The Encounter

On an ordinary day a few months back, I first met a person who is not me. That is NOT to say that it is another person— for I met many other persons throughout my life. This person who is not me could have been who I am, but our temporality robbed his reality.

Or, that is how I thought reality stands until on an ordinary day I met a person who is not me.

Let's call this person the unlived one.

If you're annoyed by this rhetorical tint in my writing (and justifiably so) let me assure you that this is necessary. I could've written this monologue in Lojban for all I care. However, these curves and crooks of this style are essential— for the unlived one cannot live but this exaggeration.

One doesn't live by bread alone. We live by pretty places to live, dresses to were, gadgets to show off. Surely, we live by avoiding pain and maximising happiness.

But the unlived one, by definition, does not live. Therefore, he unlives by the texture of croissants. He unlives in a dark cave or under the open sky, naked to the root of his existence. He thrives on suffering.

It is not possible to shake hands with the unlived one once you meet him, no. It will destroy you— in the likeness of the event of anti-matter colliding with the matter. The safest thing to do is to stare at him, from a distance, to measure him as you would do in a duel.

And so I measured him. He is thin to the point of being malnourished. And energetic like a fiend for his existence (or the lack of it to be more precise) does not put any weight to slow him down. He is not the one who cares. Contempt is all he is accustomed to. He is not the one who fights. For him, the duel is a dance.

The unlived one sat, so did I. He talked, and I listened before the utterances.