Day 353 - Fifty Foot Hole in My Yard

Fifty Foot Hole in My Yard

Matthew Ryan Fischer

 

 

I had an entire relationship with a dating profile without ever once contacting the other person. They used an obvious nickname as their handle and the photos and descriptions were super detailed and specific. It was super easy to find the cyber trail across platforms and media. I had learned what school they went to, three different cities they lived in, discovered several defunct profiles on freelance job sites, fallen in love and broken up all from the convenience of my keyboard. She had a real nice smile though. I’m sure we could have had some fun. I thought about deleting my old profiles. Destroy this old past staring back at me. I hardly recognized the man I was claiming to be.

There were reports of earthquakes in Iceland or Norway or maybe both. A volcano had erupted. It only made the news for one day, so it probably wasn’t that bad. But then again maybe it was just hard to come up with clickbait headlines about fire and ice when things like war and economic collapses were happening every day.

I nearly got into a finder-bender when I wanted the same parking spot as a pickup truck at the grocery outlet store. My twenty-year-old sedan was no match for a behemoth of the road, so I lost that spat. Inside while looking at the discount meat for something that wasn’t so old or so discolored that it scared me, I noticed the man from the truck. I watched as he took a bottle of orange juice from a refrigerator and proceeded to take one of those mini-bottles of vodka from his pocket and make himself a Screwdriver. I told myself that it was his first drink of the day. I told myself that it was none of my business and I was lucky to have not gotten into a fight with this man.

Outside, there was a private security car with it’s lights flashing. Perhaps someone else had noticed the grocery store day drinking and had done what I should have done. But I saw no driver in the car and I saw no driver of the truck. Something was going on, but I didn’t know what.

I got a text from an old girlfriend seeing how I was doing around the holidays, worried that perhaps the winter blues were especially bad this year. I looked up her wedding photos to someone that wasn’t me.

Later, I sat out on the back porch and had my own vodka drink. But I was stationary and at home. But perhaps just as lonely. The darkness closed in. I should have bought wood for the firepit, but had told myself it was a foolish expenditure. Literally burning money. But the night was getting cold and my sweater had holes and the jacket was too thin. I could have gone back inside. Instead, I had another drink.

The shadows crossed the yard and seemed to blend with the dead grass to create the great big illusion of nothingness. Nothingness all around like a gigantic black hole in my heart. I rolled out of my chair and lay on the ground and closed my eyes. Somewhere in the cosmos something had meaning.  Somewhere something connected and there would have been a feeling importance and intimacy and someone would convince themselves that they were no alone. I rolled over and looked at the stars. If only someone somewhere was thinking of me. If only they were cyber stalking me, then I might feel like I had mattered and it had all been worth it. Maybe I should keep those profiles up. Maybe I should make some more for someone else to find. Maybe it would give someone hope that some sort of connection was possible. Maybe that person would be me.