on foot

Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.

Why is it that she feels so lonely? Wandering around in IKEA to buy chopsticks they won’t even have in stock, she discovers with her soft eyes and lax-armed posture that she is hoping for someone to notice her, to approach her and show her a time somewhere. She is feeling young and lonely and waiting for someone to love her (because her lover is out of town). She wants to sip drinks and flirt in a loose fitting top or a dress that’s riding up on her thighs.

There is no one to have company with at IKEA, and she will go home to her small but adequate place with one handsome fat cat and maybe sip vodka until she gets a headache. There is the possibility also of simply riding on buses, unnecessarily, so that she’ll end up writing more of her poorly suggestive science fiction, because when she is home she can only focus on her sense of isolation and does mostly any petty activity to alleviate it.

Maybe she’ll ride the 64 home and then go to a coffee shop, but they don’t stay open late enough. Maybe she should just get some coffee, or order a pizza and watch something that will waste time, and stay up far too late because the melancholy feeling of wanting to be caressed and smiled at will not go away until sick fatigue eventually overcomes. She suspects this feeling is not the mere state of being young and bored. It is something that will persist for her whole life.