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You are invisible. I see this on my messenger window. I don’t feel invisible. It seems like I am there and can be seen by everyone, everyone who has me on their list. People I have known over the years. New arrivals I have discouraged. I am tired.

The scent of dew-dripping flowers makes me cringe for I know that one day they will be crushed. Essence, they say. It will be bottled for posterity, sprinkled over delicacies, dabbed on pulse points, dried as decorations, made to live a life other than what it was born for.

The old residents remain. I feel awkward as I see their faces or the identities they have chosen for themselves. I don’t sign in most times and when I do – mainly to get email alerts because if I don’t I may not look for them and they could well go unread for days – I minimise the window, try to make it as small as possible so that I have to strain myself to read my own name.

‘Preferences’ drops down a menu. I want to choose silence as a beep, but that is not an option. We need sounds to be alerted. Our antennae, our sixth sense is useless. For, we cannot face the truth, the truth of lies. We delude ourselves.

Some brave soul may ask, “Are you there” despite the writing on the wall, perhaps sensing presence. Or not expecting absence. They are not the same thing. Presence sensed is an internal feeling, as though you get signals. Expecting no absence comes with knowledge. Perhaps it is neither of these and it is only a chance people take. A chance at what? Presence? Absence?

“You are invisible,” I am told when I do on the rare occasion respond.

I smile at the thought that it just does not matter. Tomorrow I may go visible and I will still be asked, “Are you there?” I could be ‘busy’ or must have just ‘stepped out’ or ‘not at my desk’ or ‘on the phone’. But I will say what I truly feel:

“No.”