By Nous

                            January 10, 2003

The days never hold much surprise, nor do I expect any sort of surprise
from them; still, today seemed more disappointing than other days, 
despite the fact that it was a Friday and I have the weekend to look 
forward to.  I rented a movie - a little luxury in my small world, a 
tiny fantasy for me to crawl inside of and disappear.  Mine is a world 
of small rewards and calm storms.
On the way home from the video rental store, I noticed a family huddl-
ing around a tiny grill out on their driveway, cooking something -
most likely chicken - rolled up in their sweaters and smiling those 
smiles of adventure.  Perhaps mine is not the only world of calm storms.
That's a given, but it helps to say it.
Their faces red and their bodies hunched over, tightly packed on chairs
in a circle - they're having the time of their life.  Ours is a world of
tiny lives, so small that we can't hear one squeak unless we destroy it
or build it.  That family on the driveway with their grill smoking, I
built.  It's a memory manifested in another life, as memories often are.
It's something deep inside myself, though I can never pinpoint the 
exact moment that I built it.
I sit looking out of the car window at the naked tree branches that
look like withered hands against the soft violet and pale pink of the
night sky.  How strange.  I dont feel alive, but I dont feel so dead.
As I pull up into my driveway and get out, I am suddenly aware of my
legs, as there is a possum that roams the street - the very possum that
I believe killed my dog.  What an unfortunate one Fox was; and the only
person - I say person, yes, I do - that I ever loved.  The only person
I ever trusted.  "It's tough to belong to someone who's gone."
There is something that must be said, and that is that you are on your
own now.