She went there that day hoping to get away, to distract herself and be alone with her thoughts. Alone in a room full of people. She couldn’t bear to be by herself, but she dreaded having to make the effort of telling somebody what she was feeling or what she was thinking, or what she was, or having to act like all was right in her little world.

She didn't want to be alone, but she needed to be. She didn't want to see anybody, but she yearned for human interaction.

She hoped and prayed that somebody would catch her eye and smile, or that somebody would wave, or that somebody else would cry so that she didn't have to.

She wanted somebody to show her that she wasn't alone in this world. Maybe show her that things would get better... that things even could get better. That it wasn't the end of everything.

She stared blindly out into the cold, her chin resting on her palm, fingers lazily crossed over her mouth, and tried not to think. She tried take in the scene through the window, but her thoughts kept drifting back to all of it… all of everything.

So far, she had done alright. She hadn't cried since she had arrived, but she couldn't make any promises.

She looked back to the screen, trying to distract herself from the current state of everything in her life; from everything that was falling apart; from everything that was going perfectly but wasn't enough to make anything better; from how it felt like all of it would soon melt away.

After a while, she realized that nothing was getting any better. She packed up her things, stood up from her seat by the window, put on her coat and wrapper her scarf slowly around her neck, and left it all behind.

People. Cars. Wind. Snow. Lights. Conversations. Noise. Music. Traffic. Stars. Cold.

She grabbed a brush and began to paint, not knowing what it was she was painting. Not caring. She picked a cookie up from the plate sitting next to her, took a bite, and touched the brush back to the canvas. After some time, a face began to peer back at her. A face that was hurting.

She sat there for hours, just staring. She shivered against a chill. There was a draft in the run-down apartment, a sharp and persistent draft which had a way of always catching her by surprise.

The music was dark, yet quiet--calming.

It was crying: the face in the painting. She could see it now, and couldn't help but wonder what events were transpiring in the life of the face that was looking past her with vacant eyes. With each stroke, she became more convinced that she would soon figure it out... that this face would reveal things to her… things for which she had been searching for as long as she could remember.

The song changed. She shivered and held her coffee with both hands, trying to warm them up, but soon the coffee was cold and forgotten again, as she became more and more obsessed with the life of the face on the canvas. The bags under its eyes, the crow's feet... they told a story. She could almost hear it. She didn't know what it was she was almost hearing yet. Was it laughter? Crying? Conversation? The sound of a train passing through a small town at two in the morning, after everyone had fallen asleep? Was it a river? An ocean? The creaking sound of a radiator as it struggles against the cold?

She sat staring blankly out the window.

People. Cars. Wind. Snow. Lights. Conversations. Noise. Music. Traffic. Stars. Cold.

She sat staring.

Her breath fogged the glass.

She sat.

It was in that brief eternity that it happened.

She fell in a heap, holding herself tightly.

And she cried.

Before long she was unpacking her things and placing them on the table. She hadn't expected to be back so soon, but then again, these days she didn't expect much of anything at all. A couple was laughing at a table nearby. They were young, and somehow they were managing to enjoy it.

Was she still young? She wondered. What was youth, anyway? Was it an age, or a state of being? A state of innocence and exuberance? If that was it, then she didn't qualify. She had felt like that once, years before. She knew she had, but she couldn't place when and where that would have been, and under what circumstances. As of late, she had become unable to produce any memories that didn't feel exactly like she did in that singular moment.

Of course not. How could she? How could anyone? She wondered.

She was pretty. Of that she was certain. Mostly certain. More or less. But what difference did that make anyway? She wouldn't let it matter. Not again. Not a chance. Not today. Perhaps not ever. Yet maybe. Nothing could be ruled out.

The young girl--the feminine half of the young couple seated nearby--laughed and smiled with her whole body. Her happiness was beautiful, and under any other circumstances, might have served to brighten the day of the girl seated alone, as she watched it happen. She didn't know what made that youthful, innocent girl laugh, but she wanted it. She wanted it all. She wanted anything but what she had. Anything.

Anything at all.

A group of people was walking around, taking in the paintings on the wall. Discussing it. Appreciating. Somebody stirred their coffee. Somebody coughed. Somebody sighed, unaware that they were even doing it.

People crowded. Milled around. Something fell and somebody retrieved it. Somewhere, someone was falling asleep, and somebody was singing. Someone would take their own life, and someone else would be born. All these thing would happen. All these things were happening. But she couldn't tell if any if it were even real. She couldn't feel anything at all. She couldn't tell if she were even there, or if anybody even knew she existed, or if she even did exist at all.

Why?

That's all she could come up with. That's all she could think. That's all she ever felt anymore.

And so it continued. So everything went on, moment by moment, day by day, forever upon forever upon forever once again.

And so, she left...