Reciprocity

I did not leave the house today. Today, the house was my shelter, my fortress, the walls my barricade against an unrelenting world. Correction: it is not unrelenting, it has relented, has given me up for dead. Today, I did not exist in the world.

I waited in line for food, although I knew I would not eat, as I was fasting to cleanse my system and myself, seeking a physical levity in place of a psychological one (so much harder to attain). CW was in front of me, and I can't recall what we were talking about when he suggested I find him on Facebook.

"I don't add people," I said, flippantly but honestly. "People add me, if they want to."

"Ooh, you're one of those people."

Sometimes I suspect he thinks he has everyone figured out, typified and categorized, neatly folded and placed in a series of mental boxes. I can almost see them, sometimes, through his small, well-shaped head of brown hair. People are understandable to him and always, with few exceptions, less interesting than he himself. But that is a harsh suspicion; he is entertaining to listen to and earnest.

I heard a voice in the hallway once, self-conscious and uniquely modulated (and you can tell when people are listening to themselves talk, you notice it when you're listening to yourself talk instead of just talking, because it is a different feel altogether, the shapes and edges of your words come out all different), and it turned out to be him.

He said, lightheartedly, "The relationship's not reciprocal."

I countered, "But what relationship is?"

And he laughed, and said that conversation would require much more time than what we had, waiting in line, and changed the subject. I was disappointed.