She walked down the street and her eyes were nearly shut but for the small slits providing safety. She looked at everything and nothing at once. She did not notice the people walking next to her, nor passing her, nor across the street. People everywhere were just a mess of atoms sharing her window of life.

She breathed steadily. She was unaware of breathing. She sniffed, but smelled nothing. Not the scent of sizzling eggs at the diner on the corner, nor the florist before it. Not the smoking chimney�s of brownstones, not the crisp scent of winter in the air. She smelled nothing, which is exactly how she felt.

She was neither happy nor unhappy, which is a funny place to be. Floating through the crowd, unfeeling. She had no desire to speak to anyone. She did not want to be touched, but she didn�t mind if she were, because she wasn�t inside the body being held. She was away. She wasn�t sure where she was and she care to explore. She was too tired to explore.

She didn�t care to eat, or to talk, or to write, but she did it so as to not alarm anyone to the fact that she was missing and had sent her body to work without her. She blindly found her way to work. She didn�t smoke. She had no desire. She inhaled the smoke from the cigarette held by the person in front of her, but she did not smell it or taste it.

She looked at the front page of the paper, and laid it down without reading it, because nothing in there was of importance to her.

She answered associates questions, quickly and concisely. She did not cushion her criticisms, nor give thorough explanations, because she did not care.

She looked at her list of people to call, to check in, and then she tucked it in her drawer, because she did not care to speak with them.

Someone forced a confrontation and she stared at him blankly, until they left in frustration because they knew that the wizard behind the door was gone today. The little woman was not available to answer the secret knock.

She looked in the mirror and saw what she expected. She made no move to cover blotches on her face, add color to her cheeks, rose tint her lips. She walked away.

She went through the motions. She worked. She thought. She spoke. She breathed. She leaned her head back and stared blankly at the ceiling. She looked outside. Not a thought entered her mind. She was conscious of none of these things.

She wrote because she knew she had to, not because she felt passionate or had something to say. She typed words with no feeling, no attachment to what was being said. Words wordswordswordswordswordswordswordswordswordswordswordswordswordswordswordswordswordswordswordswordswordswordswordswordswordswordswordswordswordswordswordswordswordswordswordswordswordswords.

She had to remind herself to stop typing the same the words because the cadence of striking the same keys over and over was comforting.

So she stopped.

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