His name was... His name was... His name... He wasn't the type of person after whom you would inquire. He wasn't the type of person whose name you would ask. No, he wasn't ugly or bad or gave off a bad vibe. No, it wasn't anything like that. He just wasn't a good looking or charismatic type of person either. He just was. With all that that entailed. He was just a person who existed as a person and that is all I knew about him.
Why was I thinking about him today? Why did I care about somebody so forgettable? I had only seen him a couple of times before. Or maybe I had seen him daily. Or maybe today was the first time I had ever seen him. Or maybe I had never seen him. To be frank I couldn't recall if I had even seen him before. He just kind of blended into the throng of thousands of forgettable faces in a city this size. And his face? What was it like? Either I had already forgotten, or I had never quite seen it. I couldn't recall at this point. Was he old? Was he young? If he were either, I'm sure I would recall. Was he attractive or repulsive? If he were either, I'm sure I would recall. I would probably remember if he were more fit or less fit than the average if he walked faster or slower than the average. Could I recollect a single item of clothing? I strained my mind, but it was all in vain. There is nothing I could remember about the man.
Why couldn't I stop thinking about a man about whom there is nothing to contemplate? Because he is writing my life's story. No, not as a biographer. I don't think there is anything so significant about my life to merit the work of a biographer and if there were a biographer we would be collaborating. No, it wasn't that. This wasn't consensual. He wasn't writing about my past. He had already done that. He was writing about my present and my future. And now, as when he had written about my past, he was writing about things BEFORE they happened. Every success I had ever enjoyed had first been willed into existence by his pen. Ever failure and embarrassment had first been conjured by his brain and allowed to occur only when pen had been put to paper. Those periods of my life when I lost weight with little effort and those periods when despite considerable effort the numbers of the scale would not budge had all been imagined and chronicled by him before occurring. Whether I would get a job or not had more to do with whether his coffee had 1 cube or 2 cubes of sugar the morning he wrote than with my résumé, the interview, or the mood of the hiring agents. Those embarrassing times when my member stood erect when not required or welcome? Those embarrassing times when his service was required and requested but he failed to present? It was ALL the anonymous, unknown, faceless, nondescript author of my life.
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Should I be grateful for him? Or should I be angry? Was he good? Or was he evil? Was he my creator and benefactor? Or was he my captor and tormentor?
My life was good. And while there were things for which I should be grateful, there were also pains and frustrations and injustices for which I felt I had a right to demand satisfaction from this unknown being. Being? Was he a man? Was he human? Or was he more? Being? Am I going to get religious now about a non-descript entirely forgettable man? One among thousands of forgettable faces whose name nobody had bothered to ask and whose name I would probably forget if he ever shared it.
