nonexistence

“So yeah this one time,” I laughed as telling the same story I told a thousand times. Perhaps more. I thought for a second, was there a story I had never told anyone? The entirety of my life events have been conveyed in stories; they were all things I had disclosed to other people. Had any of these things actually happened? Or where they simply stories I remembered from telling other people? I wasn’t certain, I couldn’t think of anything. So when I returned home today I knew I needed to do something which I would never tell anyone about.

I sat down on the dusty, tiled floor near my desk in the living room. The air was cool. Long shadows were cut from yellow rays of sunlight slicing through the closed blinds. Dust danced in the dark.  “This will be my little secret. This is my proof of my existence.” I leaned back against the desk chair and took a sip of a rapidly prepared martini from a dirty glass. “I will never reveal to anyone I drank a warm martini on the floor of my apartment in midafternoon. This will be my little secret. If no one knows, if I haven’t told anyone, then I know I exist.”

When I was done, I got up off the floor and brushed myself off. I placed the glass in the sink over-flowing with dirty plates and utensils. I glanced back on where I was sitting and for some reason it almost felt shameful. Still, if I didn’t tell anyone, then maybe, just maybe, I actually existed.

I couldn’t have been more wrong.