Spies, and espionage as a trade, was always something romanticized in fiction. After all, James Bond has been around for 50 years now, through six different incarnations, and I don't see our fascination with his world slowing down anytime soon.
About 15 years ago, I got the idea of trying to create my own spy story. A huge, sweeping epic through which I could, as Fleming did, channel both my boyish fantasies and also address my underlying inner daemons through a prism that could also provide some form of entertainment.
It was in the formative world-building stages of this endeavor that I came to understand why it is I relate to such characters on the level I'm accustomed to. Spies, like assassins, mercenaries, and all other classic anti-heroes, prefer to work in the shadows. Their existence is only known to a select few and while their actions are often the stuff of legend and usually end with the preservation of the world as we know it, they are also loners, and not always by choice.
Their purpose in life, the reason they are who they are, is conducive to having as few attachments as possible, keeping everyone they covertly care for at arm's length. It's as much to protect those people as it is to protect them. We can't let them in because not only would add complicated things like emotions and connections to the equation, but it would also make the loner have to be human rather than a blunt instrument.
The moment we allow ourselves to become more than a mechanism is when we open ourselves up to getting hurt. The armor gets stripped away and we are left wholly and completely vulnerable, and for someone who is unused to such a position, that can be unbearably horrifying.
People who operate in this environment aren't and often can't be labeled under the broad banner of "normal" because of what they carry with them. Some have seen too many wars, too many battlefields, and some have seen too many casualties as the result of that. So the best thing for it, really, is to warden off that section of yourself and just soldier on in the name of the greater good.
The burdens they carry, and the scars that come with them, aren't always meant to be shared.
This is how I've operated for the better part of the last three years, trying to remain at a equilateral distance, shielding myself in a bubble so no one can get through. From my perspective, it's been as much for their own good as it was mine. My experience following my breakdown hammered home something that my parents had told me, in their own way, a long time ago.
"You get yourself into that sort of trouble, Dev, you get yourself out."
Now that I've been away from the proverbial pack for so long, the idea of coming back into the fold is more than a little frightening because I'm not entirely sure how to act or even who to be. I'm not sure if the people I encounter can't see everything I've been trying to discard or if there's some label I'm wearing that's invisible only to me saying, "Here stands a once broken man held back together with only duct tape, chewing gum and silly string."
I don't want to spend the rest of my life alone, if I can help it. The problem, at this moment, is that I find myself feeling completely unsure of the idea of living any other way.
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