tagging

I started to get out of Tiki's house. I didn't know how long I would be able to stay there so I should get used to it. 

Start. 

These kind of suburban neighborhoods are different from what I'm used to. They don't really use extras there, because everybody already there already stares at you if you don't belong. 

Who belongs? Nobody belongs. We're just here. I'm not anywhere. I can't even find myself in my mind sometimes. Sometimes I feel like if I stop talking to myself I won't be able to find myself again. 

Not talking to myself out loud in a dialogue. I mean the internal monologue of telling yourself who you are and where you are and what it is you are doing at that particular moment until something else comes along and you are some body else somewhere else doing nothing. Not even being. 

That's not the real you. What? Language is a trickery. A trick to make meaning that isn't really there. Nothing is really there. Except you.

I don't know. It's all so oppressive. Just let go. 

And if on top of that you're just in place. It's like you're nowhere at all.

I had to get moving so I left Tiki's house. I told her first, I wanted to make sure I could come back. And she worried about me being out and about. 

She warned me about the police. I told her I hadn't heard from them. They wouldn't need me once they figured things out. 

But she meant the cops around there. I showed her the ID Fucking Gary had gotten me. The worst thing they could do to me that I could stop is picking me up for not being able to identify myself. 

I hated the ID. I didn't want to be back in any databases but Fucking Gary told me it was too late to worry about that because where did I think the checks were coming from. The database. I never saw them. 

I started carrying it the first time I ended up in jail, for not having one. I told the cops I could identify myself but I guess I didn't make a convincing case. So the ID helps with that.

That's supposed to be who I am, the name I was assigned at birth, that my biological mother witnessed. I don't know how I was separated from her. They told me I stayed with an aunt who died when I was three. I don't remember her. 

But my mother must have told her the name I was assigned at birth and then, I guess, she must have told someone who told the people who took me after she died. 

That's not a very convincing case. It's a game of telephone. I can't confirm any of that. But the ID does. Nobody calls me that anyway. 

It's like I'm new here. 

It was pretty late when I was walking home and heard a groan. 

I turned around but there was Nothing there, so I kept going. 

Continue. 

Then I heard a "yoooo" and turned around. Nothing there. 

I saw an old man on the street. 

-What will you eat? he asked. Chicken. 

I pretended to look at my watch. 

-I have to go, I said as he walked away. 

I didn't know he followed me back to Tiki's house and hid under my bed. 

-You should have fed him the chicken, he said over and over and over again but I tried to stay under my covers. They didn't work how they did back home because I didn't know how long I could stay here. I don't know if I said that. 

After an hour I looked under the bed but it wasn't the old man. I don't want to describe him for you. 

I screamed. Nobody answered. He screamed but he couldn't say my name. He didn't know it.

In the morning I couldn't find him. But I knew where I was.

Stop.