I'm smoking again. I do it too much. I don't even need you to remind me. Any time is too much Bree used to tell me when she was still around. She isn't anymore, but half the time I light up I still hear that voice of hers chiding me.
I probably should be cooking. Haven't eaten all day and my stomach has been rumbling. I don't feel it though. I don't know when I passed the threshold to not feeling hunger, but I can tell you it's a great thing now that I'm here. Not being distracted during that meeting before lunch after you were running late is good enough, but let me tell you about the savings. I can eat half as often as I used to and still keep on trucking. It's practically a dollar raise that I've just given myself.
Still, I really should get my ass to the kitchen to get something going. I even know what I'm going to make. Pepper steak, like the kind you get in a chinese restaurant. It's real easy, actually. Just sugar, ginger, garlic and soy sauce. I have it all sitting out just ready to rock. Every time I get up and turn in that direction though I see the empty kitchenette, bare except for that cracking white table I used in my first apartment. She took all the rest when she left. It kills me every time I see it and I just need to sit back down. So I'm here, sitting in my windowsill and looking outside
There's an apartment complex across the way, stacked up nice and high. Where I come from a respectable person keeps their drapes closed at night but not here. That's not the New York Way. I can see a brunette in her underwear walking around her flat. I wonder what she'd say if she knew I could see her. Probably that I'm just a pervert scoping out her tits. I could care less, though.
There's a couple doing the dishes together too; him washing, her drying. Looks like they're chatting up a storm too. Bree and I never used to do that. We split the chores and went off and took care of them. Maybe that's where we went wrong, we took on the never-ending tasks of life, split them up and didn't bother to work together. Bree hated the dishes, that was one of mine. I did the dishes and she'd do the laundry for me, that was the deal. I don't think she would've minded drying them though. Why didn't we ever do anything like this? Ugh, I don't have time to be thinking of this. Nevermind.
There's nothing else interesting out there right now. Just empty rooms and closed curtains. And the endless press of traffic on the street. New York is the city that never sleeps and don't you forget it. Even at night you can hear the damn cars. Actually I don't mind them. You get used to em. I guess my default for the vehicles is hate because when I first got here they really ticked me off. Now when I leave I can't sleep because I don't hear the damn things. I need a fan or a tv turned to static to get to sleep. How stupid is that? I know a lot of people do it but still. I don't like being reliant on a tool to get to sleep. It's childish.
Underwear girl is on the couch now. I wonder what she's watching. Criminal minds? Project Runway? Honey Booboo? No, she seems like a Doctor Who girl to me. Or something else similarly classy. The couple doing the dishes are gone now. Hm. I couldn't relate to them anyway. I have a lot more in common with underwear girl. She reminds me of something I read somewhere, I forget exactly how it goes. But it went something like “...he thought of all the people in the world who felt they'd been saved by the city; he was one of them. Whatever darkness leaked it's way in, there were always lights on here. Each light was a gentle touch on his shoulder saying you are never alone.” She looks lonely, she is alone, but she's not, you see? She has me. I'm right here watching over her shoulder. So maybe that's true for her. It's not for me though. This city didn't save me and it wouldn't even if it had the chance. If there's one thing I learned living here, it's that people just don’t care.
I saw a sign on the side of a building that was partially on the sidewalk. Intentionally I mean, like it's top was taped to the side of the wall and it's bottom was taped to the sidewalk, it was meant to be that way, see? It read “You've just spent more time reading this sign than you would have if there was a homeless person here instead.” That's the city I know. Those are the people I know. Saved by the city? Bullshit. That's just the adult version of happily ever after.
I wish I could still believe it but I don’t.
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