Here

Here

“I’m glad I’m not there,” I thought.

Earlier I’d been out among people I generally like. I’d even had a good enough time. But now I was alone.

“So you like it here?”

“No,” I thought. “But, for the moment, I prefer it here instead of there.”

“Then you like it here?”

“Not especially.”

I didn’t want to move. I didn’t want to think. But I needed to escape.

“Where would you rather be?”

I couldn’t answer that question, so I turned off the light and closed my eyes, knowing I wouldn’t sleep.

I tried to imagine where I’d rather be and who I’d rather be with.

I waited and hoped for it to come, but I couldn’t imagine it. I couldn’t force it and it wouldn’t come of its own.

So I turned on the light.

“There’s no place you’d rather be?”

“I guess not,” I thought. “For now, in this moment, this must be as good as it gets.”

“But you feel restless.”

“Yes. Very restless. Very anxious. Almost sick.”

“Then go somewhere.”

Of course, there were places to go, but none I wanted to go to. I considered turning on the fan so there’d be something. Anything. But I knew it was too cool for the fan, so I left it off.

I thought about some booze, but I knew what it might do for the mind and the spirit in the moment, I’d regret the consequences to the body tomorrow.

Sometimes it feels like anything would be better than this. But then, when I think about anywhere else, I can’t imagine it being that much better.

I turned off the light again. I tried to imagine how to make myself like it here.

But I couldn’t. All I could do was turn on the light again and try to make sense of not liking it here, but wanting to be nowhere else.

And that’s all this is.