Chapter VII (Things were taken)

When burglars robbed me, they took everything. They cleaned me out. I rose out of the haze of chloroform and staggered into the empty space between the windows, stared at a forced door and stood agape at the bare walls. An empty house. 

That was the first time I really felt how non-existent I was. Without my disguises, without the props and pillars that buoyed up the illusion that I had a personality I felt as if something was about to collapse. I felt there should be a crumbling, a cracking, and a discordant descent to the ground. 

And I stood there staring and gaping and not breathing, and waited for the crash.

No crash. Nothing hit the ground. 

I could have gone to the police. I could have alerted the neighbours. I could have informed the local government officials, filed a report, done what normal people do. But I didn’t have it in me to move. No impetus.  I sat in the middle of the bare floor, cross-legged and silent. I said “what the fuck” a couple of times, but there were long long spaces of time between the utterances so I was virtually silent.

I virtually had been. Now I was not. It surprises me when I think of it now, that this didn’t feel that bad after all.