Awakening

“My Awakening was one of fiery agony that coursed through every cell of my body. This was my first moment of self-awareness, my birthing into the world, that taught me the pain that is this life.”

The man paused, licking his dried pale lips, and adjusted the recorder.

“I laid bare behind a diner dumpster like the discarded refuse that surrounded me, and of which in the coming days I would feel more akin to than the people I met. I was as weak as a babe, barely able to lift myself from the cold concrete, the shame of my nakedness creeping in as the pain faded out.”

The voice that spoke into the recorder was soft with no discernible accent. The cadence was familiar and calming, like that of a news broadcaster.

“It was as I stood that I noticed the symbols and glyphs that covered my body; the meaning for which I still haven’t found. Tattooists who I have approached have informed me that the markings seem to be birthmarks more than ink as they cannot discern the needlework. I approached the university’s linguistics department, but they were equally as baffled. They studied me for a week and promised to follow up with their findings. But they never did.”

The man paused once again, taking a long drink of water from the gallon jug before him, before raising the recorder to his mouth once more.

“The authorities barely gave me the time of day, assuming me to be a drug-addled vagrant who had simply been concussed into amnesia. I could tell from the moment that I walked in the door that they didn’t want anything to do with me. They of course did their due diligence in filing the proper paperwork missing person paperwork. They didn’t have much to go on, besides my distinctive body markings. They quickly shifted me out to the hospital for the necessary check-ups.”

He stopped again, this time to apply a heavy layer of moisturizing balm to his lips.

“The hospital wasn’t helpful either. No signs of trauma. And then I was pushed out of there as well. It’s impossible to exist in this system with no history, no social insurance number, credit score, or employment history. With none of this, you cannot qualify for any support. You exist outside the parameter of society. No home. No assistance. No health insurance. I might as well not exist. And I think that’s what everyone I met wanted me to do.”

Another long pull on the gallon jug.

“It was nearly a month before my first Experience. That’s all I can call it really. I did not know how I did it at the time."

The pause lengthened at the recollection. The faint sound of scraping can be heard, like a fingernail running over dry wood.

"I was half asleep when I heard the confrontation across the street. Charlie, an unhoused person like myself, was being accosted by a pair of drunk frat boys, who saw an easy victim in him. They at first were catcalling him, but then one of them started kicking. Charlie was a small, diminutive man of few words, who wore his unspoken tragedy on his face. The rage and injustice of it consumed me. Not just the rage I felt for Charlie, but also for myself. And I stepped from my darkness to the one surrounded them."

A hard swallow in a dry throat.

“Charlie was institutionalized, and the young men were horribly scarred. The reports that I was able to read said that it was as if they had been dipped into the pits of Hell. Third-degree burns covered their bodies.”

A dry tongue across cracked lips.

“The guilt sits with me still. I’m not a monster. At least I don’t feel like a monster. Would a monster know they were a monster?"