Searching to find myself
But all I find is you
I can hardly stand myself
So what am I to you?
~Imagine Dragons~
Midnight struck and he was still roaming the streets, trying to find his way home. He’d taken a different route tonight, one that he hadn’t frequented for almost a decade. Much had changed since he’d last set foot in that area, and he still remembered it as a construction site – a section of the train station that was still amid the process. A decade ago, he’d sat on the concrete underneath the stairs, listening to his MP3 player, waiting for the bus. His friends would be frolicking around on the pavement, doing whatever it was fifteen year olds did to keep themselves busy.
A decade ago was a different era – although this generation had only just set foot in the twenty-first century, the build-up of the two decades prior had led to this moment: him, sitting in the shade with a device small enough to pass as a lighter, containing around thirty songs. This generation which had turned the intangible into something tangible – music at your fingertips, any time, anywhere – and that was his spot, every Saturday afternoon at around half three.
Now, a decade later he set foot down those stairs he once adored, but the unfamiliarity of the new structure threw him off for a moment, and he fumbled down the stairs in utter confusion. The concrete on which he used to sit had been converted into a power generator (or so said the sign), the pavement had been paved and smoothed out, and the road which the bus always took looked much longer and further in hindsight. Perhaps he really was that much smaller, physically, a decade ago…
For once, however, he stopped to ponder more on the change in his surroundings and society rather than changes in himself, for it was at that moment when he saw the parallels between the modernised structure and the structure of his own life. It dawned on him that every construct can be destroyed (or modified). That vision which was usually so self-aware suddenly became peripheral vision – a moment when he realised that he cared more about the great wide world than what was going on in his head. He almost smacked himself in the head when he sussed the triviality of his self-interested ego, one that he would try repeatedly to kick it to the curb or drown it in a cesspool, but each failure only fuelled his rage, until he had enough to plot revenge.
And with that, he took out a pen…
Gordan, June 2014
The Curious Adventures of Gordan's Thoughts 