Curiosity

Curiosity

GBE2 #30

Why does it feel so quiet tonight?  Has everyone else in the building gone out?  Have they all gone to family gatherings or to the local pub because they have no one at home and the thought of being alone is overwhelming at the holidays?  Listening intently, she hears absolute silence.  Silent Night. That thought makes her smile and instinctively go to the window to look for the star in the north.  It's there and it is bright, but she is too engrossed in the silence. 

It's a picture perfect winter night.  The ground is white and nearly unmarked by the fresh inch or so of snow that has been falling for the past hour.  Not so much falling as drifting down ever so softly, so as not to disturb the utter silence.  The street lights are kind of blurred by the lightly floating snowflakes as they search for their exact location to fall and become one with all the others, thereby, forming this incredible blanket of fresh, clean and pure snow. 

Returning to her sofa, she reaches for her blanket of the softest yarn she could find when she decided to knit herself a cuddling blanket.  It turned out well after several months of knitting and leaving it and knitting again until it was, at last, exactly the size she required for wrapping or napping.  Tonight she would wrap herself in it's warmth and enjoy this holy and silent night alone. 

She thought very little of the others she used to share in her days.  They had all moved on in one way or another and now her days were filled with television, music, books and her job.  Somehow, being alone in this world was not a bad thing for her, ever.  She liked people and had many acquaintances at work and around the neighborhood, but none of them would be called friends because she chose not to make them friends.  She chose instead to make stories in her mind about their private lives and they lived inside her head that way.  If she thought of Tom who she knew was married and had one small boy, she would see them all three around the dinner table and Tom would be leading the grace before eating and his wife, whom she named Sue, would be smiling and with one hand shushing the little boy.  She had not yet named the little boy. Adriana would see herself seated across from Sue. She only knew Tom because he is the man who brings her mail to her desk each day and he wears a company name tag.  He is not her friend, but in her mind, she is often with his family.

This is how Adriana lives her life now.  All of the real people who had hurt her, disappointed her, just not cared about her, all were gone on their way.  She discovered that if she stopped calling them or stopping to visit them, none of them called or visited her.  Her friendships were all one sided.  She ended them simply by not making any effort.  The new people in her mind, however, were always calling on her and including her in all their plans and therefore, a night like this one, the Silent Night, the Holy Night, actually was a welcomed reprieve. 

Her curiosity was on high alert whenever she realized that in this apartment building lived 10 other single people and one couple.  It seemed to her that very often she was the only one either home or awake. That always made her feel just a little bit better, somehow.  Not better than them, better than she felt when everyone was coming and going or talking in the hallways.  This was the time that she made up her stories about each of them. She had named them all, given them all back stories and knew what each did every minute of every day.  All of this without ever making eye contact with any of them or speaking to them.  She had never uttered a word to another resident.  That would ruin the story development.

Curious, always, but satisfying that quest to know in her own mind and with her own unique spin, always.
Sanity?  Insanity?  Who knows!  But for the first time in her 43 years on earth, she is happy and content and not a single person exists that can cause her pain.  She has had enough pain and this is who and what she wants her life to be about.  Alone with her stories and her God.  Never alone.

Jo