Walking down the street, he realizes he’s alone. Strange, because not more than 30 seconds ago the street was filled with people. Absolutely filled, curb to curb. Stoop to stoop. Having grown up in the big city it wasn’t unusual for him to completely ignore everyone and everything around him. When you live in the big city you gain a type of spacial awareness without paying any conscious attention to anything. This is why it took him about 30 seconds to recognize the change.
Although he noticed the mass extinction of the crowd, it didn’t quite register. It doesn’t make sense for hundreds, maybe thousands of people to just disappear. Not to mention they left no trace. This was not some post-apocalyptic disappearance where bags, garbage, clothes, and empty cars are strewn about the world. Instead, all that remains is him and the buildings. Not even a pigeon.
This occurrence is so strange that he doesn’t even have time to be dumbfounded. He responds as if in a dream. You know how when you’re dreaming, strange things happen, other worldly things. Yet, within the realm of the dream, even though your conscious mind tells you what you’re experiencing is absolutely absurd, your active projection acts as if the oddities are everyday occurrences. Your best friend suddenly morphs into a rabbit. Yes. This is totally normal. He does this all the time. Why wouldn’t he turn into a rabbit?
So the man acts just as anyone would in a dream where suddenly the world disappears. He just continues about his day. He was on his way to work. Or was he? It was school. No, an appointment. He can’t remember, but he continues to walk without skipping a beat. He doesn’t know where he’s going, or why, but he seems to at least have a path. Something has been predetermined for him. He could stop walking, but he’s afraid he might wake up. He’s pretty sure it’s not a dream, so he’s not about to risk “waking” from a non-dream. Perhaps that’s what happened to everyone else.
“I think therefore I am.” Is it possible that somehow the rest of the world suddenly stopped thinking? He can’t lose his train of thought. Thought of where he’s going. He can’t remember, but instead he can list as many possibilities as he can. How many different people could he be on his way to see? Friends, girlfriend, wife. Do I have any friends? When was the last time I saw them? Is my family even still alive? The more he thinks about the world around him the more the world seems to diminish. Every time he attempts to zero in on a detail, the detail balloons until it’s enveloped in an ocean where it’s impossible to say where one region ends and another begins. Certain that rational thought is all that is keeping him alive he does his best to continue to recall details. Where does he live, what does his house/apartment/trailer (???) look like. He continues to think, and his world continues to shrink. He fears losing everything he knows about anything. He needs to hold onto the thoughts that make him him.
He leaves the known thoughts alone. Hoping that by keeping them crated away in his mind they’ll stay there, at least for awhile. If he runs out of things to keep him alive he can turn back to these hidden details to prolong his death. Instead, he chooses to focus on the details that he can see. The details in front of him. Taking note of the landscape around him. He pans across the massive cityscape, skyscrapers as far as they eye can see. Keeping a long view, the buildings fade together. Blurring into pillars of steel, only divided by outlines as if drawn in by a cartoonist. In his periphery, he sees the vanishing point of the street reach out toward infinity. The physical world is beginning to warp.
At this point he’s not sure which is more frightening. His mental state disappearing, or his physical world. Which does he need most to survive? Which does he need most to be sane? At least with a functioning mind he is still who he is, but what’s the point in being a functioning consciousness if it exists in a void? Yet, what purpose is a mindless lump of flesh in a physical world? Can the two even coexist? If I am mindless, does the world even exist? Does it matter that it exists? He supposes he wouldn’t care since he wouldn’t even be able to perceive it. He might as well be in a void. So he chooses to retain his consciousness.