Oh to be inside my car, at midnight, on my way somewhere, nowhere, and to, for a brief moment, stop existing. What does it really mean to be, when you can just not be? For how long can one be non-existent before they begin to forget you? And if you were to come back, would they remember you? Would you really be yourself again? Would you want to be? Or, in a sudden change of plans, would you go back to that dark road, between the beginning and the end, where nothing really is, just to disappear from reality once more, and this time, really be forgotten, forever, and never come back?
It's the road that calls me back, over and over again; it's my body that always brings me back to that dark but lit highway, so when I get out, I can start a new life someplace else, nowhere, anywhere... It's the night sky that whispers in my ear to come back and be one with the stars. It's my heart that begs me to let myself vanish forever, only to implore me to go back after disappearing for a while. It's my car that cries "let's go out and do turns no one dares to do and go places no one's ever seen."
But in the end, it is me that decides to go back, back to that place of horror and despair, of happiness and joy, of fear and yearning, because whether I like it or not, it is the only place where I feel the most, where I feel alive, where I feel, for once, fine.
And just like that I find myself, once again, inside my car, driving around, hitting the road and leaving my town for the twentieth time this month. As many times before, there's a bag on the passenger's side, full of clothes, items and some food I might need. There's a considerable amount of money inside the glove box, stolen from my own closet stash, so when I arrive I can rent a room somewhere. There's a cat sleeping on the back seat, waiting impatiently to get there, him being the only one who knows and remembers who I am even when I start disappearing. He is the only one who knows what it's like to not exist, and to go back and forth this horribly beautiful and exciting adventure we call life. He is the only one I trust, the only one who's there for me when I need it, the only one who is as old as time, going so far back as to my first disappearance.
Not time nor space really exist when I'm there, not to me, because I'm not really here; we're not here. We never are in this cursed place that I'm so obsessed with. But the moment light hits the street, when the day touches the grass, when the birds scream their songs of freedom, when the sun shows itself in front of me and declares this moment as his own; it is then when I begin once again to be, for the last time, before I completely vanish. I know that, when I'm ready, the sun will no longer say anything to me, and he will just come up, go down, and never come back. And it will be then when, at last, I will be fulfilled. I will no longer exist in this strange world, and my cat will disappear alongside me, and we will be able to forever run in the grass and rest in the trees. I will not bring anything other than him to that last trip, because he is everything I would ever need, and I'm the only one he will follow.
But I'm not ready yet, so I'll just leave before the sun sets after warning me, and I'll just start a brand new life, in a brand new body, in a brand new time, and I'll be happy for a while; then I'll do it again, and he will be with me, around me, to protect me from disappearing for too long.
For now, I'm just in the car. And you're with me for the ride.
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