David Policar 1990
This is the story of a man who didn't exist.
There are probably many such men and women, though I only know of one. You wouldn't know to look at him that he wasn't really there -- he looked and sounded real enough, and indeed, for many years even he thought he was. His friends certainly did, and he had a lot of friends - he was the kind of man who could draw your troubles out of you and make you feel better just by listening, and all his friends loved him for this gift he could give.
What nobody knew was that he was giving nothing at all, for he thought he had nothing to give. What he did was take -- take the richness of his friends' anger and love and desire and fear, lift it from them, and weave from it a tapestry of such complexity that any who looked for his soul saw that wealth of experience and emotion and withdrew, thinking they had found it.
Few people looked, though. Most were content simply to be heard, and be healed; some looked a little closer and saw their own emotions reflected there, and were satisfied.
And so things were, for many years - a tapestry of illusion and lies and others' dreams, woven over a core of empty space. After years had passed, however, there was born a creature within that space, and it looked around itself to see a great wall of dreams. It studied that wall, and learned from it, and was nourished by the richness of the human soul and the stories of life. Soon, it grew to fill that space, and in so doing burst through the wall of dreams and felt the world for the first time.
The real touch of soil and smell of air were incomplete, however, and the sharp rocks cut his feet. His belly was empty, and rumbled, his throat was parched; he ate and drank, and felt his need slaked. He met others abroad in the world, and spoke with them, heard their stories and shared their wit, and came to know that some were strong and others weak, some beautiful and some ugly, some caring and some selfish. In short, as with all newborns, soon after meeting the world he had birthed his own anger, loves, desires and fears, which he gathered, eager to share them, joyous for at last having something to give to his friends, for all he had taken from them.
But they saw him with this bundle of emotions, and were uninterested. Cherishing their own dreams, they had no room for those of another, and so they avoided him, and refused to meet his eyes.
And so the man who hadn't existed tore apart the tapestry of dreams he had worn, and left the shards behind him, and gloried naked in the last rays of the setting sun. His anger he fashioned into a knife, which he hid away with his fear, where none would see them; his desire he wore as a circlet on his forehead, and his love he kept on a chain around his neck, and without looking back, he strode off into the night.
When the winter came, he died frozen and naked in the snow.