Everything about the earth was abrasive to me. Breathing hurt. My body rejected food, tolerated only water. I didn't want to have a body. But I had to. I hated it.
Most days I was forced to leave my room to ride the subway. I would take a line, any line, and ride it to the end before turning back. The hum was comforting, though there was no view. Why does a subway have windows, if all you see is tunnel?
There were other passengers, of course. They rarely spoke to me, because they hated me. They avoided eye contact. They saw through me, though I knew I wasn't invisible to them, because once someone threw a ham sandwich at me. It could have been an act of generosity - that's what my therapist told me years later - but I knew it was malicious.
At some point I aged out of the mandatory subway rides and began to ride escalators instead. I was good at riding escalators. The escalators are meaningless. There is no end to them. Perhaps I could have rode the escalator to the moon. Everyone seems to want to go to the moon, even though there is nothing there.
I got off the Nth escalator. I don't know how many floors I had ascended. I was at a glass platform. I could see the blue marble beneath me. I don't know what to do, so I pause and sleep. When the sun rises, I dream of a softer world.
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