Michael Seidlinger: The Strangest

I want to be as far away from everything as possible.

Society is absurd and, it seems, I am forced to be a part of it.

Everyone is forced to be a part of it.

No exceptions. All are judged.

For perhaps the first time in a long time, I slept. I slept more than two hours or so. I slept without the tossing and turning; I slept and was completely separated from my surrounding. I had a dream. I can’t remember the last dream I had. I never dream. It has been like this for quite some time. Tonight I dreamt, and I felt. And I remembered. The dream started on a deserted path. Batches of trees mixed in with litter and strip malls. The sidewalk appeared, chipped away, and then reappeared before finally disappearing for good.

I walked the path. I walked with my chin up.

I became more conscious of why I was walking based on what I was wearing. Eventually people shared the path and we shared conversation. I spoke up for myself. I didn’t smother my speech. They were happy to have made a new acquaintance, but I was happier: I showed off what I was wearing, what I was holding, and what had just happened to me.

Every encounter seemed to go well. They enjoyed hearing my good news, the news that I couldn’t help but repeating a few times, not once hearing the news myself. But I kept talking.

It seemed I was the one growing tired of hearing myself speak.

I yawned in my sleep, and they all seemed to take it as an insult. My apologies weren’t accepted; they revealed the truth of the situation. They were humoring me, judging my tactlessness. They didn’t like my suit, didn’t quite care about my good news. It did not affect them, and because it didn’t affect them, they didn’t hear any of it.

I asked if it was good news, at one point fearing that it might be bad — everything was turning bad, the dream into nightmare — but they didn’t seem to notice. They had somewhere to go, places to be.

I kept walking but eventually I stopped talking to people. They had their own lives; they weren’t interested in mine.

I walked slower, the suit wore out. I went the other direction, got lost, and stopped. I stopped walking.

And then I woke up.

Nothing had changed.

Routine becomes the most crucial part of adaptation. I adapt to institutionalized life. I keep to the routine, thoughts settled and maybe a little too distant at times. I can go whole days without anything registering. Movement from one action to the next, action so familiar it requires no thought, it makes it so that you don’t have to see; you merely do.

I adapt to who I am.

Who I always was.

I adapt to the role.

It is all I can do to remain genuine in a society that confuses genuineness for ingenuity, the genuine person for a generated brand.

Time indeed passes by without much notice.

Soon it will end. There can be no hope in the matter.

We have both taken lives and are assigned to have our lives taken. This was considered justice. This was considered to be fair. Whenever I approach the bars, he is there, or approaching at the same time.

Our final days match and, the more we talk, the more we recognize that the similarities are just. They extend far beyond the nature of our crime(s) against society.

We both let our arms hang over the edge.

We both speak without needing to speak at all.

I see that my hands are healed. The scabs have healed over.

He scratches the stubble of his face. I can see the outline of his cheekbones; like me, he hasn’t left the cell. He hasn’t been eating. Our fasting is not a result of our reluctance.

It does , he says, it does.

I wrap my hands around the bars. I don’t fit in here.

You don’t fit in anywhere else. Without society we are creatures.

Aren’t we creatures if we aren’t genuine?

He closes his eyes, opens them. They believe it. “Genuineness” is your judgment.

They make me into something I am not.

That is their decision.

They make me seem as though I am far lesser than I am.

They did, didn’t they. That wasn’t a question.

They’re no worse than me! In fact, I’d say that they’re blind. They build it all up only to pretend that it won’t break apart.

Prisoner hangs his head low. You judge them as much as they judge you. You fit in. There is nowhere else to fit.

Something snaps, What are you saying?

He is calm. He leaves me alone at the bars.

When he returns, he is smoking a cigarette.

He says it aloud, “It feeds the need to fit in.”

I blink. What do I need?

Prisoner inhales smoke, “What do you need?”

I thought about this. I thought about all I should be feeling, but found that I felt nothing. I could dig my nails into my palms; I would feel pain. I could think about Veronica. I would feel something. I can feel, that’s not the question, contrary to their judgment of me. The Prisoner smoked three cigarettes calmly waiting for my answer.

I thought, He doesn’t need my reply.

He doesn’t have any reason to assume; he has no reason for this conversation, any conversation, other than for the sake of conversation. We are beings sharing thoughts, sharing life. Whatever it might be.

I let the thought carry me around in circles as I picture the person out of place, fighting to fit in; they are different somehow depending on the social situation; they fit needs, as the Prisoner had said.

They affix to a set of beliefs and actions in order to pass social judgment on both ends — theirs and everyone else.

And yet there could be no symmetry. They were people masquerading as more. The things they affixed to made them appear to be so genuine, so successful, perfect in their place; but what did a person really see beyond a recognizable name, recognizable fashion, and a recognizable type of personality? I thought about what could be genuine and found no room for apology. For them to truly accept an apology, they would have to accept the person and that seldom occurred. Society had its way, and the way was an intricate set of checks and balances, cost benefit analysis.

And I hadn’t cost much.

I look at the Prisoner; he observes. He wears no definite expression.

There needed nothing more to be said.

I reach into my pocket, feeling the unsmoked cigarettes I had been given, but I don’t smoke. I don’t smoke because I currently have no need to do so; I don’t smoke merely because he is smoking, though I am aware that this is often the case. It would be a good enough reason for someone else to light up.

How long have you been here?

A time.

In thought we hope to find some kind of explanation. But the Prisoner soon makes it clear that hope isn’t any sort of salvation. It is just hope. And hope has no place in a society that reaps on reward. Hope made me fear what would happen if my hope proved to be wrong. Thoughts have a way with shedding light on things long after you can do anything about it. Hope dawned, but it had since hit dusk.

Hope turns a social man anxious, self-aware of every numbered consideration, everything that can go wrong.

Hope made me fixate and in turn made me hopeless.

That seems to be what had set me down my path.

More than anything else, I let the hope overpower who I could have been, and, especially now, it is not worth considering what kind of person that could be. I am this person. I am not satisfied.