3rd Voice

The year is 2020. The year is also 1953. This is also the 29th of December 1948. or is it 2047 - This is the 3rd June 2020. I am here now. I will be there then. I was there then and there again before I was even born.

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The absent is always there.

Absence: Not being there. Nonexistence. Being gone. Nonbeing. Death. Not showing up. Missing. Loss. Missing out… 

What if a character was always absent? Never there. Could such a character exist and have a voice? Even have a body? What would the body of the absent look like? 

Absurd. But still, if a tree falls in a forest without anyone to hear it, does it make a sound when it hits the ground? Yes. so although the absent is not there, why could they not have a body? Maybe an absent character could have multiple bodies. Maybe all the bodies.

Perhaps the absent is the most universal.

We shall see.

I woke up this morning, or was it yesterday. I am not sure. It does not matter, I wake up every day so the day does not matter. The day does not exist

Anyway, I woke up and I knew I had to be there. They would be waiting for me. Expecting me. They always do. 

Leave me alone. 

They always have. They always will. Will I turn up? Have I ever turned up?

Leave me alone.

It is my duty to be there. To show up. Or at least to try. I have been trying to be there for so long now. It seems to me I have spent my whole existence trying to be there. 

Leave me alone.

And yet, do I make it? Am I ever there? Did I ever make it, even just once? I can no longer remember. It is as if the same day seemed to repeat itself every day. Waking up, knowing I must be there, that I have to, they are expecting me. All my being is striving and trying to summon the energy to be there. I get up, get ready, prepare myself, I am not sure.

Leave me alone.

The absent is never there; always there. 

He is there - He can see them. They cannot. He is invisible to them. Absent. They wait. 

They dance - slowed down, maybe - Frozen in the abyss that separates this world from the other - An unknown world, yet to be discovered, and although impalpable, it is there, bleeding into our life - waiting for us at the end - mirrored in the every move and breath we ever take - a countdown to our end.