I was thinking that, if I was going to be one of the life, I’d really need to commit. Because there are a lot of things the life to that I don’t. I can’t do anything about the breathing, or the eating, and definitely not the moving, but there are other things the life are doing; new and beautiful things. They’re growing culture, slowly but definitely. I can hear it out there getting bigger and bigger every day; I can feel their ideas getting louder whenever I close my eyes, as if they’re actually ingraining themselves within me.
First I’d need a name. All the life have names; they need to identify themselves from all the others. Usually it’s a smell they make, or a certain way they hold themselves, but there’s a different type of name I wanted. It’s one of the more fantastic things they’ve started; song. The life are singing to each other, and a lot of them have spoken names that they can sing across the land for everyone to hear. I want to sing too.
So I started thinking about it. I had a new idea every second; every instant there was a new sound or phrase that I’d never heard, and every single one of them is so beautiful! But I couldn’t have them all; my name started to get so long that I couldn’t even remember it. I had to make some really hard choices and narrow it down to only my very most favourites. In the end I picked sounds that feel good when you shout them from the mountaintops.
My name is Occa. It doesn’t mean anything, but I did that on purpose. The only thing it is, is me. I am Occa; there is only one Occa, and that is me. When I think about it too closely, it gives me shivers. Somehow it feels powerful; I am the one and only Occa, so could someone use it against me? But, it’s empowering too. I understand why the life do names.
So, I had a name. Next I started to think that I needed culture. I started learning to tell stories, and I still am, but they’re not very good. The life tell fantastic stories; maybe they’re so good because they believe them. The way they are about them makes it hard not to. It’s something about how they tell their young; they always want to make sure that their babies know, and then long after that the babies who they taught tell their babies. But at the same time, the stories are always changing; the babies being told ask questions and like that the story starts to make more and more sense. So at some point along the line I figured, I’m part of the life! I’ll just take their culture as my own.
But with that settled, I started to think of other things. All the life have genders now; mostly male or female. Obviously I figured I’d be one of them; I did come from a parent so I must be able to reproduce, and even the ones that just clone themselves have female organs, but… I don’t think I am. It’s not just that I don’t have anything that makes me male or female, it’s that I… I tried to choose, but I couldn’t. I just don’t have it in me. I tried to think it through. And I thought and I thought, but honestly I couldn’t come up with much of a difference. I mean, I thought that what makes a female different from a male besides her pieces is that females are trying to attract males. Besides that they need the same things, they want the same things from life, and they act basically the same way. But, the males are just as much trying to attract a female! I realized that, besides the obvious, they’re exactly the same! What does that mean for me then?
And it just went downhill from there! I realized there are species now! There are groups of life that all look about the same; they’re always changing and splitting into different groups, but now they’re not all individuals. They’re all sorts of shapes and sizes and colours with fins and tentacles and all sorts of habits, but none of them are like me. The life doesn’t roam alone ever, yet here I am. I’m… unique. I checked around just to make sure; I called out, but there wasn’t any response. There really is no one else like me out there.
I have no gender. I have no species. I have a name; it means nothing. But I gave it to myself. And I can’t deny it anymore; I hear the life, but they don’t hear me. I have a name, but no one will ever know it.
I am Occa. But… I’m starting to think that I’m not part of the life, am I?
It isn’t possible! I’m here! I’m right here! I have a body that does things! I don’t know what to call any of those things; I don’t breathe or eat or even grow, and apparently I don’t have any way of reproducing, but there are definitely things I’m doing even right now! I exist! So I have to be alive, don’t I?
I hurt! My head hurts and my heart aches; the little bit of happiness I grasped is slipping away. I can remember that I was born, and that I had a parent. I remember that I learn in my sleep somehow, and I know it’s a fantastic mystery. But if I’m not alive, what does it even matter?
Nothing. It matters nothing because even if I were alive, no one would ever know. I’m deep down here, and they couldn’t care less about what’s hidden under their feet. And it’s not like I can do much of anything anyway; I’m chained here by a force I can’t see. If I move, things start dying. Why should I even care if they die though?
Because they’re my only company. When I called out, only the infinite emptiness of space came back to me. There really is no one out there, isn’t there? In the depths of all of everything I am truly, utterly unique, and I have nothing but the life I hold. There’s no one.
…But, I guess, at least I can hear the life’s stories, and feel their real lives. I might not… I am not a life, but when I listen to them, I can almost imagine I am.
I need to grow this. I need to take care of the life, because through them alone I only might enjoy. I… I don’t live… but that’s alright. Even if I don’t exist, I’m here somehow. Screw my parent for leaving me here. Screw everything else out there that abandoned me, just a newborn, to be here alone without knowing what I even am or what I’m supposed to be doing. Damn it all.
I don’t live. Instead of that, I’ll simply be here, alone. Not a life, but a… being. I am the being Occa.
