Somewhere his bird blue eyes have cried and cried alone. Somewhere within himself, he has lost the reason for this grief. Somewhere once, his high voiced chirped, I AM DEAD. But there was no-one to hear him. And he was still. They had never been close to the source. The perception of which they possessed was all consuming and inward reaching. Nothing was left for him.
They hadn't believed in ghosts, when he had risen, and stepped away from himself. So that there was a different Daniel Kendall for every occasion. They would never find him now. There were all too many to choose from. Non-persons would find him naturally more stimulating, different and not of himself. But most of all they wouldn't find him.
I'LL GIVE YOU EVERYTHING FOR NOTHING, he had once suggested openly to a non-person cashier. She had blushed inwardly thinking of her boyfriend.
I'VE GOT NOTHING TO LOSE, he had told her two hours later. She had realised the numbness of the words and had lost interest.
Daniel smiled privately as he packed his own groceries. Later in the carpark he had failed to find his pushbike.
If the tired cashier had connected the phrases of two hours apart with the word BECAUSE then she may have begun to answer a question. But she had a failing relationship with her boyfriend who was a soccer player. She had other things to think about. Like if she could escape the Complex Shopping Complex five minutes early for lunch.
Non-persons memories were programmed for size and colour in preference to accuracy and ethics. Daniel had taken his opportunity and had escaped. He had jumped the cue on his way out. He had slipped by the weight lifter in the bright red raincoat. And out of her life like a customer.
Yet she had remembered the voice, high and fluting. She had been confused for a brief moment, but the moment had passed as all moments must. Everything had worked out how Daniel Kendall had indirectly planned. That same night her boyfriend had accused her of being evasive. And had decided to pursue his career as an all time Great Ball Kicker.
One day a bright young suburban woman carrying a purple potplant, came directly up to Daniel on the footpath. In full view of The Complex Shopping Complex, she introduced herself. She asked, HOW ARE YOU? Daniel squinted.
WHO ME? TO WHICH ONE OF US ARE YOU REFERING? She had hurried off down the street to her private therapist. Daniel was gone. If she had perhaps hung around for coffee afterwards, and had asked the right question of WHO ARE YOU? He might have faltered.
But things too difficult to capture are no longer a challenge. The attention span of the average non-person is lost. They are up to their necks in products from the society of productivity. They are lost within The Complex Shopping Complex throwing away the simpler things - drowning in them eventually.
