Bing might have sat face to face with someone that could have been a buzz, a curse, or some other abstract being.

He would note that the other, perhaps both real and imagined, was someone he thought he had recognized now for more than half his life.

It was like a sibling, loved and hated in distinctly familial ways.

Then it was gone.

But Bing remained, fully aware of still being all he had ever been.

He turned around, and everything there still was too.

Even if the other really had just been him all along, he could take no credit for it.

Rocks and trees just were too.