She Asked

Samantha Driscol usually went by the name Sammy to her friends, but no one had called her that in a long time. It was a natural occurrence considering her current friendless state. Being completely alone, she realized, brought with it a different way of seeing the world: one she had never considered before; had never fully comprehended.

She couldn't determine exactly how her state of aloneness had happened. It had been a rather insidious process, much like the erosion of the earth. Slow, steady, but the result was the same; change with barely any notice. Like dry riverbeds, her eyes had ceased to cry and cruel choking weeds had overtaken the flowering tresses of her hair. In answer to the changes, she cut her hair short and took to using eye drops. Looking in the mirror had become as tortuous a thing as scaling a mountain. Samantha's life had worn down so severely it had eroded into something close to nothing. As she lost joy in the things that mattered to her, her friends had begun to migrate to better climes, and the name and memory of "Sammy" went with them.

First, one friend had moved away, another had gotten married and was too involved with her husband's family and her own so that she wasn't available to Samantha anymore. Others had drifted away; some as victims of, the rest as perpetrators upon, time and circumstance. Nobody was to blame.

She'd lived in a city she hated her entire life because her friends had been there; her family was there. Everything she had ever wanted or needed was there, even if the city itself was too big, bustling and uncomfortable for her. Once everything that had kept her there were gone, Samantha reveled in the freedom, or tried to at least.

She immediately made plans to move to a whole new city, one that was more pleasing to her aesthetically. She took a small apartment with an ocean view and raced the sun to be the first to touch the waves every morning. Others never roamed the sandy shore at five in the morning so she was free to enjoy the sunrise alone. At least, "alone" applying only to human companionship. The gulls kept her company, as did the crows who hoped the gulls had left them morsels to scrounge. Her morning comrads were used to her now, and after a time, they'd leave Samantha alone to watch the sun rise up out of the ocean.

Samantha had always enjoyed her own company. She was what most people labeled "a loner." She hadn't minded. There had been a few close friends and she never needed much human contact beyond their occasional company. Now they were all gone.

Although she missed her friends, Samantha didn't hold them completely responsible. She knew her part in the demise of her friendships. Shame. Fear. Depression. She couldn't lay all that on them. Since the move, Samantha hadn't been able to find work and it had been over six months; a long six months with nothing to give her days substance and meaning. Half of an entire year had passed with no real human contact aside from polite banter with clerks at the grocery store or the landlord who came around once a month to collect the rent. Her money was nearly gone, so shopping trips and movies were a thing of the past.

Samantha dreaded the end of the sunrise, knowing it signaled the start of a new day, which would be much like the one before it and there would be no end to her loneliness. Hope, like her friendships, had been lost to the passage of time.

She remembered a roommate she'd had once, Carl, and how he had been such a workaholic. He had no time for friendships or relationships, so intent was he on working day in and day out to build his construction business into something wonderful. He wanted to be the number one house builder in the city and if working around the clock was the way to make it happen, he was willing to make the sacrifice of meaningful human exchange.

Years after they'd gone their separate ways, Samantha had met a friend for coffee and over the steaming brew, her friend had said, "Oh, did you hear? Carl committed suicide."

He'd said it so matter-of-factly, as though it wasn't that big a deal; as though it shouldn't come as any great surprise.

"Why?" Samantha had asked.

Her friend shrugged. "Loneliness. Probably."

She thought about Carl now, and further remembered, with shame, what her view had been on it at the time. Samantha believed that suicide was merely a cop-out. All a person had to do was reach out, and someone would be there. How could life be so bad that killing yourself could possibly be a solution to anything? She viewed suicide as a selfish act that didn't consider other people at all.

She considered her current circumstances, and the drudgery of how hard it was to face every day filled with unending emptiness. There were things she could do—things to keep her busy in an attempt to convince herself she was involved in living. The truth was though, she wasn't. She was merely existing. When the money ran out, what then? Even if she did have a friend to talk to about how tough things were, it couldn't change that things would still be hard. She couldn't just call up old pals like nothing was amiss either. What would she talk about?

"Hello dear friend! What's new with me? Well,

"I'm still unemployed.

"I'm still running out of money and worry I won't make it to the next month.

"I still send out resumes but nobody has even offered me so much as an interview.

"I still don't have a boyfriend to kiss away the tears I can't cry, or make my lips turn up in the smile I'm not sure I can make anymore.

"I still don't have anyone to hold me and be here for me.

"I still have no face to face meaningful contact with another human being.

"I still have nothing good to bring to a conversation.

"I still can't be your cheerleader and applaud you for the successes in your life because of the lack in my own.

"My life is still falling apart.

"I still feel as though I am nothing.

"And how are you, dear friend?"

Sometimes, especially when she thought about Carl, it didn't even hurt anymore that they were gone. With her current situation, not having them around was better, easier. She hated to think of herself as a burden to anyone.

Recently, she'd begun to feel a comforting kinship with Carl—a connection that had the strange effect of alleviating in her the very thing that killed him.

Loneliness," she said aloud into her cold, empty apartment once home and the sun fully up. "I get it now, Carl. I'm sorry I didn't understand. I do now. I understand."

She managed a sardonic smile as she thought how life was always ready to offer up lessons, answering questions she hadn't even known she'd asked. She must have asked at some point "How is it even possible that a person who seems to be okay can just commit suicide out of the blue?" Life had answered her. Life had shown her how it was possible, and at last, Samantha shed a tear for Carl.

When she had recovered, she picked up her address book.