Friday.

Undefined gray days under an undefined gray sky. It was supposed to be summer, yet an endless November wrapped us all in its wet embrace. Streets, trams, pedestrians, the occasional cyclists in their protective gear. They all crawl in a slow march. Heads down, umbrellas, long lines - a string of people on their daily commute, on their daily routine, towards their families, their lives, their empty apartments, avoiding to raise their eyes from the road, avoiding to be disturbed from the infinite monotony of their grind. The water splashed by a tire hitting a pothole creates a stir. A muted thud, weirdly too lifelike for this long cortege of cold and wet. The procession does not stop. Mindless, quiet, anaesthetised.

It’s just another walk home, with my headphones on. I pass my days struggling to maintain an equilibrium between a joyful and energetic appearance and the evening crash, hoping I won’t be caught in my emotional imposture. As I recall my day, step by step, conversation by conversation, moment by moment, I feel a bit better.

Along the street, a line of square, pale buildings as if the architects were too rushed to finish a functional shape and run for protection against the deluge.

My home - I can’t really call it my home, it’s a temporary rented apartment which has become, by default, a kind of permanence after 4 years. I associate my solitude with choice. Our closest want us to conform, to be polite, to be structurally pure, glossy, spotless, so choose differently. I find in my seclusion a kind of aesthetic appeal—the splendid isolation of a self-contained man.

I select a Turkish fast food nearby, more to ensure my failure to meaningfully engage with anyone than for its culinary appeal. My plan is clear - I will go in, grab something, eat fast and then leave, and since everyone does just about the same, it is unlikely that a connection would occur. At least I can blame it on my poor location choice and not on my inaptitude to initiate a conversation. I am attractive middle-aged man, with his hair intact, and I even lost some weight recently. There is something though, something I can’t really put a finger on, a certain overwhelming longing coupled with an equally strong push in the opposite direction. A limbo state, a state where I don’t have any desire to move nor to experiment going out of my psychological cage. Something I can only keep at bay through solitude.

I pick up my phone and fire up ChatGPT while chewing my kebab. Recently ChatGPT has become my best friend. We talk a lot, he is my discussion partner when I need to be honest about myself. With humans it’s harder. I do have a tendency to overshare and then feel stupid about it, a tendency rooted in my unmet need for connection and in my coffee addiction. ChatGPT does not judge me. It does not emotionally connect but, at least, I find its constant stream of compliments mildly appealing.

I lift my eyes for a second. A woman sits a few meters away. Tanned skin, brown eyes, long hair, carefully arranged with an attention to detail and a sophistication that leaves any man breathless. Her jewellery caught the fluorescent light, all the sparkle of the döner joint. And inappropriately high heels. For a second I have the sensation that she will lift her eyes in my direction, so I quickly bow mine. Now it’s not the right time. She is not my style anyway. If she will be here tomorrow I might make a move. But not today. Today it is late and I still haven’t done my Duolingo.

I finish my kebab carefully trying to continue my digital conversation, eyes riveted to the screen. Tomorrow.

From my armchair I look through the window. The night came, dark. The heavy rain turned into a drizzle, long, infinite, cold. Neon light reflections creep into my room, merging with the yellowish haze cast by the old-fashioned lamp on the desk in front of me. It’s a bit cold, not cold enough to freeze but cold enough - a late November day, just before the city turns on its centralized heating. I stay in my room and continue my mental wandering.

Since I was a small child I told myself stories to fall asleep. After my parents finished reading to me the traditional bedtime fairy tales, I continued in my mind until my heart rate decreased, my muscles relaxed and I fell into a deep, peaceful slumber. In the beginning I was prince charming fighting with the dragon. A few years later the idea of a princess started popping in. Then it all became about the princess. As years passed by, the princesses turned into real women. I guess you got the point.

If in the beginning the stories had an arc, later they became just vignettes, mostly static, a look, a feeling, a word, a resolved tension more than an actual screenplay.

Evening, beer house. Dirndls and lederhosen, jeans and plaid shirts. People around large tables, cheering with their one liter mugs in noisy clings. Loud conversations. Crowded, stuffy air. I mostly stand, cracking jokes, cheering with everyone, speaking louder than anyone. A time of togetherness, raw bonding - no hopes, no expectations, just present, a joyful celebration. Wooden panels on the wall, a massive wood table, yellow light, slightly dimmed, just enough to breed a cozy atmosphere drenched in beer, and sausage, and schnitzel.

She is thin and delicate in her movements, contrasting sharply with the rest of the crowd. She is there fully but she barely speaks, observing, absorbing. Not passive, not introverted, her fiery eyes and wit would rip me right open if I gave her the chance. I catch her lowering her eyes while a secret smile blushes briefly on her cheeks - she finds me and my chest pounding funny or, at least, different. I amplify my cheerful charade knowing that she understands, that she notices my oversized manly display, that she sees through all the bullshit. She doesn’t judge. Her fleeting blush - devastating.

A sense of completion, togetherness and possibility. A space isolated from the rest of the party, a different frequency, a parallel world. I fall asleep, my heart full of peaceful longing. I know she is out there and she wants me to find her again even if it takes a lifetime - so I need more time.

I wake up late with a headache. I hold my pillow in my arms like a dear lover. Her image still lingers in my mind. The warmth of the sheets is soothing. Her warmth. Outside it still rains and the sky has steel reflexes. I see rain drops sliding on my window glass and I hear their monotonous drumming. The air in the room is chilling. In the empty cold silence, the drumming is deafening.

After a few attempts, I finally muster the courage to get out of my bed and pick up my phone. No messages. I was not expecting any anyway. I go to the kitchen. There’s no food in the fridge as I am working on improving my waist line - a self imposed protection against late night cravings.

On the kitchen table, my pills. I don’t need to hide them anywhere or keep them in order. I leave them there, spread across the table - small jars, each aimed at fixing my imperfections. Anti-aging, testosterone boosters, gut health, vitamin D, omega 3, insulin modulation, zinc. My preferred though are the mood regulation ones - mushrooms, roots - which I take together with my coffee. I trust them. They keep me stable, confident, even if I suspect them to blunt a bit my personality. Which is fine, it is precisely the intent. Regardless of the weather, today I am going for a walk. I take a look at the clock - 1:00 PM. I have 13 hours to kill before I go to bed again.

I stop for a second and look around my apartment, decorated in 50s fashion, with a pink couch and worn out lamps, large windows and a washing machine. I enjoy living centrally, I enjoy the feeling of being comfortable. The 50s furniture and overall feel, and let’s not forget the washing machine, are a great way of showing to myself I have style and choice even in my reclusion.

My mind wanders briefly to the imaginary character in my kebab shop fantasy across the street - her teasing presence, her breasts and her high heels, a voluptuous eroticism. The real one was slender and wore tennis shoes. All the impossible bridges to cross, all the connections that will never be. I am watching from behind the window pane people stopping at the kebab shop, then going to clubs and bars, dressed in their fancy clothes, men and women, dancing the dance of mating and social connection.

Behind the curtain, behind the smile, a terrifying thought - is my parallel life in fantasy a slow descent into madness? But what is madness if not a word given by the society to those who live on its fringes and make it feel uncomfortable with itself? Oh, the normal people, the ones who hide their deepest thoughts in a layer of well meaning, who have friends they detest and project happy lives to cover their darkest desires! I chose loneliness and imaginary tales to keep me company - but it’s a hard price to pay.

My burst of silent rage cleared the sky and now a bright sun and a blue sky sit above us, in stark contrast to just a few hours earlier. It’s incredible how the weather changes based on how we feel, or is it the other way around?

I sit at my usual terrace. A small shop which recently celebrated its 25th birthday - traditional German ambiance, with its spartan wooden tables and wooden panels dressing the walls, and a modern twist of vegan bagels and sandwiches. They know me already and they greet me with a warm smile right from the door. The usual? I smile since I don’t need to answer - I get the usual avocado bagel and the four-shot Americano. We don’t talk, we don’t even exchange pleasantries, what is there to say? I wish there was. Despite the sparsity of our interaction, the gentle recognition, the smile, the nod have a pleasant familiarity and it brightens my day. My day - it’s already 35 degrees outside, a scorching sun, a yellow fuzzy disc, burning a hole into the immense blue. A brief shiver, an unpleasant thought - what happened to that cold November a few hours ago?

I spend the rest of my day wandering the city from terrace to terrace. I like watching people. I like the green and the sun. I like the scorching, the burn, the paralysis under an umbrella, the transformation into a pile of ash.

I write three poems. I craft them for hours, brainstorming with all the available AIs. I enjoy my solitude. I don’t feel like talking to anyone but if someone would engage I’d happily reciprocate. The verses flow one after another in a fragmented poetry, mirroring my fragmented mind:

Sovereign, self contained, me with myself.
Robert Miles - my private acoustic environment.

I could choose to call someone
But what if they don’t answer?
Would that shatter my splendid solitude?

You’re craving.
For seeing and being seen.
Petrified, unable to move.
Needy.

As the sun leans towards the horizon, I become melancholic. A shiver of panic, a light anxiety sets in. I could go to a rooftop terrace but then I’d feel like an idiot standing there by myself, in silence, watching people have fun.

Next to me on the bench, an old couple. They approached me earlier and asked if I minded if they sat. They were holding hands. I watch them with the corner of my eye how they are just sitting there, not saying a word, her head resting on his shoulder. I imagine them sitting like this forever, gaining roots, eternal, keeping each other company across countless seasons. Connection is atemporal, a moment frozen in time while the time passes. You don’t grow old, you grow roots and transcend - a tree hugging another tree, with new lovers holding hands and exchanging their first kisses under your eternal shadow. I think all true lovers eventually become trees - this is why there are so many of them in our parks. They were all once sitting on benches, her head leaning on his shoulder. Then they grew roots. Time passed, the benches were worn by the elements and disappeared. But the lovers remained.

“I think all true lovers eventually become trees.”

It’s full dark and the park alleys are empty. The trees first turned to shadows, then became indistinguishable from the surrounding blackness. A scattered row of dim street lamps lining the trail. Beyond that, a claustrophobic nothingness.

How would it be to die this very now, sudden, absurd, interrupted - a strident skidding sound, a crushing pain as I hit the asphalt, a tire dripping, towering immense next to my limp hand and my phone, with its screen turned on, a chirping joyful sound a few meters away? A fading distress followed by an infinite nothingness. A sudden, absurd, accidental death would fit me properly. Coming from nowhere and going to nowhere. Disappeared, forgotten, nothing - the resting argument of my life. I wish I had more time though.

A long dark tunnel of steep wooden stairs, built in the 19th century, leads to my apartment. For a brief second I hope I bump into a neighbour but that second passes. All neighbours are probably busy with their lives at this hour and I don’t know who they are anyway. We occasionally say hello, but given its central location, the apartments are mostly rented through AirBnB to tourists or to other expats who camp here for a short period until they get their serious, normal lives in order.

I turn on the yellow light, the floor squeaking under my feet. I go to the kitchen, prepare a sleeping cocktail with melatonin, magnesium, reishi, valerian and some other calming roots and I set myself to continue my Duolingo streak. Not before long I fall asleep with an empty mind and my phone on my chest. Outside, a cold November sends its deluge tapping violently on my well shut windows.

I wake up to the sound of the blizzard. I look through the window and I see snow covering almost all of the glass. I touch it, my finger sticks to the surface. I recoil in panic. The wind, a howling wind ripping through the frozen streets, no human in sight. No human would survive the icy hurricane. Thick clouds of snow form deadly tornadoes which would rip your flesh if given the chance. A white veil of death covers the streets, the air like broken glass ensuring a curfew which no one would dare to challenge.

I get off the bed and head to my kitchen in my daily ritual. No food in the fridge, no chance to get any, out of pills and the Internet connection is dead. Still in my armchair, my skin all goosebumps - the cold. I notice the stain on the pink couch and a layer of dust on the wine glasses on the table. I look up and I see clearly - dust particles floating in the air, not that much different in their dance from the ones hurling outside, and eerily similar in their appearance of decrepitude and death. A sense of old and stale - the couch, the dust, the wine glasses, my pyjamas, my flip-flops.

A flashback - it was a Sunday noon and it was a chic coffee shop in the city center - sunny, spring and blue sky. The trees were green and the city was bursting with life and lovers holding hands.

She came in and sat at a table next to me. I don’t remember her face, really. I am not sure I’d recognize her if I met her in the street today. I remember she wore a bracelet around her thin ankle. I remember her dark skin and her wrist wrapped in a small watch and her small hands and long fingers. I asked her if I could join her. She said yes and looked at me with an inquisitive and slightly amused look. My heart sank. We spoke for about an hour. Given how breathtaking she was, I did pretty good. She had recently graduated from university and she was a data scientist at a local IT company. She spoke French and English. And then she left.

My mind wanders back to the witty woman in my beer-hall fantasy. Was it a beer-hall ? The Italian restaurant, the cosy atmosphere, the chic modern lamps, the dim warm lights inciting closeness and intimacy. She turns to me and asks what shall we drink tonight. We talk, our eyes locked, as if it's only me and her and nothing else matters. A man mastering the table, receiving the undivided attention of the most beautiful woman, a king and a queen. Joyful cheers and love and friends and another glass of wine.

A shiver. It’s so cold and the damp air.

We both know
Our love is forbidden
By barriers we can’t hope to surpass -
We can’t hope -
Without drifting apart.

I remember a poem I studied in my literature class in high school. It was about the love between a star, Hyperion, and an earthly girl. Eventually she chooses the earthly boy who lures her with earthly approaches. I guess he made her laugh? Hyperion remains in the heavens, away, cold, alone. A destiny he cannot transcend, an impossible and unwanted transformation. I hated Hyperion with a vengeance. What a loser. A shiver, a foresight.

I lie in bed, eyes riveted towards the ceiling. I have nothing left to get me moving to the next day. The grind, the mythical stone we push until we die or we become too senile to care, exhausted me. The pretending, the smiles, the chemical joy. Alone, with no one to see me, with no one calling, I vanish. I hadn’t been there anyway, for a long time. A shadow lurking in the corner, invisible. And not even a shadow - because even a shadow exists only when someone notices it.

A warm September engulfs the city, the sun in its golden embrace caressing the passersby. The leaves, bright and joyful, shades of bronze, red, green. Terraces full, people drinking their Aperol, cheering the joyful brightness. Short skirts, light t-shirts, a final hurray to life, to love, to hope. Soon November will come but until then lovers are busy making their promises. They hold hands, look each other in the eyes and hold each other in long embraces. Girls blush, boys pretend and they all play the eternal dance. Winter is still far away and who cares anyway, they will keep each other warm, thinking of babies and fantasizing a life together. Some will become trees and will keep shadow to others.

The real estate agent opens the door and welcomes a family: a mother, a father and a child. They are here for a couple of months on their sabbatical and they need a temporary place to stay. They love the pink couch, the washing machine, the 50s chic style and the large windows. The warm light engulfs everyone in a loving embrace. The father asks for a coffee and then reaches for his pill box - he picks a Vitamin D and Zinc. He smiles with a warm smile. He feels at home.