Alone
Dreaming I was just finishing up after a public rally. It was all over and I had come back to the office headquarters to check in.
A middle aged man with a friendly face sat behind a desk. He greeted me warmly looking into my face. I felt part of the victory and appreciated his acknowledgment.
We looked into each other like brothers of a cause with a common appreciation of the other.
Then another man came in, gave me a quick impersonal glance, leaned over and said something to the man behind the desk. Who then sat up with a feeling of admiration. The other looked back at him with an expression of subtle reproach—slight but real. It was a suggestion of criticism. Then he looked at me from that detached distance certain people of power use to judge the other. I felt removed from the club.
The other man at the desk didn’t look back at me, again I felt dismissed. I had vanished from his awareness also. I felt like a door had been closed in my face. I was definitely now completely excluded, vanished from their awareness. I was not of any interest to them.
I now knew no one. I was connected to nowhere and no thing, no place. I was alone, solitary.
I accepted this emptiness of another’s mutual respect and psychic embrace. Yet I felt the pain of absence of another human being’s acknowledgement of my being.
This was strong enough to set itself into my memory. An hour later when I had fully awakened I remembered the dreaming and the feeling. I wanted to remember the reality of being truly alone, a singularity in the world without expecting or having acknowledgment or recognition of another human being.