I was sitting on the back porch of my old new friends new old house, stoned and smoking a cigarette with inspired avoidance. I don’t like people, they have needs and talk about nothing in particular passionately. Maybe I was just stoned. A sturdy glass mug that looked like it ought to be frothy sat over the horizon of my folded knees, indifferently full of water. I must have forgotten it existed numerous times because I thirsted in agony during most of what I remember on that day. As is usual when I’m rendered in the useless state, I tried to write something. It was stupid and paranoid. I went with my mug back inside.
I regretted it immediately. I was in the middle resisting the preemptive regret for my next eventual step when I stumbled into a noisy room full people huddled on a bed. Their words hung lifeless in the air on mellow smoke swirled by the ceiling fan. I didn’t say anything and crouched upright in their peripheral. As their words cradled the haze, I uttered wordless breath. They were all talking about themselves at once and I reminded myself how little I cared. This trinket someone found on the floor meant blah to him or her and there was shit lying everywhere. I figured it could go on all day. Maybe it did, I don’t know.
I was walking out the front door of my newish friends newish house when I realized I had done this before. A hundred times over, bored in terms strikingly repetitious. I sat down in my old car, the engine turned over and I left without saying goodbye. I felt very tired.
The Playgroup 