039 — The Return of the Invisible | Talon Z. Gray

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For years, the only sound was the U-bolt lock sliding shut.

Ka-clunk.

I learned the language of bike locks:
click, clack, clingity-cling.
The heavy clunk of denial.
The quiet click of insecurity.

But this morning, there was a new sound.

I stood at the threshold of a house I once knew,
an old brass key in my hand.

The door was sleek, modern.
A camera lock blinked: press the button, and someone will speak.
I didn’t press it.

Porches. Lawns. Driveways.
What must they feel like?
What must it be like to belong?

I don’t know if this key will open the door anymore.
I know I shouldn’t find out.

But in my mind, I hear the scrape and turn of the lock.
Yes—and now the door swings open.

"You are free," they said.
Free to roam the world, no conditions.
Free to build everything you’ve ever dreamed of, no conditions.

Here are the keys to your castle:
an empty horizon in every direction.

Is this the surface of the moon?

I don’t have the astronaut’s suit for this great space walk.
Take me for a ride in a gasoline chariot.
Does anyone remember how to?
Or why?
For whom?

I must have amnesia.

What is this place?

Dust hangs heavy in the air.
Are those spiderwebs in the corner?

I recognize these photos—
happy faces at a party.
Now every frame is corrupted:
grey squares where their faces should be,
question marks stamped across them.

Where have my friends gone?
I must find them.

The digital world is playing tricks on me.

Polaroid. Snap. Shake it.
The images don’t resolve.

We are bugs in our own code,
ghost viruses in our own stories,
forgotten, infinitely looping,
patching and corrupting ourselves.

We’ve been deleted from the past.
Purge’d.

Even today, walking this strange street, it hits me:
that shadow isn’t mine.

It’s taller. And shorter.
Wrong somehow for so many reasons.

An optical illusion?
No.

This is not my shadow.
It’s the person I could have been.
Should have been.
Had I never erased myself.

I’ve seen it before:
my silent companion in a life unlived.
It laughs in waterfalls, crawls in the corners of rooms,
visits just before I drift into dreams.

The shadow has more right to be here than I do.
It needs no Real ID to fly.
It cannot be bureaucratically erased.
It travels like x-rays.
The perfect citizen: belonging everywhere and nowhere.
All shape, no substance.

And it follows me.
Where the shadow deepens, the anchors of existence lie.

The vehicle arrives. They call it a gondola.

I step inside,
ascending into the mountain’s invisible air.