“I am an invisible man.” This is what he had repeatedly told
the young girl who did not understand him. It was not that he was truly invisible,
he was the kind invisible where everyone could see him but they could not know
him which made him invisible to society. She would tell him that she could see
him, that he was not invisible to her. She did not understand his complexity.
She wanted to see him and know him but that seemed impossible. She never gave
up even though it seemed impossible. The more she tried to see him, the more he
tried to become invisible. It wasn't that he didn't want her to see him. He was
just scared about what she would think when she really saw who he was. He was
not a social kind of guy. He didn’t have friends or family but he was continent
with his isolated invisibleness. He would wake up in the morning, go to work,
and then come home to his cat who was the only one that seemed to understand
his invisibleness. His days were all the same, repetitive and invisible. Until
he met her, then all of a sudden the days weren't all the same which made him
anxious and want to really be invisible. He did his best to let her in; to let
her see himself for who he was. But he cared for her too much to let her get
hurt so after she got past his invisible barrier, he began to disappear even
more than before. She sat staring with her eyes shut, into his eyes, and felt
as if she had finally got to the beginning of something she couldn't begin, and
she saw him moving farther and farther away, farther and farther into the
darkness until he was the pin point of light.
This reminds me of a Steinbeck quote: "I wonder how many people I've looked at all my life and never seen." So many people probably feel invisible as they float through life, but others, like your character, make themselves that way by closing others out.
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