‘How can I live without you’ he thought while envisioning the stripper that he loved.
He replayed the conversation they had a couple of nights ago and the many conversations before that. It was all a blur. What stuck to him was how they made him feel, and what he felt was that he needed her.
Like water.
He went to the kitchen sink and poured himself a glass of water. He drank it all at once, then placed it down on the counter. He glanced at the glass and marveled at its intricate structure. He wondered who decided that such a fragile beautiful thing would be functional.
Like her; she was meant to be marveled at. He closed his eyes and imagined her walking down the stage in glassy high heels. His body thumped in different places.
He looked out the window and the rain was drizzling down the glass. ‘Pouring around the world is it’ he spoke nonsense to himself. Now that he was living alone without a useless roommate, he noticed that he was talking to himself more. It was much better talking to her. Sometimes they would sit near the stage where she performed and just talk. Mostly she talked, and mostly he was hooked on her.
Hooked by her every word. No matter how nonsense they were. Or mundane. Hooked by even those silences where she hesitated to speak. He could read through that.
She didn’t want to be close.
But it was too late, because she liked to talk and he liked to listen to her. Now they were hooked. She was hooked, and he was hooked. For their own benefit, or for misery.
Misery surely for him; for he wanted her. He was the one waiting for her, not the other way around. One word of ‘yes’ from her, and everything in his life would make sense. ‘But when?’ he wondered. ‘Oh that’s right, never’ he thought again. He walked to the bathroom and looked at himself in the mirror, ‘Where is she, and where am I…” he thought. He looked at the spider in the corner who’s made it it’s home. ‘Even a spider is more content,’ he thought.
He decided to not do much that night. While everybody was in deep sleep, he was still up. He thought about quitting his nightly sandwich job so that he could see sunrises in the mornings. He slept through most and felt bad about it.
He thought about writing a song or playing an instrument, but the television was easier to turn on. He flipped through a few channels and stopped on one where gorgeous women posed for money in dating advertisements. Then he switched again and landed on a channel that showed a city at night. The actors were walking around trying to solve a case, and he could see the moon above the city sky scraper. He looked outside his own window and saw the partial moon covered by heavy clouds. It was so beautiful. He imaged standing in front of a gorgeous sunrise that flooded with warm colors. It would have been so gorgeous; he would have played with himself. Instead, it and the moon outside his window. He called her name, gazed at the weak beauty of the moonlight from his couch, and jacked himself off.
‘Fuck!’ he screamed to himself afterwards. He imagined the sound reverberate outside the glass window of his living room.
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Samasya Tapasya 