Crackle

He is born in suburban isolation, raised religious; steeped in rugged individualism and the superiority of the self. Aged seventeen he flees for London and New York, for Bangkok, Delhi, Jaipur, Tokyo. In thronging hordes of people at first he cannot tell if he hears his own heartbeat or that of those around him. When music plays he — finally — hears only music, scents everything all at once. Fleeing, running, milling, dancing, he falls into giddy women, men; is intoxicated on muddled humanity. As he brushes his shoulders against other people's shoulders until he almost has no shoulders — until he is just energy, merged inside a bristling ball of human energy — who he was begins to blur. Lost in a sea of one other, he begins to exist.