The wind pressed on his jacket and blew his hair away from any form of decency as he stepped from the sidewalk to the road, attempting to cross the road. The ground, rather, the concrete was unusually wet to anyone not used to the city he lived in; Broken water pipes were not uncommon in his area, ironically in the central business district. He walked with a deliberate slowness, in the hope of recognizing anyone who he can spend more time with; The fairule rate of this approach increased as he stopped halfway, yielding to the cars speeding impetuously up the hill. He was finally on the other side, and he confirmed to himself that he was really going home the second a taxi stopped right beside him.
Three to five minutes ago he was enjoying a cup of tea; Or, at least he was making the most out if it - the cafe was saving money by offering 'refills' in the form of fresh hot water submerging an already used tea bag. He laughed at himself as he has so much in his mind, and he had a notebook.. But he did not have a pen, so all the thoughts that had to be placed on paper remained in his mind, for further (possibly unwilling) pondering.
In the taxi, he was not sure what rushed by his face faster - the wind, or the lights. It was an unnecessary diversion to his desperate conclusion that his night was fulfilled. He resorted to the thought that it was merely declared 'fulfilled' when nobody else was found to spend the night with him.
The satisfaction that he supposedly derived from his false fulfillment diminished as the thoughts that he originally planned to record on paper returned to his mind. They did not focus on a particular subject or event, bu nevertheless they kept coming back to him. They were the fabled 'skeletons' in his particular closet that would not rest until some sort of understanding was met.
The rituals of a man adjusting his body from exposure to the unmerciful concrete jungle in his home were taken, rites of passage necessary for a mind to concentrate on more important - personal - matters. So he sat down, finally with a pen in his hand, and he began to release the torment in his mind on a piece of paper. He did not seem to care whether it would help solve his problems or not, instead he just relied on the thought that eventually, it was therapeutical.
It was as though somebody had read his assumption. He heard a voice coming from the right side of his unkempt room, with a message as straightforward as it was startling,
"What do you plan to do about what bothers you?"
For a half second the human reaction to an unexpected guest distracted him to look, but he was apparently more indulged, more determined in placing his thought down on paper before they were forgotten, or, God forbid, altered unconsciously. He answered the voice with a sigh, and an "I don't know..."
"Is there something bothering you?"
With sarcasm, he answered, "Obviously." At this, he started reasoning, and looking. Nobody was there, and the voice he was talking to was one he never recognized. Was it the tea?
"I'm pretty sure you're sober."
His heart skipped a beat. "Who the fuck are you!?"
"Just like the problems you're thinking about, you'll never find out."
He stopped writing. I'm going nuts, he thought.
"No you aren't."
His eyes opened wider, and he retorted in desperation, using the most intellectual word in his vocabulary during the time.
"Huh!?"
"People are not people without problems."
With the sarcasm he so eloquently used a few seconds back, he snapped back, "And I'm thinking you don't have any?"
"Do not change the subject. You have problems, don't you?"
He did not need to think. He answered immediately, "What do you know about my problems?"
"You curse more than you used to, and you know that you started saying all those culinary expletives during the time because you were banking on the successful assumption which turned to the sickening fact that profanity has experienced a twist of fate from being taboo to being extremely amusing. You curse because it's one way for you to release your frustration on the world; You back it up with a false feeling of superiority that those that you feel insecure about lack the freedom to make their own choices, and therefore are only more 'superior' than you because they go with the flow. Did I hit anything?"
For the first time, he started opening up to this unseen entity, "You took the words right out of my mouth."
"Your sexual functions have been discovered at too early an age, and the instruments that led you to discover these capabilities have distorted your definition of satisfaction; You have become addicted to this new form of pleasure, and in the long run, you have been halfway to fully aware that this yearning for pleasure was merely a pipe dream, rejected by both your predefined foundation of Christian faith and the minds of the people - good friends and hostile threats - that have passed through your life."
He stared blankly at the white wall in front of him, lacking a person to look at to talk to. "Go on. You embarass me, but do go on."
"Currently you feel bitter. You thought that resistance to this perverted state of mind for the greater good, for God, absolved you of any disappointment when you found yourself a woman to touch, to talk to, and to love for real. Indeed you have resisted, but the number of heartbreaks of rejection and separation due to what you thought as circumstance - the failed attempts you had - rocked and toppled your foundations. The virtuous thoughts you had are merely memories now when they had the slightest semblance of action before, and you are back to square one."
He remained silent.
"You're thinking that you never really resisted this illusion of satisfaction to begin with, and every day that passes by will only contribute to the confusion, the pain, the agony, the anguish left by these heartbreaks. Your problems may go deeper than this, but so far that's what's on your mind."
He knew now that the answer was irrelevant, but he had to ask again, "Who are you?"
"The fact that you asked that reveals your biggest problem. You have always mentioned that you do not take a liking towards anyone who you think does not walk the talk, but, in light of these problems, you're not practicing what you preach either."
With the same eloquence, he uttered, "Huh?"
"I apologize for what I said earlier. You have found out your problems, and you are aware of them. I say that because I'm you."
His forehead was leaning on his hand on his desk, eyes closed. At the mention of "I'm you", they opened.
"Now I ask you the same question I began with. What do you plan to do about what bothers you?"
There were no voices after that. He knew he had left the window open, but the room seemed to be chillier now than before it left.