...

love was always evading. possibilities were like butterflies disappearing in an instant flutter to the wild. somehow he detested being cornered... the possibility of dating, or being trapped inside with a couple who believed albeit, un-subconsciously, that they were made for each other since the heavens hurled them out of kingdom come. he had come to realize that he can never be found, much more, he to find, the life that everyone ideally finds. somehow he too detested realizing himself the truth that, for end's sake, he still denied.

"a?" he imagined she would have said in a low tender voice.

he would have done nothing, and would have waited for her to come over to him and kneel by the bed to say, "what is it? are you sick?"

no answer. her insistence would not have made him say anything until, "are you depressed?" would have struck him and entirely changed the realm of things as things would clock-work in his denying mind.

"are you depressed?" he repeatedly thought over and over in his mind as the woman he started to believe was real slowly collapsed with his sanity, and all else, except himself, lay wasted as each affirmation his lips muttered, in resentful tears, slowly drained the long weeks of accummulated tension from the room.

...

...

he whimpered, and then cursed faintly a few times in his head, not so much because he cared about the paperwork or the money as because he needed to maintain his good nerves. to do this he needed a degree of cooperation from the world around him.

truly he agreed to himself, the problem was money and the humiliation one suffers without it. each new gadget, high-priced durable apparel, and moderately-efficient yet dashing SUV he saw was a torment. he never was covetous, and he didn't feel so much of envy. but without money he felt hardly a man, and felt as if he couldn't find a woman to complete his sense of agency... a woman... the foundation of manhood... apparently, his manhood, having felt the loneliness seep in his being for the longest time and the desperation to feel the intimate warmth of a woman to cup his impetus.

"hey you're not alone. you have friends around you but you keep them at a distance, which is why you feel lonely." a message came to meet him dully through his phone.

he believed, mind over his fate he was fated to live a life of distance and loneliness, haunted by his ghosts of what could have been, being, that he is, incapable of intimacy.

"hey don't worry. my parents went home this noon so i'm alone. my flight is on wednesday afternoon. ah this is what i truly miss about the big city, i can be lost and anonymous in the crowd."

"oh. but you are fortunate you can experience both worlds, and get to compare the good things each has to offer. really, i am happy for you." he realized he sounded neurotic and seriously hoped she did not notice that his depression was starting to hit in. "by the way, where are you eating? and what do you intend to do before your return?"

"i was eating at the bistro. i'm set to meet my buddies for lunch tomorrow then i have to meet my boss on tuesday before i leave for the province. i'm on my way home, don't want to risk the weather."

"i like it when the storm's bad. i always get this fantasy of getting stranded alone someplace far." the idea of being a stranger in someplace unfamiliar, he always lived in the city with short glimpses of the unfamiliar during work travels. the thought pretty much gave him a sincere interest, less of a hard-on.


...