This was the the fourth time in three weeks that David had gotten drunk again. I took out my cars keys to go over and pick him up from the bar. He had been through a bad break up recently, his girlfriend of two years split up with him and as expected, it had taken a toll on him. I suppose I would have felt sorry for him at this moment; if I were capable of it.
Me and David grew up together. We are, as the society calls us, close friends. David is a convenient person to be around, has always been. And that's mostly because of the fact that he is one of the very few people in this world who knows who I really am; a person incapable of feeling any human emotion.
The scientific community has many names for this incapability. It's considered to be a defect, an anomaly, a handicap. But David never had a problem with it. And hence I never had to pretend around him. He was the only person who knew everything about me; how I thought, how I worked, how I looked at the world. And yet, as I said, David never had a problem with it. But the world did.
On my seventh birthday, my parents threw a party to all my classmates. It was my first ever birthday party. There was a cake, a candle, a bunch of kids and a lot of noise. I was asked to cut the cake and as soon as I did, everyone started singing and clapping. And then, one by one, they started handing me the gifts. I thanked each one of them, as I was taught to do so, but I remember the adults whispering in the back 'Is the kid alright?', 'He doesn't look too thrilled.'
Three weeks later, I found myself sitting at the last bench, all alone, while the rest of the class played a game of dumb charades. Not that I minded it.
That incident however taught me a lot of important things about the world.
There's a common misconception that people are defined by their actions. What most people fail to realize is that these actions are driven by the emotions felt by that person in response to an external stimuli or event. Every action is a result of a particular emotion being felt. Anger, joy, jealousy, sorrow, paranoia, anxiety. But it is different for me. I feel nothing. Neither joy, nor sorrow. Neither jealousy, nor worry. Neither excitement nor paranoia. And hence all my actions are nothing but logically derived conclusions. My actions are nothing but results of mathematical equations.
But I understood that the world wouldn't accept that. This world that we live in has little tolerance for logic. So I taught myself to blend in. In a world where people wore masks to hide what they were really feeling, I wore a mask to hide what I wasn't feeling.
I taught myself to look for patterns. I taught myself to look for cues. I taught myself to feign emotions, to imitate them. I taught myself what to feel when; a small smile in response to a compliment or a greeting, a hearty laugh to a joke, a tear at a funeral. I taught myself to mirror what the world around me felt. I observed, I listened, I analyzed, I learned and I acted. That is how I survived this long.
And even though I can't feel any emotions, I have a basic understanding of what they are. When you are someone like me, you have a lot time to observe and learn.
Humans are just like any other species, driven by the base instincts of self preservation and selfishness. And most emotions are logical responses based on selfishness. Happy when they get something they want, sad when they lose something they want, jealous when someone else has something they want. All emotions are logical. Well, almost all. There was one emotion that eluded my understanding. Until now.
I reach the bar and go in. David's in the left corner in the back, the same place he's been in for the last three weeks. I walk over and sit down beside him. He ignores me.
"You've had enough to drink, David. Let's go home now." I say.
He continues to ignore me. Which is expected.
I watch him closely; he's not too drunk but he's drunk enough. And he's in pain. Two of the most effective truth inducers. I make my move.
"What does it feel like?" I ask him.
"What?" he asks, in a noticeably irritable tone.
"Love, David. What does love feel like?"
I never understood how love worked. And this is was my best shot at getting an insight. I know this will hurt him. But I need the answers.
He puts the glass down and looks at me for a second with a weary smile. And then, he begins.
"Remember tenth grade? That incident with, what was his name, Tony? No, Tim. Whatever. Me and him were best buds till then but we had this horrendous fight over something I don't even remember. So I was just sitting there in the yard, angry and crying, very hurt about everything that had happened. And like always, you were there. Not necessarily to help me through the pain but to help me understand it.
I still remember what you told me that day very clearly. You said that everyone's life was like a solar system. And that each one of us always put ourselves at the center, the sun. Every thought we have, every choice we make, every breath we take would always revolve around us. Your exact words were 'We're all selfish beings designed to set ourselves as the top priority, put ourselves at the center.' You told me that Tim had done what he felt was good for him and that I should do the same. That was the worst consolation speech I had ever gotten but I understood what you said. It made sense."
He takes another sip before he continues.
"I always did envy you. The way you saw the world, the way you understood it. Your laws and theories, always so spot on. But I always did believe there would be exceptions. Like love. I always thought that your theories and laws would not apply to love. I was wrong. They do apply to love. There's just one small difference.
The center, my friend. It shifts."
"All your laws remain the same. Your solar system model still stands true." he says with a laugh. "The only difference being that every thought we have, every choice we make and every breath we take, revolves around someone else. You are not the center anymore. All your emotions gravitate to a new center, a person. And you, you cease to exist, because now, the only thing that matters is this new center. You do things to make her smile. You do things to make her happy. You do things to keep her safe and protect her from pain. You don't care how you do them, you don't care how those actions will affect you. You just do them to make her happy. And in her happiness you find yours. You feel her joy and you feel her pain. You see through her eyes and everything you do, is for her. She becomes the priority. She becomes your sun, your center."
He drinks up and refills the glass before he continues.
"And when you lose that center, you lose everything. You can't go back to the way it was, you'll have no memory of how it was before her. And you won't know how to move forward, not without a center to hold you in place. So you'll just drift through a timeless limbo, wandering aimlessly, eroding with time. Not alive enough. Not dead enough. Feeling nothing but pain with every breath you take."
He takes a moment, downs the glass in one gulp and says "I...........I don't know how I'm going to make it through this."
He lets go of the glass and puts his head on the table. I notice the cues. I put my hand on his shoulder and say "It's going to be all right, David. You will get through this." Another thing about humans; words sometimes work wonders.
I take him home and tuck him into his bed. He's passed out, not from the alcohol but from the exhaustion. Apparently human emotions sometimes take a toll on the mind.
I go into David's living room and lie down on the sofa. He's not given me everything but he's given me enough. I begin to think but I don't know where to start.
I don't understand it. Love. It doesn't make sense. How can it override millions of years of instinct? We are all biologically designed to be selfish. That is how we as a species have survived for so long. It's an in built survival mechanism. How can this single emotion completely over turn that and make humans completely disregard their own self? How powerful does it have to be to do that?
It defies every logic. The very concept of a person's center shifting to someone else stumps me. How does that happen? How do you decide? Or rather, how do you know? And how does it change your life?
To forget about everything that defines you and focus completely on someone else, how does that even work?
Maybe I'd have understood it if I were capable of feeling emotions.
I can't help but wonder.
I wonder what it would be like to not be self aware. To completely base your existence on someone else. To lose yourself and yet live through someone else.
I wonder what it would be like to have someone else as your center.
I wonder what it would be like to be someone else's center.
I wonder how different a person I would have been if I were capable of feeling love.
Is this.........................is this what regret feels like?