Strange Days

 Monday. That was the day I watched someone die. Strange to think now that while I was doing that, people were buying loaves of bread, getting their cars washed, going to school...carrying on. It would be nice to be able to carry on like they can; without knowing what I know, knowing what I did. 
Boredom is a terrible, terrible thing. It can kill the important parts of you faster than a bullet through the brain. Yes, it was through inaction that I was tempted to act a terrible part. Weeks spent with nothing to occupy my mind, it's no excuse, I know. But there, in that desolate expanse like a sea, I would look at anything and call it a ship of salvation. I found my way, like Little Red Riding Hood, to the fringeless woods of the internet, wherein lived packs of wolves ready and more than willing to eat a fresh morsel for their slight amusement. What is more tragic than being reduced? It is bred into us, a fear of falling, a social vertigo that makes us shy from becoming less than we are. So I walked willingly into those dark woods and became the wolf, looking with no particular interest at who I imagined were people already lower than myself, over whom I could feel superior from my safe, anonymous vantage. I must admit it's intoxicating, the power. I realise now that it is also totally imagined, the ultimate in self delusion which interlocks so effortlessly with the delusions of others as to make the illusion real. A kind of religion formed there, on that electric highway, belief in things better than reality for which there was no proof. I became, in my own mind, immortal and world famous, call me Ishmael, call me Ghandi, call me Hitler. It was this most foolish of delusions which made it possible for me to take Gary at his word. I have no idea whether Gary was his real name, I highly doubt it. But it was a confidence he granted me, so I will honour it. Gary wanted something. Actually, he wanted me to do something. Something which was very easy, and required no effort on my part at all. I was to watch. That was all. Poisoned as I was with boredom and imagination, I agreed with...yes...anticipation. Upon the appointed day...the Monday previously mentioned...I took up my electric raiment, standing, not like a priest at confession, but like God. The words did not concern me, I was there to be a witness. I felt nothing in the usual sense...how could I? It was like watching TV. Though not even in these terrible days would there be such a heinous broadcast. I shudder to think of the number that would fill that scattered Coliseum. I watched, alone as far as I know, though as I have said, who really knows anything when it is virtual. I may have been one of many, of tens or hundreds all watching what I saw that day. I pray for my soul, and the invisible souls of those who might have been sitting with me. I watched till nothing moved and the image was a sickening still. Feeling an unbearable emptiness, worse than boredom, than loneliness, I made dark the light. For days after I avoided going into the room, I felt sick at the sight of a TV. I had born witness, and now I was being made to confess. And it is here that confession begins. I watched, God forgive me, I watched.