i wait. this chair is short, my feet touch the ground and i place my heels together, and under me. every twenty minutes i let my imagination get the best of me and i stand, walk to the window and place one hand on the phone. its beige stickiness does not comfort me. the view is a shimmery sameness as i scan for what i want to see. not there. i return to my seat, brush my hair behind my ear, do all of those automatic fidgets that i do when i feel on the spot. how ridiculous! there's no one here. that's the problem perhaps...i've been along so long that i've sculpted invisible beings out of the very air -- they cannot look at me but they pace the room, touching things and making the lights flicker, and i know i am the center of their locus, a complicated pattern, half Brownian motion and half paranoid fantasy. fucking great -- i go to the window again. as if it would help. as if my action would cause a reaction, and he would tumble out of the sea or something, and smile at me. these little tests serve to verify a vicious lie i am trying to convince myself of...that i do not matter, that things go on regardless of what i do. and it's all true, and it's all depressing. do movie stars have troubled thoughts of 'self' at night? does that lonely Maytag repairman? does everyone pretend as much as i do? does it matter? do i matter? it always feels like games -- will i ever touch something real, and hold on tight instead of letting go?