remarkable things

Loneliness

There’s this room, full of people. People talking and touching and laughing and clinking glasses and making small-talk. Somehow I am standing in this room, amongst all these people, yet I remain separate from the entire scene. As though that is a two-way mirror hanging on the wall opposite and I am standing behind it. The unseen observer. I watch all these people, with their meaningful words hiding behind their meaningless small-talk. A collective tipsiness begins to settle across the room, as though it’s being shaken from the cobwebs in the corners of the ceiling. Children settle into armchairs and curl up on the carpets while the housewives who’ve looked forward to this gathering for the past fortnight grab a hold of the mantle in an attempt to steady themselves. The lights look a little too bright and squinting becomes the new fashion. The imported Italian liqueur is beginning to make all these niceties sound a lot like “I hate you.” I notice all these things but I don’t, I can’t, experience them. I watch from behind my imaginary two-way mirror, hearing nothing but white noise and feeling everything sharper than before.