[SP] Invisible
I’m invisible, which makes exercise a hassle. I get bored running on deserted roads in the middle of the night and just need to be around people sometimes. So I joined a Zumba class. “Joined” isn’t the right word. I stand in the back and try to stay out of the way. Sometimes it gets crowded and someone will brush against me. Sometimes I kind of accidentally-on-purpose let this happen, just to feel a little contact. This startles people though, and I feel bad about it.
I’m not a monster. No Peeping Tom shit. I strive to live as harmlessly as possible toward all living things, including animals. They’re my closest companions. They smell me, but accept my presence. I see their most private moments. I once saw four baby robins get pelted to death by hail. The look in their mother’s eyes is something I’ll never forget.
That actually never happened. I just said it to sound cool. What I actually do is masturbate a lot and eat frozen food. I used to snatch food from restaurants. It was pretty easy, but still required effort. Invisible doesn’t mean untouchable. You still have to make a plan, know your exits. It’s a whole thing. I get lazy like anyone else, and usually end up microwaving something in whatever squat I’m currently occupying. A smarter person could probably leverage invisibility into a better life than I have, but I try not to beat myself up about it.
It doesn’t matter anyway. Invisibility eventually works both ways. The world is becoming as imperceptible to me as I am to it. My life is a watercolor that’s a little more sun bleached with each passing day. Almost all light passes through me as it is. Just a little bit of it is strained through my mind as I perceive my surroundings, producing a faint glimmer in the air for anyone who’s paying attention, which no one is. Even that bit of glimmer is now just a speck of gossamer in the mirror of the Zumba studio.
I guess you could call it “dying of loneliness,” but I don’t like to be so melodramatic.
And I still have Zumba. I like the music. Moving in time with everyone else makes me feel like I’m part of society. My favorite instructors are Allan and Karen. I know they won’t actually miss me, but I think about them and my fellow students while watching the stars with a plate of Hot Pockets from the balcony of a condo that’s been on the market for months, and I’m grateful for what I’ve had. After I’m gone, maybe one of them will say something like, “Remember when we used to feel something brush against us?” Maybe they’ll even laugh a little. “So weird! I wonder what that was?”