When I am about to drive home after my shift, I examine my face in the rear-view mirror. If I only knew how to change, to make me a protagonist again. Looking the part would at least be a starting point. I shrug, and start the motor. One day it will be too late, but not like Jan or Tessa think when they urge me to finish school, and apply to university to read a rational subject, because my ‘too late’ takes place far beyond that. Too late means to know what life is about, to have made all crucial decisions, to have set the course, for something that can only be expressed in worn-out phrases. Too late means no longer being an individual, but a profession, a title, an age, a mother, a father, an income, a status. All yearning depleted.
Back home I am too late for dinner, so I sit down at the kitchen table and stare at the leftovers I found in the microwave. I throw them in the bin and make some instant black coffee instead. I like our kitchen’s impersonal feel, …show more content…
I needed to escape my embarrassment as well as another vacant and redundant scenario I already know too well. I grabbed a half-emptied wine bottle on my way out that must have been part of the catering. I try to laugh, too, now, or at least to get drunk. The fresh air is compromised by the drizzle, the wine feels acidic in my throat, and instead of bringing haze, it demands honesty: I can still get drunk on two sips, my hair is about to melt into clammy dreadlocks, I cannot wear any clothes that would show the shape of my body, and I am fed up with all of this. I search my bag, it is sewn of two pieces of carpet, a hippie remnant I bought at a flea market because I thought Neele or Rainer would like it. I find mirror and make-up, and apply yet another coat of mascara, to make my lashes even more spidery. I grimace at my reflection, then I shut the
Back home I am too late for dinner, so I sit down at the kitchen table and stare at the leftovers I found in the microwave. I throw them in the bin and make some instant black coffee instead. I like our kitchen’s impersonal feel, …show more content…
I needed to escape my embarrassment as well as another vacant and redundant scenario I already know too well. I grabbed a half-emptied wine bottle on my way out that must have been part of the catering. I try to laugh, too, now, or at least to get drunk. The fresh air is compromised by the drizzle, the wine feels acidic in my throat, and instead of bringing haze, it demands honesty: I can still get drunk on two sips, my hair is about to melt into clammy dreadlocks, I cannot wear any clothes that would show the shape of my body, and I am fed up with all of this. I search my bag, it is sewn of two pieces of carpet, a hippie remnant I bought at a flea market because I thought Neele or Rainer would like it. I find mirror and make-up, and apply yet another coat of mascara, to make my lashes even more spidery. I grimace at my reflection, then I shut the