• Vol. 07
  • Chapter 06

Was this a life?

Footsteps lead to the edge of the red zone, unaccompanied all alone. What happened here we wondered long, where did he go to, where has he gone?
Did he climb over, climb down, start afresh, was he abducted by aliens and lifted up of into space?

We scoured the ground around us, forensics are scratching their heads. What really happened here, is he alive or is he dead?
These and other questions this documentary asks, what happened to bring him here, what really was his past?

Well, the beginning, that we found in two places starts. There is the official one, one of poverty from beginning to the end, and then there is the online one that tells of glamour, wealth, friends. So one life is fine and dandy, the other full of doubt.

First the official beginnings, born in 1958 to a family of poor hard workers, that scrimped and saved all their lives. No ambition to live, only to survive.
And he was dressed in one of everything, all washed and dried on the same day, by a mother with red arms from washing all that day.
At school he was average, nothing special, his teachers say. They expected nothing from him, so gave him nothing, to take and help him on his way.
Left school, worked unskilled, unnoticed, had no friends. Had no life.

Life, we have discovered was lived instead online, this life the opposite of his days, his dreams, he pixelated and streamed out to the world, how life should really be lived after all. He glammed up his persona, lived a lively life online, had thousands, millions of followers, where did he find the time?

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Was this a life?

And then one day he vanished, his day life did not miss him at all.
His online life though shouted, inundating us will their calls. Worried where he was, was he well, was he fine. They it’s turned out rely on him to keep them all in line. His followers could not, it seems, live their lives at all without his daily dose’s of advice.

So we looked, in the end and what did we find? His life, a mystery, an enigma to the end, we found nothing, except speculation, we’ve never found a friend. This has left us scratching our heads, aggrieved we will never truly know if he is alive or if he’s dead.

I know such a weak conclusion will not settle any mind, I know for certain it has not settled mine. So I watch his online postings some even make me smile and I realise he has not left at all, he’s forever alive online.

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