h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

As I walk toward my place of work this morning the sun shines brightly on the tarmac, and crossing the road I am briefly blinded by rays saturating my glasses, face, clothes, bleaching the world a glaring, ghostly white. In a moment I feel as though disembodied, floating along disconnected from the ground, a spirit only. The moment passes as I reach the other side, but I feel as though I have understood what it might feel like not to exist.

I meet you. Moved by a desire to rejoin humanity and feel solid once again, I ask you how you are, and you reply in the standard polite form reserved for such casual questioning. This is not enough. I need closer contact. I ask you about some intimate particular of your life, one known to me. You reply non-commitally.

Then, as you turn from me briefly, you yourself are transfixed suddenly by the sun's glare. This transfiguration leads you, too, to question the solidity of objects, but as you turn toward me again it is I, and not you, who am disembodied. I am not real. I have never been real. I am a creation of your imagination caused by words written on a page.

You continue your way.