The Change Comes

I was a different man a year ago, yet I can't think of an exact difference. I can't even find a difference between me and my 12 year old counterpart, besides a vague answer of naivety. He doesn't exist, and I won't exist before long. A day, or a week, or a month from now this will be nothing but text from a dead man. Forgotten in the vaults of memory. Taken by the Change.

As a teenager I remember testing my memory. I carved into a desk, 'Do you remember this?'. I couldn't tell you the time, how I was feeling, length of my hair, how old I was, if I was hungry, or sad, bored. I can only trust that it was me, and that it did in fact happen. The desk is long gone, and so is the boy. It wasn't me, just as the man who may read this in a day or two will not be me. The Change took them.

Feigned recollection of posing for a picture, or believing in this or that. Desperately trying to find friends and rituals that make us feel familiar and safe. Without friends, without family, without lovers, you have no anchor to base an identity on. Nothing pulling you back to the dock when the change comes, erasing you, and taking your place. No legacy to leave. This is what I was, before the Change came.

No community to take a role in, so you're nothing, a shapeshifter. A Tetris block trying to squeeze into a slot. Our identity is just a role we play and act out. Once it's gone you become everything, the mind berserks, flailing tendrils of thoughts and desires outward trying to make you perform elsewhere, trying to latch onto another identity. Someone insane, who can't be relied upon to adhere to a single role, a familiar role, that brings the rest of them comfort. Nobody like Change.

Boys.Ick.