Like a goldfish to the little red flakes, he drops into the bowl he is instinctively pulled towards it. He is enamored by the thought of it as if he had no choice in the matter. He doesn’t understand why he feels this way, nor does he seek to understand. It holds the power to make him feel like the billionaire sitting on the freshly varnished teak deck of his yacht or the beggar lying alongside his malnourished hound on a windy November morning.

It is a confusing life for him to lead, and it feels like both freedom and imprisonment. Not only does he not understand why he feels these urges, but he is incapable of wanting to change them. He feels like if he were to change them that there might not be anything left of him other than an emotionless shell, doomed to die alone and forgotten.

The people around him call it an addiction, but he doesn’t see it that way. And even when he does see it that way, he won’t admit it. With that confession comes consequences that he feels will overcomplicate his life. Some call it an obsession, and they can’t understand why someone would possibly base their life around something so self-destructive, especially when in their eyes, all of their problems are rooted in this obsession. He feels that his obsession is what makes him who he is. Without it he is an emotionless shell, doomed to die alone and forgotten.

With each passing day, he is filled with the insatiable urge to satisfy his obsession. It looms over him like an unfriendly ghost, following close behind regardless of where he is. If he doesn’t satisfy the urge he finds that it devours his thoughts, making it impossible to function with any sort of efficacy. But as time goes on he finds that each time he satisfies his urge, it is followed by an overwhelming sense of regret. When he lays his head to rest each night, he wonders why he must think this way.

Sinking deeper into his illness with each step, he carries on through life. He found the ghost of his obsession always looming closely behind, never far enough away to allow a break. Anyone who gets close enough to him to see this obsession recoils from him as if he were a blue flame or a foul odor. It drives him to a mindset that even he can see is absurd and makes him question whether or not he has a reason to move forward. No matter what he does, he finds himself succumbing to the urges of this ghost, quickly followed by a feeling of remorse greater than the last. The only thing that he knows can keep him moving forward is the obsession. He grabs onto the obsession as a drowning child grabs onto the loose pool noodle suspended in still water.

As time marches on, he finds himself gray and devoid of life. All of his precious seconds in his world were spent nurturing this ghost of obsession. Over the years he pushed away his family, one by one by one. He held a job with bare minimum effort, afraid that if he were to over exert himself at work, his obsession would only further fester.

Sat at a solitary bench in an alley, he reflects. The wonder of the world left him more and more as his baby teeth came loose. The time of a seemingly perfect childhood seemed like it had been swept from right beneath his feet. All of those who loved him had left him.  Without ever understanding why he did what he did, it had seemed as if they had considered him beyond saving. But who was he to blame them? He couldn’t understand why he did this either. He looked down at his hands, skin creased and devoid of color. He looks forward, seeing the weathered mortar between the bricks laid. He wonders who laid these bricks and who spread the mortar. Looking to his feet he wonders who sewed his shoes, and who poured the pavement beneath him. With seemingly the most clarity he could muster, he realized that the very obsession that made him feel alive had drained him of all of his life, dooming him to die alone and forgotten.