Oleka; Your life is a highlight wheel, a gradual search for a handful of memories. Most of life is forgotten instantly, almost as its happening. Chances are that even a day like today will slip through your fingers and dissolve into oblivion, washed clean by the tides. You keep breathing I'm and out, things fall apart, you clean up the mess, and it all washes away in the night to be built up again in the morning. You keep throwing the weak against the wall to see what sticks, hoping that you'll remember something that happened today, anything. A final toast to the endless forgotten days, whose humble labour has given you everything you have, at least for the moment.

-Oleka; Dictionary of obscure sorrows

He sits on the chair, back to the wall, staring out at everyone. He sits alone, silently sipping a coffee, observing, drinking in every detail of everyone there.

They're used to him by now, the employees and the regulars, letting him go about his business as he sits and he watches and he drinks and occasionally he'll scribble something down in an old tattered journal.

They don't pay attention to how his brown hair hasn't been cut in the longest time, how he barely bothers with brushing it anymore. They don't pay attention to the monotone of his voice or the dark circles under his eyes from lack of sleep. They don't pay attention to the grand total of three different black shirts he wears, and they don't notice, of course they don't notice, how he's slowly going insane.

It's been like this for weeks now. Every day. He'll come and he'll sit. He'll drink and he'll watch, he'll drink and he'll write and he'll sit.

And then dusk will fall and he'll leave without so much as a word goodbye carelessly tossed in anyone's direction.

It's okay though, they don't notice.

And then he lies awake at night, thinking over in his mind through every vivid detail of the day, every smile and laugh he's seen, every tiny snippet of conversation he's been privy to, determined to commit it all to memory.

But he can't, of course he can't.

Today has become another in a sea of days, all melding into one. A single, never ending day where he sits in the corner and he watches.

All those people, the hundreds of people, they all have their own lives. They all have their own thoughts and feelings, mistakes made and promises broken. They all have had their shares of laughter and tears, and he will never know any of it.

Even the day, he wants to remember them, he wants to remember all of his days and he can't possibly so what's the point? What's the point in living life if it'll be gone by the morning?

Today has been lost. Just like yesterday.

They're all gone, they're all lost, but we're they really worth remembering?

And how can he just lie here? Knowing that by next week he won't remember lying here thinking these thoughts? That no one else knows what is going on inside of his head and by tomorrow neither will he?

Gone. Lost. Again.

What had he been thinking about ten minutes ago?

Gone. Lost. Again. Again.

And he groans and he sits, getting something to read and maybe for an hour he can lose himself in some literature but at the end of the day, that's all it is; literature.

It isn't real. None of it's real.

Even the profession he's chosen - writing. His entire career is a fantasy.

How is real defined? He couldn't tell you.

He wants to feel the rain. The rain hammering down on his skin like a thousand little bullets and he wants to hear the thunder rolling and feel the splashes on his face as he looks up into. The dark abyss above him.

That's what he thinks when he thinks real. He wants to feel the rain.

And then he comes away with a stuffed up nose for the next week so is it worth it? For that one moment of clarity? Freedom?

He doesn't know but he does it anyway.

So that's how he's ended up here, in his pyjamas, in the middle of an empty street. Arms stretched wide, staring up into the blackness, half wishing he could see the star littered sky through the clouds.

And then rhe sky lights up in fury and it's wonderful; enlightening. He smiles and opens his eyes, not caring if heavy droplets of rain splash into them, and then he shouts.

It's almost like a cry of anguish and sorrow and then he stops.

Because the thunder has stopped.

And then it's back again.

He stands there for goodness knows how long, he couldn't tell you.

But how did he end up here from being an insomniac in bed?

That was weeks ago.

And all of the days are blurring together. He sits and he drinks and he watches and he writes and he drinks and he sits and he watches.

It's the same and it's the same but think of all the people he'll miss if he stops, all the stories he'll never get to know either way.

What else is there to do but torture himself?

With such high doubts of the universe, he needs to be reminded of something that is real.

This. This is real. And these people. They're real too.

He can see them all before him because here he is again, drinking his coffee and watching.

Always watching.

It's different today though because someone approached him.

He doesn't speak but he sits.

His gaze is torn from everyone else to marvel at this beautiful arrive and most certainly real creaturr before him.

'I'm Phil.' He says.

He blinks. 'Dan.' He replies and he wonders how long it has been since he's actually used his voice at all.

'I noticed you're in here a lot. Every day.' Phil says with a shy laugh. 'I just started coming in here, you see.'

Dan nods, drinking I'm Phil's appearance, trying to keep him like a stain in his mind. But of course, he'll fade, just like everything else always does.

'If it's not too intrusive, I'd like to ask why?'

'I don't know.' And that's the harsh and honest truth. He has no idea why he wastes his life in the corner of this cafe, finding solace in watching others live theirs.

Neither of them say anything for a few minutes, just deathly silence that can't be heard over the noise of the cafe. Phil is watching Dan as he watches everyone else.

'I'm writing.' Dan says finally.

'What?'

'It's why I'm here. To write.'

'I never see you do much writing.' Phil says thoughtfully.

'I never have a story to tell.' Dan shrugs, glancing at Phil, their eyes locking for the first time. 'Tell me a story.'

'A story?'

'A memory, a real one. I need it real. Tell em a memory and I'll buy you a coffee.'

'Alright.'

And so that's how things are now. He sits in the corner with his back against the wall with a little sign on his table that reads in block writing 'Give me a memory and I'll buy you a coffee.'

It doesn't attract everyone's attention, of course, but slowly he's buying people's memories for spare change; buying irreplaceable moments for the price of a hot drink.

And that's now he writes. He's putting together a book; a collection of moments, endless forgotten days saved forever in time, not to be forgotten by the morning.

And then there's him. He who puts the smallest of smiles on Dan's face when he comes bounding in with an exciting new story. Or a completely mundane one, but Dan writes it down nonetheless; that is the point after all.

They're real and that's all that matters to him.

He's slowly collecting his own memories, slowly but surely he finds that he has ones worth remembering.

Hes making them, rather than shying away in fear because what was the point? If he would forget them all by morning? Next week? Month? Year?

But he's found that he's remembering more and more things and that he can differentiate between the days now, at last,

He remembers locking eyes with a beautiful boy with bright blue eyes and dark raven hair and he remembers most of the words exchanged that day. He finds himself remembering the looks on Phil's face as he recalls memories, the faint pink blush as he invites him out, the contented light snores as he sleeps and the feel of soft lips on his own.

Dan thinks to himself that these are worth remembering. He wants to make more memories like this, little snippets saved in time because that's what makes them worth while.

Because if he can't remember by morning, then were they really worth remembering at all?

a/n I'm actually so happy with this omg

so I was just looking through the dictionary of obscure sorrows and I found oleka which is actually a perfect description of the types of existential crisises I've been having lately (another briefly mentioned here is sonder - the realisation that everyone has a life so vividly complex as your own) and egh that one gets to me a lot when we're out

i actually kind of want to do this as a way of writing a book? If I wasn't so socially awkward perhaps

anyway, reviews mean the absolute world to me and I'd love to hear anything you have to say about this ;-;