Creating Lonely

She sits alone in the room. I can see her as I pass to throw out my garbage, because the door is open. She looks so unappetising. Grossly fat in the deformed way of those who become obese in later life. She walks as if her legs are wood.

I pass her door going to the gate to toss my garbage into one of the many bins. I walk back and don’t turn to see her in her living room, and if she turned to see me she’d note I had a smile on my face and a lift to my chin as if someone called to me from the hall way.

It was open to her to invite me for coffee or chat, but she didn’t. I had made myself available a few weeks ago, seeing her on the veranda, coming by to speak in a friendly tone.

But she didn’t pick it up. I have the impression she rarely does.

No one comes to see her now. At first there were a few friends who stopped by. Then, no one, unless she calls a workman.

She looks at me with a judgemental eye, as if she’s the prom queen and me trying out my first new outfit. But it doesn’t work. And she knows it doesn’t.

Tomorrow she will sit along in her room with the door open, with the arctic wind of her soul blowing out, and no one will enter.