One of the many things I lost in the fire was all my archery gear. I had a beautiful one-piece recurve bow and dozens of arrows, a left-handed hip quiver, a couple of arm guards – all the stuff. And then I didn’t.

I’ve been part of the local archery club for a couple of years, but first the coronavirus hit and nobody could use the indoor or outdoor ranges, then I lost my house and all my stuff and was relocated too far from the range to make using it practical. In the time since I last saw them, I’ve lost over 100 pounds, and when I went to replace my bow, quiver, arrows, etc., nobody at the archery shop I’ve been frequenting for years recognized me.

I’ve seen lots of episodes of different television shows about exactly that scenario. A person walks into a place they’ve been in many times, and the people there don’t recognize them. On television, the person runs around screaming at everyone they meet until they wake up, or the devil shows up and tells them they’re in hell, or until they go running out of the shot, driven insane by the knowledge that nobody knows them.

In real life, I mentioned that I’d been in various archery leagues and done well. That I am an archery club member. That I was on a team with the club president and his family, that I had just been to the house of the club treasurer. That I’d taken third in the last league I participated in at the archery range all of us frequented.

Nothing. Not a glimmer of recognition.

Then I started thinking about other places I used to go a lot, and other people I thought I knew, and wondering whether they’d recognize me. When I had an office downtown, I would walk down the street from my office and run into half a dozen people I knew. Would any of them recognize me?

That feeling of disorientation I feel is battling with my deep need and desire to be left alone. Maybe this is fulfilling my dream of being able to walk through the world invisibly. Which is better? To be completely visible, but no one recognizes you, or to be invisible?