My name is Joe Bloggs.

I have been around for a long time.

I was a big deal, to start with – I discovered fire, invented the wheel, writing, I spent years upon years writing poetry.

I spend a couple of days every February writing your card for Valentine’s Day. I knew St. Valentine, Valentinus, he was beheaded outside the Flaminian Gate – I was there. In the back of the crowd, you understand. Never was one to draw attention to myself.

I confessed sins, and heard the confessions of others.

I wrote folk songs. I told fairy tales, captured legends. I always lived in the next town. I was one of Uncle Tom Cobbley’s ‘all’. I was brother to Tom, Dick and Harry.

My opinion is taken, by those with power, as that of the masses. I have intrinsic links to them. I understand their collective will. I influence think tanks. Despite this, I am a vagrant; I stray, occupying houses until the owner remembers them, occupying corpses until identified. Then I leave. FNU, LNU as they say.

I hold no passport. I have no nationality.

I have no possessions of value, nothing that I manage to keep hold of. I have recently developed a violent distaste for objects.

I thrive on neglect.

I have friends: David Agnew, Walter Plinge, Alan Smithee. We have taken to drinking the dregs of other people’s drinks in bars. We smoke the ends of stubbed-out cigarettes. We follow lone women a little of their way home down quiet streets. We stop before they turn around.

I was happy when the telephone was invented. I loved computers. I moved in to the internet. I move on more often now than I ever have, and yet I accomplish a much smaller amount. People are less inclined to acknowledge my achievements. I am robbed of them daily. This electronic arena is proving to be something other than the home I expected to find.

Out of pique, I sign you up to email bulletins about miracle weight loss, Nigerian bank transfers and penile enlargement pills. I thieve your identity. I am the avatar.

I am the whistleblower in every case of professional misconduct. I am unable to be named, for legal reasons.

I hand lost wallets into police stations. I… I give blood. I donate organs. I donate sperm. I use the… I telephone to ask if you’d like to change your electricity supplier in an attempt at conversation. I will never be any good at this.

I am the Mystery Shopper.

I was happy when the new thing was invented. For talking. I loved it. I moved in to the internet. I move on now more than I ever have, and yet I, I do much less. People are less… people don’t acknowledge … people forget what I did for them. Things are taken away from me. This … this isn’t. This isn’t home.

I give lost things to the police. I get tired easily, of late. Still, I give blood. I donated a thing, a kidney. I donate lots of things. I talk to people. I try to talk to people. I was happy when the, when the phone was made. I can’t talk to people. Never have.

I used to confess sins. I used to hear the confessions of others. I invented the wheel. I did! I invented the wheel! I spent years writing poetry. I am the mystery! The mystery thing. The shopper.

They say I am unable to be named for legal reasons. I have no… I have not got a pass. A passport. They say I have no nationality. I have no passport. I have no nationality. This, this is definitely not… not …this place. Not home.

This piece first appeared in Monika No. 01: The Anon. Monika is a magazine with no masthead and no bylines based in London.  It has just been released in London and will soon be available in major cities throughout Europe and North America. For more info about Monika, or to order copies online, visit their website.