The Weight of the Word

By Sin (@ShaunAllan)

It's hard being me.

I bet you've never heard that one before, eh?  In fact, I bet you've never thought or said or felt that one before!

That's sarcasm, for those of you who didn't notice.  I know it's hard to believe.  Me.  Sarcasm.  Never happen.  But, I admit to descending to those depths on occasion.  Isn't sarcasm the lowest form of wit?  Well, if that's the case, it's still a form so it still counts.  I have standards.  They may be down here (I'm indicating a few inches off the floor if you can't see), but they're still standards.

Anywho-be-do.  Me.  We're talking about me here, OK?

Sin, that's my name.  Sin-sin-siree, it's all about me.  Isn't that how it goes in the song from that there film?  I'm expecting Dick Van Dyke to leap forth from the nearest chimney stack and start singing in his 'best' cockney accent whilst Julie Andrews flies around with her brolly.

That wasn't sarcasm.  That was a joke.  The highest form of wit, I guess.  I wonder if wit is divided into 9 circles with Dante travelling through them in search of the perfect punchline...

Sigh.  I digress.  Moi.  See, I'm multi-lingual too.  Petite pois.  Mange toute.  I learned all my French at the school of Only Fools and Horses.  But, onwards and...  onwards.

Me.  It's hard being me.  You may think I'm talking about the deaths.  All those people who died because of me.  All those whom I still hear screaming when I'm lying in my bed at night, staring at the ceiling, wishing they'd stop but knowing I deserved it.  Strangely, I'm not.  I mean, that's bad, but it's worse for the dead so I can't really complain.  I'm talking about something completely different.

I'm talking about the fact that I don't think I'm real.

Pick your chin up off the floor.  I'll give you a second.  Quick, because if the wind changes, you'll stay that way - or so my dad used to tell me, back when he could tell me anything.  Death kind of stops that in its tracks.

So.

OK?

I know, right?  Not real!  Of all the things to come out of my mouth, that was probably the most unexpected.  But, I kid you not.  I actually have this niggling feeling that I may, possibly, be imaginary.  Or, rather, fictitious.  Hold on, is there a difference there?  If I'm fictitious, then I'm imaginary by default?  I've not really had to comtemplate my non-mortality before so I'm not entirely sure.  I think, therefore I'm spam?  Hmmm...  It sounds like the old adage of, if you think you're crazy then you're not.  Which works flipped over, I guess.  If you don't think you're crazy, that means you must be.

I must be, though, mustn't I?  Real, not crazy - I'm rootin-tooting as sane as the next person, though the next person is Bender Benny so...

Make your own mind up on that one but back to the question at hand.  Am I real or am I Memorex?  See?  Right there!  I have the memory of that ooolllldddddddd advert for Memorex tapes!  They've been defunct for years now (I was going to say 'decades' but that makes me sound ancient so I'll stick with 'years').  Surely, if I can remember things like that, I must be real?  Otherwise, I'd not have any such memorexes!  I mean memories.  My life would feel... false, wouldn't it?  It would be as if the walls of my mind were constructed from MDF and wee bits of balsa wood, stuck together with double sided tape.  An old Doctor Who set, perhaps.

But they're not.  They're solid.  Thick.  With huge doors to imprison me with my thoughts.  I walk through them, late at night, with the shadows accompanying me.  I take steps.  They slide, slipping from corner to alcove to doorway like black mercury.  They ensure I'm never alone.

The cries of the dear departed do that anyway.

If I was made up, I wouldn't feel lonely, would I?  Guilty?  Nope.  Horrified?  Nah.  I mean, I probably would, because my creator would instill those feelings into me, but they wouldn't be real.  They'd be words on a page with no meat to the bones of imagination.

But my thoughts and dreams - because I do dream - have substance.  So I can't be not real.

So why do I feel that I am?  Why do I feel as if the world I live in could be winked out of existence with the turn of a page?  The tap of a key or the flick of a pen?

Have you ever had the feeling that you're not yourself?  People say that, don't they?

"You ok?"

"Not really, I don't feel myself today."

If you don't feel yourself, then who do you feel like (without getting arrested)?  The postman?  The neighbour?  The guy at the deli counter who can't pick up the slices of meat with the tongs so has to apologise and use his fingers?  Which is fine because they have those latex gloves on, anyway.  We used to call them 'johnny gloves' because they looked like you have a pack of condoms on your hands.

There I go again.  'We used to call them...'  I have a past.  You passed my past on the way in.  Didn't you notice?  It's hanging on the wall, a rich tapestry of blood streaks and muck.  Actually that was the orderlies' most recent attempt to take Jenny Stardust down to Room 101.  It never ends well.  I can still hear her singing now.  Either way, if I was just a collection of thoughts thrown together and vomited onto the page,  would I even have that?  Would I feel and think and wonder?  Would I be asking if I was real?  Would it even occur to me?

So, why do I wonder?  What is it that's bugging me?  What's keeping me awake at night, long after the crying and moaning from other residents has finished?

Have you ever left your house and had to back to see if you've turned the oven off - even though it's probably only 10:30am and you haven't cooked for three days?  Or you're sure you didn't lock the front door even though the memory of doing so is still as fresh as newly baked bread and just as tasty.

That's what it's like.  It's a niggle.  It's a feeling.  I have this voice in my head.  It's not loud and doesn't try to force its way to the front in an effort to be heard.  I think that's what makes it worse.  The fact that it's not pushy and doesn't put much effort into being noticed actually makes me more aware of it.

The voice has a name.  And a family.  And a job and a life.  It's (he's?) called Shaun Allan.

Now, I can't say I've met him.  In fact, I know I haven't.  I'd remember - right?  So no.  We have never had the dubious pleasure of each other's company.  Nobody in the asylum have heard of him, let alone met him themselves.  I've asked, don't worry.  Jacko, the self-proclaimed ex-smacko wacko (or Ronald Jackson Jr, to be more precise), whose drug addiction cost him his wife, his life and his sanity, thought he'd once bumped into someone by that name, but he could have been mistaken.  It could, he told me, have been James or Eddy.  An easy mistakea-to-makea.

Anywho.  That voice.  It's like a whisper, but one that's right in your ear.  It's not flitting about the room on a breeze, it's so close you could feel the breath of the speaker.

And the speaker sounds like me.

Yes, really.  The voice has my voice.  It's a little deeper, maybe, with the odd age line wrinkling through it, but it's me.

Now, I'm sure we all hear voices in our heads, and not in the 'cart you off to the loony bin' way.  Just our own thoughts wandering about, talking to themselves.  They work through problems, say the things you want to say to people but are either too scared or to tactful not to.  They're both friend and foe, depending on the situation.  They're your angel and demon sitting not on your shoulders, but rather enthroned within your brain.

That's not it, though.  It isn't me.  It isn't two sides of the same flipping coin.  It's something else.  Someone else.

No, before you say it, I don't suffer from multiple personality disorder.  I don't share my head with Tom, Dick and Harriet.  I don't change my 'me' more often than I change my underwear.  I'm Sin, full of flavour and sweet of grace.

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So who is it?  And why do I think it's called Shaun Allan?  Come on, they're not rhetorical questions!  I actually would like an answer!  I haven't even been told it's name.  I just sort of know.  The knowledge is there, unbidden and unheard but there nonetheless.  Shaun Allan.

Who is he?  Why does he haunt me so?  If I am, indeed, a character in one of his books...  I remember watching Men in Black.  I remember smiling at the end when the necklace Orion the Cat wore turned out to be a galaxy and it zoomed out to show our solar system, galaxy and so on until it showed us, then, occupying a marble type plaything of an alien species.  Are we, any of us, not real?  If I'm in Shaun's head, who's to say he's not in someone else's?  Maybe we all are.  Perhaps, we're the creation of an overweight guy sitting in Y-fronts and stained vest, nodding off whilst the ash dangling from his cigarette waits for its chance to leap across the abyss to his sofa.  Perhaps we're the result of the empty beer cans decorating the room floor.

Or, maybe we're batteries for the machines and I'm one of Shaun's sub-routines.

I suppose it doesn't matter.  Reality is subjective.  Surreality too.  Whether I walk among you or wander the fluid pathways of his literary castles, I still am.

Aren't I?

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SIN'S BIO:
Sin is an ordinary guy.  From a troubled upbringing, he rose to the heights of mediocrity and enjoyed his time there until he found a certain coin and bad things began to happen.  He likes key lime pie and movies and has been known to dance.  He looks out for underdogs and other strays and tries to avoid the knocks Life throws in his direction.  Sometimes he succeeds, often he doesn't.  Oh, and he doesn't like pickle on his burger.  That's not a euphemism.

You can read more of his exploits in his Watty Award winning book by @shaunallan at http://bit.ly/SinWP

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