Why do I feel like something lost?

Something small — maybe a little key or a button — lying there, at the edge of a storm drain beneath dried leaves, red and brown, waiting for the rain to fall. Sometimes I wonder about the meaning of a button or a little key, balancing on the edge of a storm drain under dried leaves. Do they rustle above you when the wind begins to blow? Would you then feel dead in a grave?

I am not. Rather, I am alive and dead at the same time, existing in both states, passing from one into the other, passing through them throughout my whole life — if this is called life, and not something else. I stand motionless, alone on the ground, waiting for the storm, thinking about my condition as a lost object… or a discarded one. Thrown away like an unnecessary thing that once rattled around in someone’s pocket — even if God’s pocket.

In the end, who needs an object that has no purpose? Someone might say that many things have no purpose until they find one. Something that at first glance seems useless, but has potential — like a pink elephant, but of course, not that big and not that tasteless — can turn from unnecessary into very necessary.

I mean that a key can be used to open a door, and a button can be used to fasten a shirt. Both objects lead to the resolution of some kind of “crisis.” But when they are in the wrong places, they stick out like an unnecessary question mark at the end of a sentence and make the one who wrote it look illiterate. And question marks, of course — even incorrectly placed ones — demand answers, such as answers to the reason for our existence, which some of us apparently are not always able to give.

I realize, of course, that even necessary objects sooner or later end up in the trash and remain without a reason to exist. But at least they once had one. The problem is that I do not remember ever unlocking a door, fastening a shirt, or being useful to anyone in any way. And if I have been — I have forgotten, and now it does not matter.

I only balance on the edge. I have the present moment and the unknown future that awaits me, and now it seems to me that I have never had and never will have any purpose, except to pity myself for being useless. I try not to wallow too much, still. Perhaps being thrown away without a memory of ever having been needed by someone is a kind of solution — a way of finding a true purpose.

When you are like a discarded button, waiting for the rain to fall so the water will push you into the storm drain, you should feel fear, shouldn’t you? Maybe precisely because of this fear, I have a purpose in this world. I exist in order to be afraid! That is an insight… I doubt it, though. Why? Well, because I am not very afraid of my condition. And yes, it could be that my purpose is to be afraid — but honestly, that is quite unsatisfying and, for that reason, hard to accept, so to speak.

I mean, believing that my purpose is exhausted by whether or not I fear oblivion is — if nothing else — a boring goal to live up to. My understanding is that the state of absolute uselessness in which I exist — lying beneath a pile of dried leaves, on the edge, without being part of anyone’s plan for anything, not even God’s — is a grand exception to the normal course of events, as they are supposed to be. It is even, in a way, beautiful and incomparable to anything else.

So, one way or another, I begin to come to terms with my fate… or non-fate.

Honestly, I have given up on all hope, and as if nothing at all excites me. In fact, that is a lie. I am excited by the sound of footsteps approaching. Then my pulse even quickens. I imagine it is someone like me. I call out, I make noise! It is because sometimes, still, I dream of meeting someone else in my situation — another key, a needle, a thimble, anything insignificant and lost, in the same absurd situation as mine, who would hear the nonsense I am rambling… Then this useless object would understand me. And perhaps, in dialogue, we could together advance our understanding of our purpose in this world.

But what are the chances that someone else exists in this state of existence-nonexistence, on the edge, and that they will listen to me?

The footsteps always pass by and fade into the distance, and I remain beneath the pile of leaves and slightly hate myself for having felt some hope and excitement in the first place.

Well, anyway. Things now are as they are: I balance on the edge of the storm drain, thinking such phantasmagorical things about my purpose, trying to understand what it is… and waiting for the rain to come.