The light in the apartment was greyish at this time of day, the afternoon sun relenting its glaring assault on her computer screen. A vague feeling of loss came over her as it always did after a day spent confronting the unabashedly entwined lives of others. Her mind spun back to the green grass, gentle faces and seemingly ever-present orb of human association surrounding her childhood. A world without harrassment suits, MTV, the new VW Bug or genetically engineered vegetables.
Her mother had been a hero, effortlessly integrating the fractions of her life into an awesome and admirable whole. Her father had been, in a word, steadfast. Unshakable. Without compromise or moral vacancy (perhaps women, she considered, were more prone to reveal limited aspects of themselves rather than imposing, or exposing, the impact of the whole).
The intervening years, she supposed, attested to the inevitability of human longing. She knew her life had accquired a kind of eye-glazing numbness which fragmented her soul.
She did not know who lived next door, although she heard frequent, and certainly heated arguments through the walls. She suspected, but did not know for certain, that her shoes were made by children unfortunate enough to be born somewhere preyed upon by corporate giants and multinationals. She wondered about the sad woman she'd seen on the subway that morning, a woman with a look that said she no longer had the strength to fight.
Why not me, she thought, why not all of us? What else can we possibly survive just for the human bond that love brings, that pulls together our fractioned selves into the wholeness of humanity?