Someday, I’ll find myself again. But until that day, I will remain here, separated and unaccompanied by my own rationality. In truth, it is my own twisted fault for which I reside here. I cannot claim my rumination at the time, nor catch any sense of what it could have been. However, it seems I chose to exist in this fashion, in this complete fortified corner of my mind.

I have been here for five years. Call it unlucky, call it crazy, call it whatever you wish. But I call it home. The first few months were rough, as my adjustment lacked any progress. But, slowly, my new lifestyle and my new self were a gradual addition to my truth.

In these long, five years, I have seen neither human nor any animal which is a common rodent. I have been truly isolated from the world, lingering only in what society chooses to leave behind. No, even worse, what society has no choice but to leave behind. Lingering in their waste. In their sewers.

It flows underneath the city like venom, alive in the inhaling catacombs, throbbing with the heartbeat of the metropolis. The River. Tunnels and tunnels, connected and fed into another, all feeding into the same main source, the heart, the soul of the city. Its place of origin. Here is where I reside. Amongst the filth and decay of that which is considered improper and unlivable, amongst the substances that cause shrieks of disgust in the human world. Here is where I flourish.

As I have mentioned previously, I can not calculate why I would have proposed and enacted such a bold move. To leave behind the only society I had ever known, and to travel beneath, to a place where the remnants of these people declare rule. All I can consider now is that it is too late to return. I have been here for so long, that it seems I have lost all purpose in life. I cannot remember who I was, or for that matter, who I still claim to be. Memories and reminisces have been lost to this giant River of what has been left behind. It seems that the darkness and stench have a power, a certain ability to drain away my ponderings, my reflections. And as they are removed from my body, they pummel into The River. Away they cascade, lost to the lost substances of society. Lost forever.

It is dark here – always dark. Never light. My eyes have adjusted well to the pitch blackness, yet still I cannot behold much in my vision. The faint outline of a tunnel wall occasionally passes my vision, yet for he most part, I am blind. My sense of hearing is where my true strength lies. For, there is always something to be heard. The gurgling of waste flowing down The River, flowing into the heart of the city. The unmistakable squeak of tiny rodent bathing in glory as they feast upon what has been handed to them. It is a never ending audible banquet, pleasuring my ears with every mutter. Perhaps this is the true reason why I cannot seem to leave this place, my home.

But something has changed. Something has disturbed my gratifying yet heartbreaking experience. Something that threatens to break all I have worked to achieve. A mere few days ago, purposelessly meandering my humble accommodations, I happened to stagger across something I had not seen not felt for years – a sturdy piece of parchment. A note.

Most paper disintegrates in the extreme chemical processing of The River’s waters. But this tiny slip did not. No, it indeed had held up to it’s mighty waters, its willpower and commanding force stronger than that of my own mind, which by itself failed to survive the currents. Perhaps this was why it arose such curiosity in me.

At first, I could not see what was written upon the abrasive surface of the parchment. The blackness was whole, and it consumed every part of my vision. But as time stretched forth, the small kindle of sparks that had lit in my breast grew to a roaring flame, and my passion grew forth from it. Never in so long had I cared so much about any certain thing, had I felt my heart race with anticipation. It was this driving force that led me to squint even harder in the demanding blackness, pressuring my visual nerves to process the impossible.

For days I crouched, straddling the piece of paper in one hand, holding my scabbed forehead in the other. Time did not matter, nor did sleep nor hunger; all that mattered was the uncloaking of the enigma behind the message. I could feel the words beneath the cloud of murkiness that shrouded my vision, could sense their literary power as they floated off the page.

Nothing came to me. My eyes could not discern any hint of a word, let alone a precious letter. Time was passing, and I had grown weak from lack of nutrition. Yet I could not pull myself away even for a moment to replenish myself, could not break my trance with the invisible paper. I would die here, die here alone and without an answer.

As I began to surrender, a inexplicable event occurred. An eerie light began to pulsate from the center of my vision, filling my world, my home, my life. And suddenly, I could see, could read the words that had masked themselves so well in the darkness for the past week. My precious little note was literate at last.

Happy Birthday!

I grinned, a grin that illuminated the darkness with a new kind of radiance. Happy Birthday.