Simple Writes discussion
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[ i. ] ─── north star, x
where are you? he asks no one. it had never occurred to him that, when they would finally meet again, the long days of summer coloring them golden once more, the question would not be a matter of where, but who.
[ ii. ] ─── facing backwards, x
he brings the water in the pot to a boil, and empties the uncooked noodles into the pot. it’s been too long since he’s bothered to look at any of the nutritional information on the package; it’s probably carcinogenic, anyway, so why depress himself? it’s only dinner.
(dinner tonight, and yesterday, and the day before yesterday, and the night before that—)
the wrapper gets discarded. he's a busy man; he doesn’t have time to cook himself a proper meal every night. it’s fine, though; the hospital food makes for a good enough lunch and he always eats a decent breakfast, which is a definite improvement from his university days.
it’s fine. he’s fine.
“damn it,” he says, out loud, when he reaches for a seasoning packet that isn’t there. there’s no one there to hear it.
he fishes it out of the wrapper in the garbage bin, tears it open, pours it in. he stirs the powdered seasoning into the pot and thinks about what ingredients it might contain for it to be that color, thinks about the patterns it makes among the water and the noodles before it dissolves completely, thinks about something, anything, so that he won’t think of the way that there’s not someone to laugh when he swears out loud, or to remind him to not throw out the seasoning, or someone to have a real, proper dinner with instead of some fucking instant ramen—
but there isn’t someone for that, not anymore. it’s okay.
this is just an adjustment period.
it’s not forever—he isn’t naive enough to think that anything will be forever anymore.
so he takes a pair of chopsticks out from the drawer, sits down at the table. he spares a glance at the clock—it’s late, now, later than it ever used to be. hours get longer when there isn’t someone to come home to. but, well, it’s not like his hours were ever easy work around, anyway.
eating alone is nothing new.
[ iv. ] ─── unpublished fragment
i realize that maybe i need you more than you've ever needed me, and the idea is suffocating.
[ v. ] ─── unpublished fragment
“maybe you need to hold yourself to a higher standard,” he says.
maybe i never learned how to, i don’t say.
