The Questions We Carry - "Somewhere between knowing and belonging"
The Questions We Carry
Somewhere between knowing and belonging
The man stood in front of the mirror, adjusting his collar for what must have been the tenth time.
“Stay calm,” he told his reflection.
He straightened his shirt.
“Speak clearly. Don't rush. Look at the interviewer. Smile when necessary.”
He paused.
“You're ready.”
For a moment, he believed himself.
The interview room was quieter than he had expected.
He sat outside with several other candidates, his resume folded neatly inside a thin folder resting on his lap. Every few seconds, he glanced at the door.
Then the receptionist looked up.
“Johnny?”
He stood immediately.
“You're next.”
Johnny nodded and walked into the room.
The interviewer smiled and gestured toward the chair.
“Please, sit.”
Johnny sat.
The interviewer picked up his resume and glanced through it.
“Before we begin,” he said, “I don't really care how you look. I don't care whether you're nervous, confident, introverted, extroverted, or whatever else people usually try to judge during an interview.”
Johnny listened carefully.
“I only need two skills for this position.”
The interviewer tapped the resume.
“You've mentioned both of them here. Are these actually your skills, or did you simply put them on your resume because the job description asked for them?”
Johnny nodded.
“I know both of them.”
The interviewer smiled.
“Good. Then we're already halfway done.”
He placed the resume on the table.
“But there is one more thing I want to know.”
Johnny waited.
“How well can you communicate?”
The interviewer leaned back in his chair.
“So let's keep it simple.”
He smiled.
“Tell me about yourself.”
The words echoed.
Johnny blinked.
Something moved.
Not around him.
Inside him.
Suddenly, the room stretched.
The walls bent inward. The interviewer, the table, the chair, the lights everything began to collapse toward a single point.
Johnny tried to speak.
Nothing came out.
The world disappeared.
Then silence.
Johnny opened his eyes.
He was standing in front of a mirror.
But this wasn't the man who had walked into the interview.
He was shirtless.
His hair was slicked backward with oil. A thick chain hung around his neck. His face looked harder, rougher, almost unrecognizable.
And in his right hand was a revolver.
The barrel was still hot.
Johnny stared at it.
“What...?”
His breathing quickened.
He looked at his reflection again.
The man in the mirror looked like a gangster.
A killer.
Then the voice returned.
That's you.
Johnny froze.
That's you, Johnny.
“No.”
He looked around.
“Who are you?”
No answer.
He knew he heard a voice, probably his inner voice.
Johnny suddenly noticed the door behind him.
He opened it.
He stepped into the hallway.
And stopped.
Bodies.
They were everywhere.
Men and women lay scattered across the floor, some against the walls, some collapsed beside furniture. Blood stained the room.
Johnny's stomach turned.
He stumbled backward.
“No...”
He looked at the revolver in his hand.
His fingers began trembling.
“I didn't do this.”
But somewhere deep inside him, something told him otherwise.
He could almost remember it.
The sound of gunshots.
The movement of his own hands.
The bodies falling.
It felt like it had happened only minutes ago.
Yet he knew he had been sitting in an interview room moments earlier.
The voice whispered again.
That's what you are, Johnny.
That's you.
“Shut up!”
Johnny threw the revolver onto the floor.
He ran toward the front door and pulled it open.
Johnny turned toward the apartment door and opened it.
He stepped outside.
The long corridor stretched in both directions, with doors on either side.
People had already come out of their homes.
They stood at their doorways, staring at Johnny with fear. Some held their phones in their hands, speaking urgently to the police. They had heard the gunshots.
Johnny looked from one frightened face to another.
“What happened?”
No one answered.
Then he heard it.
Sirens.
The police were coming.
“POLICE! DON'T MOVE!”
Johnny panicked.
“Wait! I didn't do anything!”
He turned and ran.
He sprinted down the corridor, his footsteps echoing through the building.
People moved aside as he ran past them.
The police were approaching from the other side.
Johnny kept running.
He thought there had to be another way out.
But he was running in the wrong direction.
The corridor came to an end.
A wall.
A window.
Nothing else.
Johnny stopped abruptly.
He turned around.
The police were closing in behind him, while frightened residents watched from their doorways.
He was trapped.
“I DIDN'T DO ANYTHING!”
The officers rushed toward him.
Johnny tried to move, but there was nowhere to go.
They grabbed his arms.
“Listen to me!” Johnny shouted. “I was at an interview!”
Nobody listened.
They forced his hands behind his back and began putting on the handcuffs.
Johnny's breathing became heavier.
The pressure was unbearable.
Then the voice returned.
You need to ask a better question.
Johnny stopped struggling.
“What?”
Ask a better question if you want to escape.
“Escape?”
Unless you ask something that cannot be answered, you will remain here.
Johnny stared at the police officers.
Once you reach the station, they’ll question you. They may beat you. They may lock you away. And before you know it, you’ll be trapped in a situation you can’t escape.
The officer pushed him toward the police car.
Ask yourself something humans have never been able to find an answer.
Johnny was shoved into the back seat.
The door slammed shut.
He sat there, terrified.
“What am I supposed to ask?”
Quick.
Johnny thought.
Then he spoke.
“Where am I?”
The voice immediately answered.
You already know that.
Johnny frowned.
Or you're very close to knowing it. Ask something else.
Johnny looked through the window.
The police car began moving.
“Did I kill them?”
No.
Johnny's eyes widened.
But then the voice continued.
There is a very high possibility that you did.
Johnny swallowed.
The car moved faster.
That question has an answer. You already know it.
Johnny looked down at his hands.
The police station was getting closer.
He needed another question.
Something impossible.
Something humans had spent thousands of years trying to understand.
But his mind was empty.
“What happened to my interview?”
The voice almost screamed.
NO!
Johnny flinched.
That's unrelated. And it's answerable. There are only a few possibilities.
The police car turned onto another road.
Think.
Johnny closed his eyes.
Ask something humans have always wanted to know.
Johnny remembered the bodies.
The dead people lying across the floor.
He whispered,
“Do I love them?”
Silence.
Then
Everything disappeared.
The car.
The police.
The street.
The world itself.
Johnny felt himself falling.
Cold water swallowed him.
He opened his mouth and immediately regretted it.
Water rushed inside.
He was sinking.
There was water above him.
Water below him.
Water in every direction.
An endless ocean stretched into darkness.
Johnny kicked upward.
His lungs burned.
He didn't know where the surface was, but he kept swimming.
Up.
Up.
Up.
Finally, his head broke through the water.
He gasped.
And then he saw it.
A whale.
A gigantic whale rose from the ocean directly in front of him.
It emerged from the water with such enormous grace that Johnny forgot to breathe.
For a few seconds, the world seemed to stop.
The whale disappeared beneath the surface again.
Johnny stared after it.
He had never seen anything so beautiful.
“Swim this way!”
A voice shouted.
“Come here!”
“Swim! Swim!”
Johnny turned.
A tourist cruise ship was nearby.
People crowded the side of the vessel, throwing life jackets and reaching toward him.
Someone had already climbed down toward the water.
“Grab his hand!”
“Come on!”
Johnny swam toward them.
A man finally caught his arm and pulled him toward the boat.
“Why didn't you use the life jacket?”
Another person wrapped a towel around Johnny.
“God saved you, man!”
“I really thought we'd lost you!”
All the speech went for nothing.
Because Johnny was still in awe of the image of the whale he had seen jumping out of the water.
He felt loved by nature.
He was in love with nature.
Everyone was cheering for his arrival, and they started giving him towels and drinks.
An old man in the cruise joked
“Man really fell in love with the sea.”
Everyone laughed.
The voice laughed.
He laughed too.
Probably the only timeline where he felt he belonged. He wish not to ruint it. He was in love.
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