As I walk down the alley, torn tights under my umbrella, I ponder how I look to passersby on the street.
Split-second decisions are the best decisions.
I suppose, even if only best in the moment. But each moment is all we have.
The street juts out from the crumbling alley. Streetcars pass alongside me like ghost ships through heavy fog. The same fog fills my brain. I try to clear it, lay a hand on something concrete, something simple and true. Something logical. I need truth, one truth. But there are too many.
Addiction. Those afflicted with what they once began and now regret. Billowy drug addicts. Philandering men and women out in the nightclubs, when it’s dark enough to hide themselves between streetlights. Those who are so burdened with a mind of strong idealism they can’t let go of what they hoped was real.
Yes, I was addicted.
A memory, unwanted. From the party.
“Do you drink a lot?”
I hesitate before I answer. “These days, yes.”
“You shouldn’t drink. It’s not good for your health.” He pulls the long roach out from between his lips and twirls it around his finger.
What’s the word?
Hypocrite.
I have never met someone so conflicted.
He smiles. It’s the regretful smile of one who has lost hope in ever returning to the way things used to be. I’ve seen enough people like that. I was on the road straight for it, if not already there.
“I tried to quit last week,” he says, his voice soft as butter.
But he didn’t need to speak this. I could see inside him as if there was no wall. As if he didn’t build it up—year after year, using hand after blistered hand—growing taller with every injury-inducing, painful blow. Oh yes, how I knew that all too well.
Tonight, his walls were molten lava, cascading down before him—scalding but endearing. And I was attracted.
I could see every little bit that he tried to hide. And I loved it.
“I’ve heard that split-second decisions are the best decisions,” he says. But he doesn’t move. I don’t move.
We read each other silently. I know he won’t do anything, won’t try anything. No, it’s too early for that.
I know him, though I have only just met him. Even before he ever glanced in my direction, I knew him.
I knew how he saw things, how he idealized, and what he had been through. We are both people that will never be happy being happy. He knows as well as I do what is to become of this if we start.
But no matter how many times we make the same mistake (or call it what you like), no matter how much we learn from it and know what we aren’t supposed to do, we will still do it.
And we do it.
The sky brightens slowly, an eternity, as I flatten my skirt down to sit on the edge of the bus stop bench. It’s too cold for a skirt. A seemingly endless winter is approaching. And there is something beautiful about it all.
Addiction. It’s in the things you keep coming back to, despite knowing better. It’s the cigarettes you can’t quit, the numbing feeling of a hit you can’t seem to shake. It’s going through the motions. The tossing turning turmoil of up and down emotions. The highs and lows, the pick-you-ups, and the deep steep drops. The feeling in the beginning, of hope and perfection. The feeling in the end, of hopelessness and desperation. Albert Einstein said, insanity is doing the same things over and expecting different results.
It appears our sanity has depleted. But did I expect different results?
I watch the bus drive off.
Split-second decisions are the best decisions.
I step onto the wet side street and into the sunrise. Toward his place.
Robin Nemesszeghy enjoys weaving fantastical elements into realistic settings and exploring the complexities of the human mind. Living a stone’s throw away from a quiet wooded cemetery and park, when she’s not writing you can often find her wandering the area and dreaming up her next big adventure. Read more about her journey.