Invisible

You may never read this.  These words may well remain simply in this notebook, undiscovered, unread, never seen by mortal eyes other than my own.  So why write it, you may ask?  Well, is it not in the nature of man to record his thoughts, to journal his life?  I’ve never really kept a diary, not assiduously, not since perhaps my teens, that age when we all believe we are the first to have such feelings and thoughts as we do.  I had nothing of note to write about then, not really, not beyond the tumult and inner noise that in retrospect I realise many others felt.  Now though, well, now I have something to write about, something strange and weird and fantastical, something I know would be of immense interest to others.

And you see that’s why I can never let anyone read these words.  Were I discovered, were my secret revealed, I fear I would be hounded, detained even, and faceless men in lab coats and clipboards would prod and test and experiment, would draw my blood and take samples of my flesh, would devise mazes of a stranger kind in which I, their lab rat, would be compelled to run.

I would lose my liberty.  I fear I would lose myself.

It was almost two years ago when I realised, when sneaking suspicion and odd occurrences began to coalesce into stark realisation.  I was able, with a little concentration, to become invisible at will.  By closing my eyes and steadying my breathing, by concentrating, I could simply disappear.  For years I believe this had, at seemingly random times, happened without my realising it, and all those little oddities I remembered now made sense.  Now aware of this strange ability, I sought to master it, to enable myself to will the moments of my becoming invisible.  It took less time than one would think, and before long not only was I able to shift from visible to invisible, but I could also make anything I touched become invisible too.  It takes more concentration, and isn’t instant like my own switch, but it is only a matter of a few seconds.  The item, which can be anything, and of seemingly almost any size, slowly fades, becomes dull and grey and wraith-like, a mist, a shimmer, and then – poof – gone!  But not gone, not truly.  I can still sense it, still “see” it, as I can “see” myself, an apparition only I am aware of, a thing there and yet not there.  I know other people are completely unaware of both myself and of anything I have made to disappear – believe me, I have conducted my own experiments, my own trials.  I have stood, invisible, holding aloft various objects I have made to disappear, right in the centre of the city, unnoticed, unseen, a ghost amidst mortals.

I worried at first that people would bump into me, that this would lead to my discovery, that it would cause problems for me when I was in even slightly crowded areas.  I avoided any such places in the beginning, limiting my use of my ability, using it sparingly late at night or early in the morning.  Before long though something else about my ability became apparent; people actually avoided me, stepped aside, moved around me, even though for them there was nothing there to avoid, to move around.  They do it subconsciously, almost as if they see something out of the corner of their eye; there’s an almost fleeting look of confusion on their faces, very briefly, and then their expression returns to normal, and they move around me as though they could in fact see me.  It’s another thing I am at a loss to explain, but compared to the very fact of my invisibility it seems a minor niggling point, and not something I dwell on. 

What to do with these abilities?  Could I use them and still remain undiscovered?  I spent a lot of time thinking about this at first, dwelling on the possibilities; steeped as I have been since childhood in geek culture, and as we all have been in the rise and rise of comic book films and television, I of course considered the possibilities of being, well, a “superhero.”  Or, indeed, a supervillain.  I could become a vigilante, a crime fighter, a figure like Batman, albeit without the billions of dollars and the years of martial arts training.  But then why not become the antithesis of that?  Why not become like the malevolent Griffin of H. G. Wells’ novel, like the twisted characters who have haunted films and adaptations for well over a hundred years?  I could be almost godlike, benevolent or malevolent at a whim, a creature of opposing sides, a figure of both yin and yang, of light and of dark.  And it is for this reason, this warring dichotomy, the self knowledge to be aware that at my core I could be capable of the greatest heights of philanthropy, and, equally, the blackest depths of misanthropy, that means I have become neither.  I rarely use my abilities.  And not just because I know that there’s a dark ending to pursuing such a path.

Being able to physically make myself invisible, to walk amongst others unseen and unknown, has had no real impact on my life.  You may think this a strange thing to say; how could it not completely change a person’s world, this being invisible, this going unnoticed?  Well, the truth of my life is that, even before these physical abilities emerged, I was, in a way, already invisible, already largely unnoticed.  Mental illness has meant that I have been out of work for many years, that I have lost the majority of the people I cared for, that I have been largely alone for decades.  I’ve always gone unnoticed; on the streets I dress unremarkably, I stay quiet, I don’t make a fuss, I drift almost noiselessly and try my best not to disrupt, or bother, or be noticed.  After years this becomes remarkably easy.  Months could go by without interaction with other humans, with days spent in silence, alone, in my room, on the streets, in quick forays into shops for supplies, always doing my best to remain inconspicuous, always sloping back to my room.  My room, my safe place and my prison, a prison of my own construction.

I have been able to make myself physically invisible for two years now.  But that’s of almost no consequence; I have been virtually invisible to the world for far longer.