Two days later I left my apartment forever. Everything that was inside my life, my history up to that point. I turned away from and never looked back.
From that point on, Miranda Verlaine ceased to exist, fading and then emerging in another form … as one of them.
***
The night I left was truly unimportant as chronicling goes. I wanted nothing better than to be nothing, at once here and then gone, wiping away my own life with a clean cloth. In reality it wasn’t even a conscious decision to disappear, I just did.
On a cool March evening I found myself, or a ghost of who I once was, walking aimlessly about the streets of Tampa. I had no sense of need or direction, I simply walked. Once I got tired and decided I needed to phone a long forgotten friend in Nashville, just to let him know I was all right, but then I remembered I had made myself disappear, and besides, Schmidt probably wouldn’t still live there, we hadn’t talked in years. I laughed to myself at the thought of trying to recall his number. I sat down inside the lighted phone booth crouching for a second in a corner, my flesh cool against the glass my hands flat upon the plane of space called the bottom, fingernails digging into the layer of dirt flicking away grungy cigarette butts and wishing I could use one to burn a whole through my bitter heart. As tears ran down my face, I reached for a crumpled page from a magazine. There were lots of little black and white pornographic photos collaging the front and back of the page. The circles and x’s denoting individual preferences hit me like a stone, for I would no longer be prey to man’s societal demands for the ideal beauty. I straightened the filthy rag and lit fire to it, the act giving me a calming sort of responsibility. Though it was surely three in the morning, I did think someone might think it odd to see me enjoying myself so bizarrely, so I decided to continue my rambling flight. The coolness of the evening pleased me. I decided I would enjoy my nocturnal urges to the utmost and fret not for what I had left behind. I walked past the Woodlawn Cemetery and made my sacrifice to the God of Time. I threw my Swatch over the stone wall to sleep with the others who had no need for modern hour counting. It did not matter as I had no destination. Only the final destination and I knew not where that would be. I climbed up the cement support of an underpass, thinking to contemplate the passing cars, but the city was as dead as I, and not a single vehicle passed. I heard the shuffling of rats and roaches, common household pets of the homeless. I had not yet decided where to live and disliked the idea of being bound to Dave. He was in my thoughts irrevocably. I could not take a step without the feeling of him beside me, behind me, inside me. I wondered why he wasn’t following me, but then remembered that he didn’t have to. He was with me anyway, always. Irrevocably.
***