I was sitting at my favourite table in the Kudos Bar in the Clarion Hotel, in the Liffey Valley Shopping Centre, drinking a coffee and eating a Danish pastry. The same as I do every Sunday morning. It’s a kind of a little ritual of mine, I guess you could say. I was trying to pretend that I existed, trying to kid on that I was really there, trying to make out that I wasn’t just a figment of my own imagination…

“I’m really here…” I kept saying to myself, “I genuinely do exist, I genuinely do exist, I genuinely do exist…” I’d be at this the whole time. I’d be at this constantly. Re-iterating the same point tirelessly. Hammering it home…

I wasn’t of course saying it in exactly these words. That would be pure stupid. I wasn’t sitting there at my favourite table in the Kudos Bar repeating “I really do exist” out loud over and over again, like a complete fool, like a complete mental eejit. No, not at all. It’s a lot more subtle than that. That wouldn’t work at all. I was inferring that I exist, implying that I exist, insinuating that I exist, in all sorts of subtle ways. I implied it, but I didn’t come right out and say it, if you get my drift. The very fact that I was sitting there that Sunday morning, at my favourite table, in the Kudos Bar, In the Clarion Hotel, was an implicit statement that I existed. Not just that I existed either – I was aiming higher than that. I was making an implicit statement that I existed in a superior kind of a way – I was implying that I was ‘a cut above the rest’, a cut above all those types who merely existed, all those types who existed but had no other strings in their bow other than this. This was an even better way of proving the point, you see. Aim high, I always say. Shoot for the stars…

Everything about me was saying that I exist; everything about me was saying that I was a real person. The subjects I chose to talk about were saying that I was a real person – on the face of it I was all very interested in discussing these carefully-chosen topics but underneath it all I was just trying to prove that I was a real person. My carefully-chosen jacket and tie were trying to prove that I was a real person, my expensive shoes were trying to prove that I was a real person, my fancy car parked out in the front of the hotel was trying to say that I was a real person. My tone of voice was trying to say that I was a real person; my posture, the way that I comported myself was trying to say that I was a real person. I really was putting a lot of effort into it. I was making the implicit statement that I existed on so many levels. I had every angle covered, you could say. I really was playing a very polished and professional game here…

Considering that I was putting so much effort into it, considering that I was making such a top-class professional job of it, considering that I had all the angles covered the way that I had, it was an awful shame that none of it was paying off. I wasn’t getting anywhere. Every Sunday morning I came here to the Kudos Bar and sat at this table, looking the part, saying all the right things, making all the right moves, and yet I never got anywhere from it. No one ever gave me a second glance. No one seemed to particularly notice me. My sitting here at my favourite table the way I did seemed to be pretty much a non-event as far as the rest of the world was concerned. Even as far as I was concerned it was a non-event. I wasn’t fooling anyone. I wasn’t even fooling myself.

The whole thing was a joke, I reflected. I knew very well that I didn’t exist. I knew very well that I wasn’t a real person. I knew very well that I was only a figment of my own imagination…