I have Forgotten the People.

I have forgotten them all. 

I remember them and I have forgotten them. 

Everything is done without them.

The clocks run on time, the grass gets cut once it becomes too long, flowers are watered in their vases and replaced when they wither – but I am the only one here.

There is noone to do all these things, yet they are simply done.  How these events take place, I have never cared to wonder.

It is a simple run of my daily life.  It’s only normal for me.

Every morning, I leave my house.  There is noone to enter while I am away, so I don’t lock the door.  The door is broken and will swing ajar naturally if I dont slide the pot plant – sitting by the door – in the way to stop it.

Everything is routine.  I leave in the morning; not bothering to take notice of any incoming mail I may recieve, as there is noone to send some anyway.

I walk the still streets under the sun which neither keeps me warm nor burns my skin.  The wind never blows or whistles itself aggainst buildings or through trees.

The roads are vast.  Nothing but the lone light poles line the empty roadsides.

Occasionally I can hear a car in the distance, but I have never come to see a single one.

I still wait for the green man in the traffic light to appear and check to see that the road is clear before I cross.

When I reach the trainstation I stand near the benches rather than sit.  Only one train will ever arrive or pass through this station.  That is my ride.

Moving outbound each day, the empty train -with no driver or station master to stand watch as it pulls in or departs – welcomes me with blissful silence.  Only the powered movement of the train, gliding along its tracks, can be heard.

 What do I do each day? Where have I gone? What do I eat?  I can never quite recall anything.

I travel some distance – far away from home – and return in the evening; completely unaware of how I spent my day.  But this is only normal, which happens everyday.

 On arrival back at the station, I am greeted by the dimly lit platform.  Empty as always.

The train departs and carries its sound far away until it has become so quiet I can no longer hear it.  No matter how much longer there I wait, there wont be another train coming to the station until tomorrow: when once again, I leave on my journey.

I can hear my footsteps patting against the concrete floor of the platform, but not their echos which should have rebounded from the walls bridging around me.

A short flight of stairs and a couple of steps, and I am away from the station; I am on the walk back to my house.

The streets – now blanketed in darkness – are filled with the noises of the night-time creatures, creeping through the trees.  But I will never catch a glimpse of any of them.  I know this already without trying.

I return to my house.  The door is always locked when I get home. I always have the keys and let myself back inside, where everything ends for the day.

Here, I prepare myself for the tomorrow which will come once the sun rises, and I again, leave my house on the long journey; that consumes my entire day.  Knowing what I have done all day, but not remembering a single drop of it.

The same loop repeats itself over and over like a broken CD.

The world is lonely.

 How long has it been, since I have forgotten people?

When did I forget?

The world simply continues to rotate on its axis regardless of what has become of them, oblivious to the fact that I am the only one who remains in this miracle that I call the “normal”.

I know they had existed to me, at one stage in time; lived with me and interacted with me, sharing the world with me.

Now, I can’t even imagine it clearly. 

Crouds of people, gathering around buildings and streets… the quiet roar of thousands of people murmuring among one another.

Everything feels unfamiliar just to think about it.  It is as if it had all never happened before, yet I simply know that it did.

 It is this feeling of constant uneasiness of being alone, that is what’s keeping me calm.

The world of mine which makes sense to nobody but myself.

Because this is my world.

Guilt Pangs. Life and it’s Woes.

I messed up recently. 

 For one of my group projects, I needed another member.  Myself and my friend went to the lab session and greeted one of the students.  We asked if he took the same class as us and if he had a group yet. After getting the confirmation that “yes” he did and also “no” he didnt; he agreed to join our group.

The following day I collected his student number and signature onto the form required for group selection  proposals – I was to meet my friend in the group to get his details the next day.  He had work until a little after midday.  Everything which was going so seemingly smooth – went steeply downhill from there.

 That morning, I got to uni and found I had forgotten the form.   Submission was at 5pm sharp.  The travel time to go home and come back would be 4 hours alone (a one way trip home is two hours.. you do the maths to find the trip back).  I still had classes for the day which I could not afford to skip.

Immediately I phoned both of my partners.  There was no connection through to either.  I tried many times to call the new group member, as I knew I was going to meet up with my friend later that day anyways.  Despite this I could not contact him. 

 I resorted to forging in his signature; only to realise I didn’t remember his student number… The most vital of all details.  I messaged him  a couple times.  First to tell him the problem.  Second to tell him my solution.

I recieved a call from my friend after he found my miss-calls.  I enlighted him with my terrible problem and I was to communicate via internet after that.  The internet wasn’t working for some reason.  It was passed midday and still no response from the new member.  I waited anxiously.

I had to be home earlier that day.  If I did not form a group before I had to go, I would simply be grouped with strangers.  I’m not usually good with strangers, so I tried calling a few times more; without results.

Just as I was about to lose hope and give up, I ran into another friend of mine, who happend to be taking the same class, as well as one of his group members.  They were looking for a member to replace one of their own who had dropped the course.  I was looking for a group.  We parted ways without exchanging words…  Joking.

After hearing my dillema they offered to kindly take me in.  I was happy but my friend from my original group, now had no group.  He would simply fall into the random selection pool.  I felt bad.  It turns out that the two I had just run into, knew another pair who were also looking for another member… What luck.

My friend now had a group.  I had a group.  My original third member – not only did he not have a group anymore now - but he was completely oblivious to the fact.  I had yet again another reason to feel bad.

 Within my new group, the third member who I did not know previously was deciding between the group he was already in, or going with the two others who were looking for another.  If that were to be the case my friend would simply become the third person in my group. 

After a long hard time thinking, he decided to stay in my group.  The submissions were made.   The fact that I felt incredibly guilty did not change.

I spent the rest of the day like normal.  Apart from the fact that every now and then I would get this horrible feeling in my chest and feel terrible.  The weight of the guilt was harassing me to no end.  I was still to recieve response from the now isolated member of my old group.

From the fact that I never recieved a response for over three days, I took it that he was mad.  He left his classes earlier than me and my other friend who was originally with him, without saying a word.  I was sure he was mad. 

But there was still that uncertainty that he did not recieve my calls or my messages.  That made things all the more awkward.  I managed to avoid eye contact with him after the first day I realised he was mad.  I later found my friend was doing so also.

It all cleared itself up today.  The guy who had previously decided to join my group decided he wanted to change his mind.  My friend joined my group (I do feel a little bad for my friend who took me in, as he lost both of his original members and wasn’t yet aquainted with my other friend; who just joined.) and I was now grouped with two of my own friends.

Later today I recieved an email from my dear old group member saying he saw the final group selection notice.  From that he had “noticed” that all three of us had been split up.  He also said that he though it was a “mistake by the system”.  I realised then that he didn’t know.

 Hurriedly, I told my friend.  I wrote up an apologetic letter explaining what had happened and what I had attempted, trying to counter the problem, and how I had tried to contact him by mobile but failed to connect.

I awaited the expected flame-filled response, brimming with rejection, anger and hurt.  It never came. 

What I did recieve though, was a short, to-the-point response, informing me that; “Crap..” and that his mobile had been battery dead for a few days now, as well as, “Oh well.”

I was worrying over nothing.  I also had my friend worrying over nothing also.

The horrible hundred of kilos of guilt, crumbled off of me and onto the floor.

I felt a little better after that.

I think tomorrow, I will smile at him and apologise.

Two Engineers.

Two engineers were standing on the road, under a pedestrian overpass one day, when it be began to rain.  At first it was only sprinkling lightly but as time went on it slowly began to come down heavier.  The wind that day was fairly strong and was pushing the rain at an angle .

One of the engineers looked up, shielding his eyes from the rain, and said, “Even though there’s an overpass, its still hitting us.”
“It’s the wind.” came the response, “Let us move a little to the left so we don’t get wet.”

The two shuffled a little to the left but the wind was strong.  Both were completely aware that they were still being hit by the rain.

The second engineer looked straight ahead, “The rain seems to be falling at an angle of 30 degrees to the horizontal” she said, measuring the angle by holding her arm at the same angle as the rain was infront of herself.
“Judging by the height of the overpass and the angle of the rain, in order not to get wet, we should be standing somewhere over there.” The first engineer pointed  at the ground about 10 metres away.
“Yes,” the other engineer followed on, “but at the angle of the rain and the width of the overpass, the overall height of the space which  doesn’t get hit by the rain would be pretty minimal.   Even if we were to stand there, from our own heights, we would still be getting hit by the rain.

 The two engineers then decided to take shelter under a nearby building.

[What a climatic let down.  I just overexaggerated five minutes of my day]