Empty Chair

It became increasingly easy to put embarrassing character traits onto him as he was no longer around to defend himself. And I don't mean those mundane and typical embarrassing traits like masturbating or being socially awkward, but those traits that sort of imply a psychic breakdown somewhere along the rails.

It was he that heard voices from the other side of windows in buildings not yet filled. It was he that became paralyzed by paranoia by the thought of all of those security cameras. It was he that saw faces in every hallucination, hallucinations in faces. It was he that assumed he would be overtaken by bad ideas that may have been foisted onto him, he that feared a virus of madness traveling along copper wires and telephone lines.

And as it was so easy, the placing of these sketchy memories onto him like heavy and plated clothing, it became just as simple to weigh down that specter with excuses and stories.

But with every year that that chair remained empty, it became more and more difficult to tell which story was true anymore, which sparkling seed of truth hadn't replicated and mutated along the way to take on a life of its own. Which story wasn't just a dressmaker's dummy, clothed in excuses and dumb rationalization.

It became more difficult to blind yourself to the fact that those character traits didn't stick anymore - that they were windows inside of mirrors.