Par Hasard

You don't need to learn about human trafficking to know the depravity of human nature.

***

In my solitude, I have lost the ability to make friends. They have forgotten me.

But self-pity devours the soul.

So I will sit still and wait. I will watch the same birds diving up and down the same piece of azure, in and out of the same cotton ball of gray, until the cage door opens and I believe that I can fly.

***

What do you do during your last seven weeks in a city to which you'll never return, a country in which you'll never reside, a culture you never understood, people who were never close enough to be called friends?

***

Are you afraid of loneliness? 

***

Childhood friends are dating. Current friends are marrying. Honeymoon at sunset. Happy Anniversary. Congratulations.

I still don't know what he looks like or smells like, if he snores when he sleeps, slurps when he eats, and taps the steering wheel to every beat on the radio. 

Is my hair not yet long enough for him to rescue me from the tower? Have I not yet slept long enough for him to gallop to my side and kiss me awake? Must I eat the poisonous apple and die before he can give me life? 

Indeed, I am neither Rapunzel nor Sleeping Beauty nor Snow White. But will mine be a fairy tale or a tragedy, a dream or reality?

***

My sense of entitlement must be revolting.