“So who are you?”

“What kind of bullshit question is that? You know who I am. I’m me.”

“Oh come on, you and I both know there is more than that to the question I just asked you.”

“What kind of abstract bullshit are you trying to pull here?”

“It’s not ‘abstract bullshit’ man, I wanna know: Who are you?”

“You know, I don’t like this kind of shit. It opens up a door that I don’t want to walk through. Sends me on a downward spiral into oblivion.”

“Just humor me, I’m bored.”

“Ugh, fine. I guess I’m a witty, intelligent, liberal human being.”

“All the time? Are you always consistent in your mood?”

“Well no, I get angry, sad, and depressed sometimes.”

“So, you could say, you’re not always you?”

“I guess not. Sometimes I really freak myself out you know?”

“Yeah, I get that. But who are you really? You still haven’t answered my question.”

“What the FUCK are you getting at man?!”

“I guess what I’m getting at is that you, yourself, change. There is no singular ‘you'”

“Okay man, you need to lay off whatever it is that you are smoking, or give it to me so I can get on your level.”

“There isn’t any drugs involved in this idea. Hear me out: you are not you all the time. Your personality changes whenever you enter a new situation. Basically, you’re a social chameleon changing color every time you encounter someone or something new.”

“I don’t follow.”

“Of course you don’t. You’ve been programmed and socialized in such a way that you don’t recognize the transformation that you make.”

“Jesus Christ, you need to stop reading so much philosophy and psychology. In fact, I’m gonna hide all your books.”

“If you hide them I’ll know exactly where you put them.”

“Stop antagonizing me. I was just sitting here quietly trying to do some work and you just burst in here making illogical and ridiculous claims.”

“Are they so illogical though? Doesn’t day to day life bore you so much that you can’t help but think about what we’re actually doing here, and why we do the things we do?”

“No, that shit will drive you insane!”

“I mean, think about it: the way you interact with you parents is totally opposite of the way you interact with your best friends. The way you act at work is different than the way you act in school. Most importantly: the way you act alone is almost the polar opposite of the way you interact when you’re around other people.”

“So what you’re saying is that I’m really nobody?”

“No, no, no, you’re definitely somebody. But depending on the context you’re a different somebody every time.”

“All right smart ass, let’s turn the tables then. Who are you?”

“I knew you would ask that, well if you have to know: I’m a ghost, an abstract thought. A killer in the night, and an ordinary person during the day. A maniac in the shower, and a thinker when I’m alone. A studious person, and a funny eccentric man when other people are around. An ego maniac online, and a depressed little boy when I’m trying to sleep. But most import-”

“Stop right there, I don’t want to hear anymo-”

“But most importantly: I’m you.”

The lonely man sat straight up from the floor he was laying on. Looking around at the small box room that he lived in, he realized that he was the only person in the room. Getting up from the floor he walked over to the mirror that hung on his black door. Gazing into the mirror all he saw was himself. The pale gaunt face, the bags under his bloodshot eyes, and his skeletal figure. Confused, he closed his eyes and counted to ten: “One…two…three…four…five…six…seven…eight…nine…ten.”

Upon saying ten, he opened his eyes and what he saw in the mirror was no longer the singular person he had seen ten seconds earlier. Instead, filling the room, was hundreds of himself from varying stages of his life. Ranging from his early childhood years, to old age.  Seeing these other selves he began to have flashbacks and and flash forwards of his life, lasting only about ten seconds.

Encircling him, they all turned their gazes and said in unison: “We are all you.”

When he started to scream, his other selves muzzled his mouth and began to beat him. His muffled screams were drowned out by incessant laughter and cackling. Eventually, his screams devolved into whimpers and his other selves bludgeoned him to death.