Saturday's Storyteller: No Prompt
It's not easy to talk about loneliness without sounding indulgent or self-pitying. So as this year ends, I'll keep my mouth shut. I'll lie on the couch and stare at the ceiling, while the Christmas lights we haven't bothered to take down yet flicker around me. I'll roll a pair of dice over and over in my left hands, so that the rattling ultimately sounds like personalized percussion.
I didn't expect the year to peter off like this. Feels...anticlimactic somehow. Especially now that I sit in this tiny house alone, with the fire fading in the hearth, and the snow outside more like slush than anything.
Inside, the dishes have piled off. I can still smell the marinara sauce and turkey I cooked up last night. The angel hair sat uncomfortably in my stomach - perhaps real angel hair would do the same thing. Why I'd eat real angel hair, I dunno. Why I think angels may be real, I don't know, either. I should do the dishes. But I'm so tired.
It's not easy to talk about loneliness. But in the winter, clichéd as it is, it feels palpable. Tangible. Like the frost lingering around your fingers where they connect to the palm. Like the way your wrists somehow ache when you type another email to a faceless individual. A message to someone you used to love, hundreds of miles away. Like the dissonant jazz music playing on the TV that you were trying to enjoy yet somehow can't get into anymore.
I called my dad. He's healthy, but stressed. I called my aunt. She's not stressed, but she's unhealthy. I called my mom. She tells me it's beautiful up north. Where the aurora borealis is. She pretends she's not alone - or if she doesn't pretend, she's okay with being alone.
The year is ending, and I am in my own solitary confinement. It's a suburban solitary confinement, made out of concrete and parking spaces and potted plants. And I won't talk about it, because it'd sound needy. I won't talk about it, and hopefully, my family will think I'm still okay.
Do you think she'll come back in January?
No prompt was provided for this Storyteller. Happy New Year, everyone.
I didn't expect the year to peter off like this. Feels...anticlimactic somehow. Especially now that I sit in this tiny house alone, with the fire fading in the hearth, and the snow outside more like slush than anything.
Inside, the dishes have piled off. I can still smell the marinara sauce and turkey I cooked up last night. The angel hair sat uncomfortably in my stomach - perhaps real angel hair would do the same thing. Why I'd eat real angel hair, I dunno. Why I think angels may be real, I don't know, either. I should do the dishes. But I'm so tired.
It's not easy to talk about loneliness. But in the winter, clichéd as it is, it feels palpable. Tangible. Like the frost lingering around your fingers where they connect to the palm. Like the way your wrists somehow ache when you type another email to a faceless individual. A message to someone you used to love, hundreds of miles away. Like the dissonant jazz music playing on the TV that you were trying to enjoy yet somehow can't get into anymore.
I called my dad. He's healthy, but stressed. I called my aunt. She's not stressed, but she's unhealthy. I called my mom. She tells me it's beautiful up north. Where the aurora borealis is. She pretends she's not alone - or if she doesn't pretend, she's okay with being alone.
The year is ending, and I am in my own solitary confinement. It's a suburban solitary confinement, made out of concrete and parking spaces and potted plants. And I won't talk about it, because it'd sound needy. I won't talk about it, and hopefully, my family will think I'm still okay.
Do you think she'll come back in January?
No prompt was provided for this Storyteller. Happy New Year, everyone.
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