Simon goes missing

It has happened to him often enough. In the early morning half-state between waking and opening his eyes Simon often finds himself not knowing where he is. His sense of disorientation is centered mainly on the relationship of his bed to the door. Because he doesn't know where he is, he can't remember where the door is. Then, as he rises to the surface of consciousness he feels the room realigning itself around him, until things snap into place with an almost audible click and he knows that he is in his own bedroom.

But this morning the feeling of disorientation went further than that. This morning Simon woke up not knowing who he was. There was none of that "oh, today's Saturday . . . I need to get to the post office before noon . . . I'll stop at the library . . . and there's a party this evening" that usually runs through his head when he wakes up. There was no thought but "who am I?" He seemed to be in a bare white room, and there was no question of finding the door because this room had no door at all. He lay in bed in the white room for seconds . . . maybe minutes. Then the white walls slowly took on color; the familiar objects of his bedroom slowly appeared, and Simon remembered that he was Simon.

And the strangest part of it all is that never during the experience did he feel at all alarmed.

Simon goes to a concert

Late Monday afternoon Simon got in his little silver car and drove to The City to attend a concert by his favorite band, The Little Prince. He went alone, as he does so many things. Although Simon has been a fan for almost ten years, and owns many of their albums, like "When You Are Feeling Naughty" and "The Disastrous Hostess," he had never seen the band live, and he was quite excited.

Simon arrived in The City early enough to get a place at the front of the queue, and when the doors opened he was able to take a spot only several feet from the stage. As there was no seating, Simon stood and waited forty-five minutes for the concert to begin. As he waited, he listened to the people around him talking. Simon saw that he was easily the oldest person there, but because of his age and the fact that he had chosen to dress all in black, he was invisible. All around him he heard people talking about songs and podcasts he liked to listen to, but since he was invisible he decided not to try to join a conversation.

The concert began with a performance by a group called Twin Photographers. Simon didn't know much about them, but when they started to play he decided that he did not like them. Every song sounded the same, with over-amplified drums and guitars. Simon saw the singers' mouths moving, but he heard their voices only occasionally above the din.

Mercifully, Twin Photographers stopped playing at nine o'clock, and the stage crew began setting up the stage for The Little Prince. The band took the stage at nine-thirty to a swell of applause and cheers from the crowd. Simon felt his spirits rise as each band member took his or her place at the microphones. They felt like old friends.

The concert was wonderful. Simon lost himself in every song. From time to time he caught himself locking gazes with members of the band. It was a strange sensation, but Simon imagined that the band members were thinking, "who's that guy who looks like someone's dad?" Simon was not invisible to the band.

The experience left Simon feeling elated for several days. However, by the third or fourth day he began to realize that the world of kinship he felt with the band members and their fans didn't really exist at all, because Simon was the only one who knew about it. He began to feel like the narrator in The Little Prince's newest song, "Little Hop Toad," whose best friend is a picture on the wall. Pictures are good listeners, but in the end they make poor friends.

gone

empty room.
empty walls.
empty windows.
empty shelves.

all gone;
nothing left.

close the door before the echoes get out.