I opened the door to my friend’s house. I was only there to feed her cats and scoop the litter, but the change of scenery was nice and she didn’t mind me crashing on her couch. So it was supposed to be empty, but as I entered to the cats’ disinterested notice, someone sat at the dining table. Back straight, head level, hands on the checkered tablecloth. He didn’t turn around when I opened the door, or shut it.
It wasn’t until I walked in and came around to his front that I understood. I hung my backpack over the chair and sat across the table from him.
“You found me,” I said at last.
“I never lost you,” he intoned in a voice from beyond the grave. Except he’d never died. He was always there, just over my shoulder. He spoke in the voice of a woman sometimes, but he knew, I supposed, that there’s nothing that can chill a woman more than a man.
His eyes were clouded, and yet they seemed to stare straight through my skull.
“I guess not.” I sighed and reached into my pack and brought out a ziploc bag of cut apples and a tupperware of pretzels. I divided these up on paper towels and passed one across to him.
“Bon appetit,” I said wryly.
For awhile the sound of my crunching was all that passed between us.
“Maybe I’ll clear the box out of the front seat for you this time,” I said. “That way you don’t have to scare the shit out of me every time you appear.”
“Loneliness isn’t supposed to be companionable.”
“Yeah, but think about it, how badass would it be? For me, at least. Loneliness as my passenger princess. Officially, I mean. You’re here anyway, obviously.”
He didn’t answer, enjoying his apple after sucking the salt off the pretzels.
I leaned forward. “Does Loneliness feel lonely?”
“Can a personification feel anything?” he countered.
“You’re the only one who can answer that. So what is it?” And when he again remained silent: “You know, this would be a lot easier if you weren’t so dramatic.”
“I’m not meant to be easy.”
“I know,” I said, slumping back. “Okay, but will you answer me this? Why are you? If I conjured you up, I certainly didn’t mean to.”
“Nobody means to conjure me.”
Suddenly, I wanted to cry. Instead, I straightened up and tried to hide it, as though there was anything I could hide from his blind eyes. “So you are a conjuring, after some manner.”
“Human emotions tend to be stronger than they think. Others have seen me. You see me because you have few enough distractions that you feel my presence.”
“That has to be the most I’ve ever heard you speak. So what you’re telling me is I need to find more distractions?”
Silence.
“I guess that could be interpreted as offensive. I guess I don’t really mind that you’re here – your physical aspect, I mean – not after I got over you watching me while I sleep. Do you take offense?”
“Yours is a sentiment I know well.”
“If you know that, then does that make you an amalgamation of everyone’s loneliness? Can you tell me about them?”
“Given the bodies of work they have created for my presence, I believe the individuals prefer to speak of me in their own words and arts.”
“So you won’t work with me, here?”
“And so be my own undoing?”
I looked at the ceiling, pretending to admire the cobwebs instead of trying to do away with the prickling behind my eyes. “You can be undone?”
“You know this. And you know the cure to the affliction you see in me.”
I looked at him this time, as steady a gaze as he gave me. “Do I?”
His blank face was answer enough.
“I guess I do. I guess…I’m not ready. No, maybe that’s not it. I haven’t found it yet, the cure I mean. I mean – there are so, so many. But what if I’m caught? What if…what if I only think I find a way for you to…for you to rest. And it’s not the salvation I think it is. And then I’m trapped, trapped in a way that now I can’t run from.”
“The way you run now.”
I waved a hand. “Yeah. The way I run now.”
“If you observe the art, you might find that there is nothing definite but a lack of assurance to that regard.”
I nodded slowly. “I guess you’re not meant to be comforting.”
If he was the smiling type, I imagined he would smile at that.
I sighed again, and then pulled out my laptop, holding it up to him. “So then, Loneliness. What movie are we feeling like tonight?”