Work Text:
Wednesday, December 11th, 2024
A man said to the universe:
“Sir, I exist!”
“However,” replied the universe,
“The fact has not created in me
A sense of obligation.”
― Stephen Crane, War Is Kind and Other Poems
Existence, we all have it yet....Some seem to matter more. To have a bigger impact.
Mashirao didn't think they had a very big impact at all. Were they even anything? Did they even matter?
Countless people had defined existence by love, strong, romantic, sexual, love. Gender has been called so many things, but it's affects on life were not ever diminished. To exist is to feel, and to feel is to be human. But, what if you feel wrong?
Does Mashirao's asexuality, aromanticism, agender-ness make them less? Less important, less of an existing person?
If they didn't feel romantic or sexual love, did they love at all? Would they be loved?
The Ancient Greeks had seven types of love, but Mashirao was not Greek, and the world had moved on. Those people were gone forever....Were their ideas as well?
Platonic, aesthetic, familial. Mashirao felt all those types of love as strong as anyone else. But, did it count? Was their love enough-did they need to love more, in a different way?
Mashirao did not have a gender. But, gender was crucial to...everything. Did a lack of gender make them a lack of a person?
Mashirao did not think so, yet....Did it matter? If every other person on the earth felt that way, did it make it true?
Not every other person on the earth felt that way, mind you. Not by a long shot. But, if they did....
Mashirao thought they had to be enough. Had to be lovable. Had to matter as much as everyone else. If they didn't then that meant other agender, asexual, aromantic, other LGBT people didn't. And Mashirao, even if every other person on earth opposed, could never feel that way.
So, maybe Mashirao did make enough of an impact.
“It's enough for me to be sure that you and I exist at this moment.”
― Gabriel García Márquez, One Hundred Years of Solitude