Lonely.
I didn’t mean it to come out like that. I mean, it’s not like I sit down with total strangers and go, “Hi, I’m Sharon, I’m lonely.” It’s just that… this is about being honest, saying the things that are true. And the things that are true underneath. I didn’t use to know what that meant, but now I think I start to get it–I mean like, true is true, yeah? There are the true things on the surface, and on the surface it’s true that I’m okay. I really am. My parents aren’t like, tyrants or divorced or dead or anything, and my friends are all okay. I’ve got a roof over my head and stuff–although I did kind of get sacked from my job two days ago, seeing as how I just didn’t turn up to work, what with this saving-of-the-city thing–but it was a crap job anyway, so that’s not so bad. You know, if we’re just looking at big-picture stuff, then I’m fine.
And I’m lonely. That’s true too. It’s the truth that’s underneath all the other stuff that’s true. It’s what is but what no one, not even me, wants to perceive. That’s what being a shaman means–it’s not about knowing the truth, it’s about seeing all the other truths underneath.
There was a moment–this great big terrifying moment–when I looked up and I knew… everything. I was still me, but I was everything else: I was the paving stones and the wind and the water in the pipes and the words in the wires and the lights fizzing above garden doors and the grass growing and the iron rusting and the fences cracking. And I was… I was the city, and I was still me, and I was everywhere and everything and knew all that there was to know and then…
I lost it. I mean, not all of it. That was the day I started walking through walls, turning invisible. But even “invisible” is wrong; it’s not “invisible” that I become, it’s… part of the furniture. It’s something everyone sees but no one notices, kinda like parking meters, only more glamorous than that, if you see what I’m saying.
I was the city.
The city was me.
And now–now that I’m a shaman, wanderer of the hidden path and all that–I’m lonely.
Time to get myself a tribe.