Thursday, November 6, 2008

Lena had herself a night. She decided to gather up the fixings of a perfect night and set them into motion, like spinning a top and letting it go.
She needed the ingredients first. The cheapest wine she could find, but something that looked french. Next a trip to the video store to finally rent all those movies she's been eyeing, the ones she passes by every time because she knows that the people she watches movies with would criticize her first choices.
Her third stop is to the tiny Korean restaurant down the street from her flat, the food isn't earth shattering but the company makes up for it. Every time she drops in one of the elderly workers squints at her and asks "How are you doing young lady?" this is something she doesn't get asked very often, maybe it's her hair or her clothes. Maybe it's the way she's always looking down to avoid the sunlight in her face. She knows her shyness must come across as arrogance and perhaps sometimes it really is arrogance, she is continually suprised every day at the absurdity of the people around her. Lives consisting of almost DUI's and whining about attitudes, sometimes it's all she can do not to scream at girls in her art class. This must come across as something negative, stewing beneath her downturned face while she writes or reads. She's diconnected from the world yet she is aware of everything.
She thinks about this as Joe, her favorite, shuffles in the back, never letting his leather clog-clad feet rise from the ground very far, he almost ice skates everywhere he walks, shuffle, shuffle shuffle, every few minutes looking up at her to grin and mutter something under his breath.  She thinks about what really matters and how she must be one of those ridiculous people she so despises in her own way. The importance of self expression in her life? Why does she judge those who don't value things like that in the same way? Perhaps we're all full of these secret judgements, in our own mind what we deem as most important is but who's to say it isn't?
Joe brings her food back out, she tips him generously as usual as he gives her two fortune cookies and a little joke he saw on late night tv and she scurries out the door that rings a small but deep sounding bell as she exits into the cold evening.
She climbs her stairs, skipping two steps at a time and managing not to trip for once, sidesteps a puddle tracked in from the almost snow outside and swings her door open to a room full of cats. Well, only 3 cats. She quickly scribbles down her recent musings for no reason in particular and settles down, kicking off her boots and grabbing a mug she made in her old pottery class.
This is her perfect night. A night to cover in quilts and warm cat balls in the crooks of her knees and elbows. She looks over to the spot next to her on the sofa, a spot not entirely empty with a large cat occupying it but still, someone could be sitting there.
Tonight though, Lena doesn't mind a bit that no one is next to her.

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Header image by sabrinaeras @ Flickr