Lost

It was getting close to 4am. He stopped in his tracks and whirled around, but there was no one. He was in a questionable part of town, but he had consciously fallen behind the group and taken the longer route. He was tired of interaction.

Right now, he just needed solitude. The expanse of ice to his right was beautiful. The reflections of the city lights danced around playfully on the frozen river, but he looked away from them. The gusts of wind were like whispers in his ear which only went away when he tilted his head to either side.

His thoughts wandered along with the flickering shadows in his path. His footsteps fell on the pavement noiselessly and precisely. He wondered if the others had cared about his absence. He hoped not. He thought about everything. He thought about the night. He thought about his childhood. He thought about the world economy. He thought about the patterns in the snow. He thought about radio waves. He thought about thinking. He thought about placebos, bullets, and laundry. He thought about cancer, girls, and water absorption. He thought about space, the Mariana trench, and the homeless. He thought about intention, religion, and coca cola. But he was tired of thinking of the same things.

He tried to think about things that he couldn't imagine. He tried to ignore the assumptions about the world formed by his sub conscience, formed by society. He kept walking.

When he came to the bridge, there was no one in sight. He continued onto the bridge. It was foggy; the bridge was endless. The city lights formed a beckoning dim haze on the horizon. He stopped again. He knew that if he went back, he would be plunged back into his life. "Man is a social animal" echoed in his mind. He was unconvinced. He was unconvinced that man was an animal. He was unconvinced that man was social. He was unconvinced that man was even man.

He wanted to turn around and go in an arbitrary direction, just to prove to himself that he didn't have to go back. He wanted to walk into the unknown. He wanted nothing to be familiar. But wherever he went, he knew, he would only find familiar things in different guises - the same intentions in different people, the same gravity in different objects. Was it even possible to have a truly novel experience? Was it possible for the human mind to free itself enough to not only push the envelope, but to rip through it?

When he reached the other side of the bridge, he saw familiar streets, familiar signs, familiar shadows, familiar people. He heard familiar sounds. But he felt more lost than ever.