Hollow

In the darkening twilight, I often find myself... lost. Memory disintegrates, personality withers, and the touch of plastic feels strange on my skin. The dark sucks in my soul, reels it in like a drifting trout, and hangs it up to dry next to hundreds of others like it. We dry, slowly, blowing in the false breeze, absorbing the taste of smoke and salt. How long we hang, I don't know. But, when I'm abruptly cut down and thrown back into the water, the sensation is like a gasp. Moisture soaks into my skin, and I'm within myself again, though shrunken and empty from the change.

We are not human. Oh, yes, on the outside we appear so. But look at us sideways, and there's a glimmer, a sheen that's not natural. It clings to our skin, as if we've been left so long in the cold that the essence touches us still, revealing us as "different". It's a mark of pride, a mark of shame, yet we wear it with a diffidence that would make a movie star burn with envy. Each step, each touch, comes away cold – we shiver even as the sun glows warm.

You could call us dead. It certainly seems so to me – we are empty of essence, and must bear up a false face to hide the aching hollowness of what we wish we had. Touch my heart, and you would feel it beat strong. Brush my lips, and the breath that slipped out of them would be as present as the dawn. If you could feel the intangible, feel the soft glow of spirit... why then, you would feel nothing at all if you sought it within me. I look at you, all of you with your softly blazing eyes, every one of you clothed in shame, and I see a gift.

Humanity.

Humanity is what sets apart those who struggle through life's currents and those who float, effortlessly, as though they can't be bothered to swim. Humanity is both the bane and the blessing of your existence. You weep and moan over it, calling it "false" and "weak" and "trivial". I wouldn't know what it should be called, really. I don't have it.

Oh, I can pretend to have it. We've watched you for long enough to know what "humanity" is like. We print a facsimile of it, paste it to our faces and bones and skin. Become one of you. One of any of you. We empty creatures could be your neighbour. Your playmate. Your friend, even, if we feel the desire.

I don't know if we have a name. You may have given us one from time to time, but they cling lightly, and are easily brushed off. Do we really need a name, when we all know what we are? We're the empty, the unchanged, the soulless. We dance in your dreams, a dull rattle of bones, and our absence roams the night. We're the chill in the wind, the shadow in an alleyway. Nothingness made flesh, flesh made temporary.

We're you.

So when the light recedes from the Earth and the Moon rises to tread her tender path across the sky, watch for me – you could catch a glimpse of the lie leaking away.