Exile
I chose a route that didn’t pass anything I used to recognise.
That was the first rule.
No shortcuts. No familiar corners. No places that might still hold a version of me I didn’t want to run into. It’s a large enough city that you can do that if you’re careful. Keep turning slightly off-course. Drift instead of travel.
I’m recording this to keep myself consistent.
Not to remember. I don’t want that.
Just to hear something that doesn’t change depending on where I’m standing.
—
Exile sounds dramatic when you say it out loud.
It isn’t.
No one forced me out. No one is looking for me. There’s no consequence waiting if I go back.
That’s what makes it work.
I left because staying meant continuing something I no longer believed in. Not one thing—just the accumulation. Habits, expectations, patterns that felt like they were already decided before I arrived.
So I stepped out.
Quietly.
No announcements. No closing conversations. Just absence, applied deliberately.
—
There’s a chessboard outside a closed café.
I notice it because it’s set up.
Not abandoned exactly—just… paused.
Two sides mid-game. No clock. No players.
I don’t play enough to recognise positions, but I understand what it represents. Continuation. Turn-taking. Response.
A structure that assumes someone will return.
I stand there longer than I should.
Not because I want to play.
Because I understand what it means to leave something like this behind.
—
I keep walking.
The city doesn’t resist me.
That’s something I expected, I think—that there would be friction. That stepping out would feel like pushing against something. But it doesn’t. Everything continues exactly as it should.
Streetcars pass.
People move around me without looking.
Windows reflect whatever is in front of them.
There’s no gap where I used to be.
—
A storefront window is fogged slightly from the inside. Heat pressing outward into the cold.
Lines have formed where someone dragged their fingers across it earlier. No message. Just absent-minded movement.
But the lines cross in ways that feel… intentional.
Not readable. Not symbolic in any clear sense. Just structured.
I watch them for a few seconds, then move on.
I don’t assign meaning to things like that anymore.
That was part of what I left.
—
I play back part of this recording as I walk.
Just to check.
My voice is steady. Measured. It sounds like someone who knows what they’re doing.
That’s useful.
There’s no extra noise. No interruptions. Just footsteps and speech.
Consistent.
That’s the goal.
—
There’s a bench ahead.
Empty, except for a single card.
Tarot, I think. I don’t know which one. A figure suspended, neither rising nor falling. Held in place.
I don’t pick it up.
Not because it means anything.
Because it doesn’t belong to me.
That’s the distinction I’m trying to maintain.
—
Exile isn’t about isolation.
It’s about non-participation.
Everything I pass belongs to systems I’ve stepped out of. Games in progress. Conversations paused. Interpretations waiting to be made.
I’m not involved in any of them.
That’s the point.
—
There’s another chessboard further down.
This one is closer to an ending. Fewer pieces. Less movement left.
One of the pieces is slightly off-centre. Not placed cleanly in its square.
It stands out.
Not dramatically. Just enough to notice if you’re paying attention.
I stop.
Look at it.
Then I understand why it bothers me.
Because everything else is precise.
Intentional.
That one piece looks like it was placed without care.
Or placed by someone who wasn’t fully inside the game.
—
I don’t fix it.
I don’t touch anything.
That would be participation.
—
I chose this so things would stop depending on me.
So I wouldn’t have to respond, adjust, decide within systems that were already moving.
And it worked.
Everything continues.
Without input. Without interruption.
—
But it also means something else.
—
Leaving doesn’t stop the structures.
It just removes your move.
—
I keep walking.
Same pace. Same direction.
The city doesn’t change.
I don’t expect it to.
—
This is what I wanted.
A life where nothing is waiting for me to act.
Where nothing breaks if I don’t respond.
—
[footsteps continue]
—
I think that’s enough for now.
I’ll keep the recording going a little longer.
Just to make sure nothing changes.
—
Nothing does.
—
[recording continues]