my plan to test myself at work. The one where I'd said I was going to force the world to acknowledge my existence.

But I couldn't remember writing it.

I could remember thinking it. I could remember making the decision. But the act of actually sitting down with the pen and putting the words on paper? That had happened, but I hadn't experienced it. It was like I'd blacked out and my hands had written something without my consciousness being present.

I flipped back through the notebook. All the entries were in my handwriting. All of them were in my voice. But some of them I didn't remember writing. Some of them I only remembered thinking about. The line between internal and external had started to collapse.

I closed the notebook. I put it in my bag. I stood up from my desk.

I needed to leave. I needed to get out of this office where people didn't know me and didn't think about me and where my work was being done by someone else entirely. I needed to go somewhere where I could be sure of my own reality.

Or at least somewhere where I could hide from the reality I was losing.

As I walked toward the exit, I passed Patricia's office. She was on the phone. She was talking about me. I could hear my name. "Eli's having some issues," she was saying. "I think it might be time to start thinking about medical leave. He seems really confused about his projects."

I kept walking. I didn't acknowledge that I'd heard. I just kept moving through the office like I was a ghost. Like I was something that could pass through walls and disappear into the afternoon.

By the time I reached the street, I was breathing hard. My chest was tight. My hands were shaking. I was real. I could feel my heartbeat. I could feel the cold air on my face. I existed.

But did it matter? Did physical existence count if nobody could remember that you were alive?

I started walking. I didn't know where I was going. I just knew I needed to move. I needed to be in motion. I needed to feel like I was going somewhere, even if that somewhere was nowhere at all.

I walked for hours. Through neighborhoods I recognized and neighborhoods I didn't. Past people who didn't know me. Past buildings that didn't know I'd ever existed. Past my own reflection in store windows, which looked increasingly unfamiliar.

By evening, I found myself at Rosario's again.

It was closing time. The staff was cleaning. Wiping tables. Turning off machines. I stood outside looking through the window. The barista I didn't recognize was sweeping. She didn't see me. She wouldn't have recognized me if she had.

I tried the door. It was unlocked. I walked in.

"We're closed," the barista said without looking up.

"I know," I said. "I just want to sit for a minute."

She looked at me now. She looked at me like she was trying to decide if I was a threat. If I was someone worth worrying about.

"Can I help you?" she asked finally.

"I come here a lot," I said. "Three times a week. Every Wednesday. I order a cappuccino and an almond croissant. And you don't remember me."

"I'm sorry," she said, and she sounded like she meant it. "I see a lot of people."

"I know. That's the problem."

I turned around and walked back out into the street.

It was dark now. The city lights were on. Everything looked like a photograph of itself. Like the world was a simulation of a real place, close but not quite right. I pulled out my phone. I searched my contacts for Mara. I called her.

"Hey," she said, sounding confused again. "What's going on?"

"I need to see you. I need to know if you remember me."

"Of course I remember you. Are you okay? You're scaring me a little."

"Just tell me. Tell me how long we've known each other."

"Eight years. Since college. Eli, are you having a mental health crisis right now? Because if you are, I think you should call someone. Or I can—"

I hung up.

I stood on the street corner in the dark. The city moved around me. Traffic. People. The ambient sound of millions of other lives being lived. All of it indifferent to my existence. All of it moving forward with or without me.

I opened the notebook one more time.

I wrote: "I don't exist. Or I do, but I'm the only one who knows it. Or I'm disappearing so slowly that nobody's noticed yet. Or I'm already gone and the notebook is all that's left of me. A ghost written in ballpoint pen. Evidence of a person who might never have been real."

I closed the notebook.