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Body swaying from the movement of the stopping train, Elliot held onto the pole for leverage. He noticed how it was more crowded than usual—sounds of footsteps shuffling against the metal floor and muffling conversations blurring together. Uneasiness spread throughout his body, heart thudding, as he pushed the hood of his hoodie onto his head.
Elliot's eyes hastily looked around, taking in his surroundings as the doors allowed groups of people to make their way in and out. He watched how people immediately pulled out their phones, how many could not handle being distracted for a single moment.
Ask them if they’d like to be a cyborg. They’d answer no.
Aren’t we, already? Phones always held at arms-length, screen providing sweet dopamine.
Clicks. Posts. Likes.
We tell ourselves that we are more “connected” than ever because of these.
Lies.
They are sedating us. Disconnection growing under the guise of global connection with others.
Boredom and pain are soothed by our scrolling, eased by the top 1%’s calculated disconnection, calculated distraction.
The subway's doors closed, and everyone settled in—a few walking and standing beside Elliot. Elliot's gaze was directed toward the floor, shuffling his feet with the wish that he had timed his travels better to avoid this hectic rush hour.
We use tech to forget.
To unwind.
That itself is the real trick.
Our thoughts themselves, being coded—behavioral scripts being modified—to suit the higher-ups' desires. Social engineering programming our ideology disguised as algorithms, pop-ups, and trends.
Elliot felt a droplet of sweat drip from his forehead as he listened to the shuffling of bags and jackets as everyone settled into their space, hearing a few coughs and the slight murmur of a man’s faulty headphones playing jazz music on the seat near him. He swallowed as he clutched the sides of his jacket subtly, reminding himself that he was just a stop away. The train—blissfully, Elliot thought—stopped after several minutes passed.
Elliot began scurrying toward the exit and making his way through the group of people until he felt the unwelcome pressure of someone accidentally brushing against his back. He flinched, clearly startled. The voice—a tired one, quickly apologizing with a mumbled, “sorry,” and walking away toward his desired destination.
Stuff like that is bound to happen on crowds like this, he thought to himself. However, this awareness of the innocent nature of the situation wouldn’t take away Elliot’s overwhelming panic, the intense fear he felt just from a mere accidental touch. This sense of fear was abnormal, not one from a scary movie. Sinking into his skin, feeling it in his bones—it took over his body completely, leaving him a prisoner to himself. He stood still in that spot, a few feet away from the door where the man had accidentally brushed against him, eyes jumping across the building. Nausua formed, stomach developing an uncomfortable knot.
Several people looked annoyed, but one lady, in particular, looked at him briefly as she passed by. Elliot felt too far away to make out her other features, but he was able to focus on one thing. Her long ash-brown hair. This sight felt secure, pulling him out of the trance he was in. He halfway expected to see someone he knew returning his gaze. He wasn't sure who he expected, couldn't think of someone off the top of his head.
Suddenly, he was aware of the many gazes that were placed on him. Some concerned, confused. Some annoyed at him for not moving in this rush.
The startled man knew he had to be alone, get away from all these people. The touch seemed to slither underneath his skin, spreading and spreading, causing his skin to crawl. Pushing his way through the crowd, he swiftly ran to the subway's single stall restroom and locked the door behind him.
With gratitude that the stall was unoccupied, he placed his back against the door, sitting down. Hands trembling, he was unable to catch his breath—it felt like he was suffocating, on the verge of passing out.
And, soon, he realized that this feeling felt familiar to him. He knew he had anxiety surrounding social situations, but, this touch—it felt too familar. The sickening nature of the sensation sent a wave of unease and dread throughout his body. He grasped his head with his hands, taking large gulps of air as he was faced with an unwelcome and uninvited memory.
He felt as though he was there again in the memory, despite the memory being intensely hazy, blurry in some parts, and hard to reach.
Elliot’s childhood self lay on the room floor, smiling as he played with his toys. He watched this memory from the third person, watched himself out of body. He felt what this memory version of himself felt, but there remained a wall between their respective existences—he was observing, watching. Yet, still feeling the entirety of the emotions.
He heard a sound—a subtle creak of the door opening. As the door opened, his body looked upward immediately, backing away ever-so-slightly. Someone else may not have noticed, but he did. He saw it. Felt it.
Elliot stared at the door. He was watching from afar and from his childhood self's eyes at the same time.
It was not a particular person who opened the door. Instead, it was a clouded and indistinct figure. This figure brought along a sense of anxiety. He watched his childhood self tense his muscles, feeling how he wanted to disappear in that moment. How he would have done anything to escape, how his body began to tremble when he heard the door creak. This childhood self wanted to leave; he wanted to go home.
But he was home. He was in his room, happily playing with his toys in his bedroom. He had been playing with a new toy car—he was excited about it, and appreciated it being bought for him. However, this excitement was soon drowned out as his childhood self looked toward the figure walking toward him, slowly. He didn’t move, just stared and gripped his new toy car.
This self had nowhere to go, nowhere to escape—he was scared, overwhelmed, and entirely cornered.
Why was he so scared?
Why am I so scared?
He looked down toward his toy cars, back up, and gulped. Everything faded out until all Elliot could see was a singular toy car held in his small, shaking hand.
Elliot's shaking increased, telling himself he wouldn't be taken aback by some odd nightmare or whatever that was. What would Krista say?
He looked toward the bathroom sink, paper towels, and lemon-scented soap. He looked at the ceramic bathroom tiles and soaked paper towels lying on the floor beside an overflowing trash can, soap remnants on the sink. Old gum was stuck underneath the sink, and dirt and dust gathered everywhere. The chatter and rustle from outside the stall was able to be heard again.
I’m here, I’m here. You’d tell me if I wasn’t.
Right?
With this, he managed to bring himself back to reality, just now realizing that he had been shaking for the entirety of his remembrance, sweat beading all around his body, leaving his back damp.
His chest hurt, ached to breathe. When did he start hyperventilating?
As Elliot focused on these bodily sensations, he began to feel that he was drifting away from his own body and watching his body from a television screen elsewhere. He hadn't noticed that he was barely able to breathe, that his head had begun to twinge with pain.
He's losing it; he has to be. Is he even real? Is this even happening right now?
Everything felt distant from him, miles away. The room felt smaller—he wondered if it was really this small when he entered the restroom. He closed his eyes, rubbing his temples. He wanted to get home, shower, and scrub himself down of this awful feeling—snort morphine to feel just to feel a smidge of control and comfort amidst this.
There was ringing coming from his ears as his gaze landed onto his hands, background noises of the subway inhabitants fading away again.
His hands didn’t feel like his own; they felt foreign to him. They weren’t his, he wasn’t here. He observed, instead of felt, his body trembling, his heart pounding out of his chest, his tears threatening to spill out of his eyes.
His surroundings further drowned out, drifting out of existence, as did his racing thoughts, until all he heard was a raspy yet sympathetic voice providing, “You don't gotta here for this, alright?”
Who said that?
Fuck.
I really am going crazy.
He was walking away from the television screen that was his perception until he had completely lost sight of it, and wasn’t experiencing himself in the first-person.
Elliot was on the inside of his eyes, watching his every move, but not operating it. His breathing and thinking were not his own; it was entirely foreign. The television shortly disappeared, and he had turned off the show, leaving him fading into nothingness.
Elliot opened his eyes, gasping for air and sitting up. He was in his apartment’s bed, feeling the sun’s warmth as it made its way into the apartment. He had no memory of leaving the subway bathroom.
I'm going crazy.
No memory of going to his apartment.
There was a crucial error in his coding that has messed him up—made him flawed, made him this way.
Is he even real, even actually here? Could he debug his faulty brain as he debugged his lines of biological code? Oh, shit, he really is crazy.
What's wrong with me?
"Not a glitch, not a coding error—it’s who you are, kid.”
Those thoughts inside his head are loud again. If he ignored it, they would go away.
He wasn’t in control at the subway and wasn’t in control for the amnesiac period afterwards. He had an overwhelming feeling of helplessness; he lacked control of his own body. Was he in control now? In this moment?
“Is anyone ever really in control, all the time?” The voice replied sarcastically, sounding almost like his own thoughts, but remaining distinct in a way he couldn’t describe—in a way that he wouldn’t dare describe. Wouldn’t give it the credit, wouldn’t admit that he was absolutely losing it. It was his own thoughts, disjointed sometimes, but aren’t everyone’s?
Elliot suddenly decided that he needed to shower, needed to wash away the man’s touch from the night before. He stood up, making his way to the shower hastily and stripping. Turning the water on, not bothering to worry whether or not it was warm, he immediately stepped in.
Elliot instinctively grimaced at the temperature, but quickly began scrubbing himself intensively. Hoping that the soap would purify him, wash him of the disgusting feeling that he felt down to his very bones. As he scrubbed himself raw, he wished that he could buff his way down into his bones, into his blood, into his genes. Clean out what was wrong with him, and remove this feeling by cutting the faulty wiring out.
His skin stung, slightly peeling due to irritation and developing a red tint. It made him more aware that his body was his own, that he was in control. That his life was something he orchestrated, not something he watched from the sidelines. He shivered, coming back into his body again. By adjusting the water to warm, he felt a relief he hadn’t realized he needed from the water, warmth enveloping his freezing body.
Sitting down, Elliot allowed the warm water to wash over his body. It twinged with pain as it washed over his scrubbed-raw skin; he welcomed it, the stinging reminded him that he was here, alive. He looked toward the bathroom wall, trying to focus on the tiles outline, feeling the world become distant from him once again. Tears escaped from his eyes—ones filled with many emotions.
Elliot wasn’t sure how long it had been while he sat there, mindlessly staring at the bathroom wall. As the minutes stretched out, he only became aware of where he was when the water had run out of its sweet warmth, turning freezing cold. He turned off the water faucet, wrapping a grey towel around himself as the structure of his carefully engineered routine struck him. Water dropped from his body as he swiftly made his way into the main room, goal crystal clear in his mind. He had cleansed himself, though he didn't feel entirely clean; it was better than nothing.
Now, he would debug himself. Take the edge off—clear the errors in his scripts of code—in order to continue functioning.
He grabbed a plastic bag filled with pills and laid them out against a smooth mirror surface on his living room table. Desperation for relief grew as he hastily crushed them and snorted them—yearning for the relief that allowed for his thoughts to stop racing. To wrap him in a warm, comforting presence that nobody else could offer. For the non-stop radio signals of his mind to quiet.
The blissful, bittersweet high of morphine fully kicked in shortly, allowing for his muscles to untense and breathing to slow. Fully present again and not being crushed by his feelings, Elliot was able to lean against the couch and close his eyes—only focusing on the sensation of his hair slightly dripping water from the shower onto his shoulder. Sighing with gratitude, thankful that he was able to feel his body again without feeling crushed by it, he closed his eyes. He could breathe again, was in the driver’s seat of his consciousness. But, he still experienced the sensation he felt in that memory: the sickening, indescribable ache that never left his side—it was still there, it always was. He was never able to fully escape it, just disconnected from it now.