You know, some people say the strangest thing about a strange place is a stranger and wherever you find yourself you have to try to make it your home.

But did I really want another home? A home that was mine, like the one I had with my family?

No.

When I woke up again I found myself somewhere I had never been before.

I tried to get out of the bus, but the driver didn't open the door for me.

Only two stops later, when an elderly lady wanted to get out, did he open the door and I left quietly after her.

Somehow I was too used to that treatment to question it.

But I guess, I should've said something.

The bus driver hadn't even known me, yet, I accepted that he had ignored me just like everybody else.

Because I was a nobody and people like me don't get seen.

That's what I had told myself for years already and I would tell it myself so much more often until I would come to terms with it.

But as I walked through the streets of an unknown city more and more people ran into me.

That wasn't new either, but the confusion on their face when they finally walked past me was different.
Usually, it was more of a where-did-he-come-from confusion, but the people looked around as if they couldn't grasp what had happened.

For a while that kept on happening and I thought the people in this city were just a bit weird, but then even dogs bumped into me. Not like they meant to, but accidentally as if they hadn't seen me either.

Three dogs, a whole bunch of people and a pigeon walking on the sidewalk.

Too many weird encounters until I finally noticed something was off.

I looked down, but everything was still in place. I saw my hands trembling and I saw the dirt on my shoes, but when I walked past a store window I stopped.

A frown crept over my features as I peered into the glass, looking for answers, but there was nothing.

Again I looked down onto myself. There were my old jeans on my legs and my jacket covering my arms.

They were there. I could feel them. I could see them, grasp them and tug things in place until I was sure I was covered from head to toe.

I was whole, but when I stared at the glass I couldn't see myself.

The cold surface just stared right back, but there was no reflection of me.

No blue eyes, no shaggy hair or the lingering depression on my features.

Instead, I could see the people walking past me and I could see myself, but the stupid window only mirrored the stupid people behind me.

That was the first time I thought I might've gone mad.

Without thinking my hand came up to touch the glass, leave prints, do anything to ensure I'm still real but even those marks faded within a heartbeat.

Not for the first time, I questioned my entire existence but up to that point, I was always sure I was alive.

But as I stared into the glass, my arm back at my side and my body was simply nowhere to be seen, things changed.

All my life I had been okay with figuratively being invisible.

I was okay with being ignored and forgotten.

But this was different.

People who had never known me literally looked through me.

I was like a ghost, but when my eyes started to get watery and I let out a sniff, people turned around and searched for the source of the noise.

Yet they didn't see me.

Of course, they didn't.

I was ready to vanish from the face of the earth when I left, who would've thought something like that might happen?

In a desperate attempt to be seen again, I turned around and stepped in front of the next person that passed me.

They just bumped into me.

And the next person did the same.

And the one after that did the same.

"Can't you see me?" I asked no one in particular and an old man turned. He looked so scared and confused, but he couldn't find the origin of the words. He just looked right through me before he hurried away, scared of ghosts.

"No, you can't," I concluded, but my voice was barely audible and only a dog looked up.

With a groan, I let myself fall against the store window and buried my face in my arms as I pressed my legs against my chest.

Anger boiled inside my ribcage, but only stifled sobs left my throat.

I just wanted to be happy.

I had wanted for someone to care about me as a person.

All my life I had been okay with the little things in life that made people smile because these were the only moments when other people noticed me.

Bitter tears of regret fell down my face and vanished the second they weren't in contact with me anymore.  

And yet, nobody saw me anymore  - quite literally even.

But they heard me as I wept.