was i meant to feel something?

i found a gum wrapper in the bottom of my purse after i had moved my wallet and makeup pouch to my new tote bag. i got ready to toss out the flimsy paper and move on with cleaning my purse. but the faded traces of ink on the white underside of the silver wrapping stopped me in my tracks on the way to the trashcan and i flipped over the torn artifact. i unfolded the corners and smoothed the paper on my desk with the back of a spoon i had left there after lunch. written in night sky tinted ink:

was i meant to feel something?

who was i? was i i? did i write this about myself? it was my obnoxious, loopy handwriting; it had to be me. was i meant to feel something? feel something about what? i feel something about everything. i feel something when a bird sits outside my window for a moment too long. i feel something when the elderly woman down the road sits alone in her car after turning it off. how could i not feel something?

was i meant to feel something?

what could possibly be so dull and unintriguing that i, she who cries at red cardinals on dirty windowsills and old women turning off their cars, felt nothing?

with my original task long abandoned, i sat on my desk chair and read the phrase over and over and over and over.

was i meant to feel something?

was it a sentence i heard someone say that struck me so deeply i had to write it down? did i say it and strike myself so deeply i had to write it down? was it an elaborate joke i decided to play on my future self in a moment of boredom?

was i meant to feel something?

if i didn't feel anything when i wrote it down, i surely felt something in the hours i stared at the paper. i felt so much that i called friends and asked if i'd ever said it to them. i heard their poorly concealed concern through the phone. "she's finally lost it." "she's gone absolutely nuts." "should i go pick up a short bus to drive her to the loony bin?" they didn't say it but i could hear it. i was so desperate for an answer, i might have considered taking that ride on the short bus.

was i meant to feel something?

what could possibly make me feel nothing? why was my mind failing me? why was i being left to pick up the pieces of a story i didn't know i had started? was i meant to feel the nothing that comes with losing a part of your story because you can't remember? was this how black-out drunks felt in the mornings after a particularly rough night? i don't know what the question meant, but i know i felt something. something that made me rip up the wrapper and throw it in the trash in a fit of red-faced tears and unbridled rage at the loss of a moment in my history.

was i meant to feel something?

i don't know. i don't know. i don't know.

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