The coffee shop was noisy- a symphony of quiet motors, dozens of conversations, and steady calls for espressos. It was alive, swirling with vibrancy, and chaos.

Jeremy hated it all.

Sitting in a booth by himself, he stared at the words in his book, and watched as they changed. Each time he overheard a conversation, it replaced the words in his book. They became his. Or he became theirs.

Jeremy hated that too but the book was the only thing holding him together.

The book was his curse. Each page, a memory, his history that could be erased by a snippet of conversation from ignorant people around him. The alternative was worse. If he strayed too far from people the words would vanish, his memories would vanish, leaving nothing but blank pages.

As it was, he was a mish-mash of other people’s memories, jarringly intertwined with his own, and he held on to two truths from his book: one- he hated everyone and two- once his book was filled with the exact combination of correct words- he’d be free once more.