The Truth The Lonely Know

I want to mark this day, this hour, somewhere. Here. Why not? After all, this is a more permanent mark than my frantic scribbles in the air. Air evaporates into nothingness and my words fly away.

I finished Lighthousekeeping today. My third Jeanette Winterson in as many days. These books sat on my desk for years. I can't remember how many. I let them gather dust. And now, in one fell swoop, I am devouring them, blood, bone and gristle.

Written on the Body. The Passion. Lighthousekeeping.

And before that Robert Graves. Goodbye to All That. And before that, Evelyn Waugh. Decline and Fall. Brideshead Revisited.

And now I'm thinking of the one remaining Joan Didion on my table. But I shall settle for Chekhov instead.

This is the truth the lonely know. We people our world with creatures of other people's imaginations. We choose the people. We drown in the words. We switch off the light and turn off the tv and say, no more. We withdraw from life. We sit in cafes with a notebook, a book and rueful smile.

We sit in bars alone, watching. Waiting. In the quiet dark, for something, someone to spring. No, not the one with the clumsy thoughts, clumsy hands, eyes like dishcloths, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing.

Not him. Not her.

We listen. Not for the endless interminable conversations full of meaningless drivel, dribble, drip, drip, drip, a leaky faucet somewhere...somebody turn it off. Turn off the main.

Oh for God's sake, shut up!

This is the truth the lonely know.

We could choose to be part of the pageant but the pageant no longer makes sense to us and we choose not to.

The dark envelops, overwhelms, comforts, caresses.

And we fall asleep.