“What is it?”

“Um, it’s everything, man. It’s everything. I’m still getting adjusted to this strange town and these strange people and this new job and this new school and the lack of cigarettes and...” He chuckled.

“And two times in the past six weeks I’ve had my heart poached, just fucking ripped away from me and stretched across a lathe and it’s been a lot to handle. Like, it’s even breaking me down physically. My muscles hurt and my chest feels empty without the beating drum inside.

“Damn,” he said.

“But I mean, it’s cool, man. It happens. It’s who I am. I let it all ride out there, baby. I’m okay with it. People get the real me. Maybe if I just had someone out here to talk to, someone to listen to, to identify with…”

He nodded, smoking, staring at me.

“You read much?”

He nodded. I didn’t believe him.

“Lately I feel like a character in a Bret Easton Ellis novel,” I said. “Even before I moved out here, I’ve felt like I’m stuck in this world with these people who can’t fucking feel anything, who are completely numbed, who can’t have real conversations that mean anything important at all, everything is so surfaced and so superficial and I can’t fucking stand it.” Or maybe it’s just you, maybe you just can’t make anyone feel anything for you and maybe you’re the problem here and how does this make you feel?

My manager continued to smoke. “Things will get better,” he said. “They always do.”

“But I’m not looking for better,” I said. “I’m looking for something real. I’m looking for someone out there in this fucked up town, in this world who’s wishing to feel something, anything. I’m looking for something that doesn’t feel completely contrived, someone or something that recognizes truth when they see it, someone who’s not afraid to give themselves up to it, someone…” Someone to talk to? You don’t talk to people. You listen to them. You don’t love people. You shun them. When did you decide to start loving people? The reason this is happening to you is because it’s just nature avenging the broken hearts of those you’ve busted. You used to fight women off of you, remember?

“But I’m tired of fighting,” I said.

“What?” my manager asked.

“Nothing.”

“Maybe you just need a vacation,” he said.

“But I just got back from Pluto,” I said.

“Pluto? What?”

“Never mind,” I said, dropping myself back into the world. “It’s complicated.”

My manager smiled and blew smoke and got out another cigarette. He offered me one and I took it. “How was it?” He asked.

“It was good, thanks.”

“Not the cigarette.” He said, shaking his head. “How was Pluto?”

“Oh,” I said. “Cold.”

He chuckled. I stared up at the black sky and wished I could see the moon.

“Listen, man,” he said, lighting up again. “Just give this place time. It’s a great place, really. I didn’t like it when I moved here, either.”

“Yeah,” I said, and he was totally missing the point. Maybe you’re missing the point, maybe you’re the one who has lost it…

“No,” I said, “I know I’ve already lost it.”

“What?”

“I’ve been pacing that fucking warehouse since I got here today, man,” I said. “I must have walked three or four miles since five. My fucking legs are tired but I can’t stay still. I’m in a strange place right now. It’s sublime and awesome, but it’s strange.”

“Maybe you should go back home for a day,” he said. “Talk to some of your friends and stuff.”

“Maybe,” I said, my mind slipping into my chest to fill the void. “But it’s like, I’m trying to walk around and look sane. I feel like someone’s going to ask me, ‘Hey Tim, why is your face so red,’ or ‘Hey, what happened to your eyes,’ or ‘Yo, can I borrow one of your extra brains,’ or they might reach down and pick up my life and hand it to me and say, ‘You dropped this.’” Or they might lie to you and tell you that you look fine because they don’t know you, nobody here knows you, nobody cares, don’t you see that?

“Yes,” I said. “I see, I see.”

“What are you talking about?”

“And I have writing, I don’t know if I told you this before, but I’m a writer, maybe not a very good one lately, but I still write, I mean, it’s my only outlet, it’s how I stay sane, so at least I have that.” But you’re not sane at all, you’re listening to me and I’m going to destroy you, you’re already dead…

“I remember what Nietzsche said once,” I said, and sucked some smoke to blow out. “He said that some men are born posthumously. Maybe that’s what’s happening to me and I’m just now realizing it. Maybe I’m waiting to be born.” The only thing you’re waiting for is slow and painful death…

My manager just kind of looked at me. Somebody honked a horn nearby.

“Maybe I’m the only one alive in this place, feeling these things, or maybe I’m just the only one who wants to,” I said. “Maybe these people just need some help in waking up. Maybe they’re living in the past and yearning for people not worth half their weight in my blood because the idea of me scares them to death. Maybe what they need more than anything is just to wake up and feel something. Isn’t there anyone out there who feels something, who wants to feel something? Anybody? ANYBODY?”

And I vehemently sort of leaned back and shouted that last one into the warm late night air and watched the cadence of it flee my body and soul, hoping it would bounce off the invisible moon with some sort of answer. Nothing came back. You didn’t expect it to.

I looked over at my manager and he was trying to smile because he wanted me to be joking, there was something in my eyes that frightened him and he was probably realizing that I am just a breath away from madness, he was probably realizing that there were punctuated demons in my voice when I raised it to a heaven that doesn’t exist, or maybe his eyes had widened because it was the first time today that he actually saw someone alive.

I stopped and bought a pack of cigarettes on the way home from work, my first pack in about six weeks, and I got home and smoked five in a row, playing a dragon in reverse, inhaling fire and spewing smoke and I looked in the mirror and smiled at the face I saw, because it was human, it was me, I wasn’t a dragon after all, but I noticed that I had scratches on my face like I’d been fighting something I never even saw.