NervousMan's Fantasy

Lately, NervousMan had a fantasy that his mind kept going back to.

NervousMan would be walking along a city street, rather the way he was now: but instead of catching himself from falling, the way he did over and over by walking, NervousMan would suddenly not catch himself and pitch forward, planting his face onto the cold cement beneath him, collapsing upon it in a limp heap.

NervousMan could almost hear the shouts of alarm from unseen and concerned passersby, the sound of running feet coming up to him, voices in tense tones talking on their cell phones, calling 911.

And finally, the sound of the ambulance siren getting closer until he was turned over and worked on by dark clad saviors asking him what year it was. What his name was. Who the President was. He could feel their urgent hands pressing into his side and his neck.

At the end of the fantasy, as he was lifted up on a gurney and placed in the waiting EMT vehicle, the crowd around him bursts into applause, romantic music swells, and NervousMan feels a tremendous and tearful gratitude toward everyone involved.

Looking around, NervousMan wondered who the other people were on the street moving past him on the sidewalk. How could he know them? 'Does anyone really know anybody?' thought NervousMan. 'Or are our natures, our true natures, actually ungraspable and forever shrouded in mystery?'.

Maybe the one thing the knower can't know is the one who does the knowing. The one who decides to move an arm or a leg or a body. What moves the body? thought NervousMan. He knew he could come up with various words to describe it: the actor, the agent, the 'me', the 'I', the chairman of the board. But they were only words. Maybe the true thing, at the center of it all, was something that was silent and empty. Maybe that's what made it all possible. How could there be anything without there also being nothing.

"Being nothing?"

NervousMan's thoughts drained away to nothing as he walked on along the city street, catching himself, over and over and over, with each and every step he made.