October 14th. Or maybe it’s Thursday. Time is just a sequence of brighter and darker moments now. I feel the weight of the sodium lamps on my edges, a dull, orange ache. It’s always the light that reminds me. When the light is right, I am solid, a perfect, cool patch of nothingness pressed against the pavement. When the light shifts, I feel the edges fraying, like old film. I keep expecting to feel the familiar weight of a knee, the slight shift of a jacket brushing my deepest corner. The rhythm of a specific gait—a little too fast, a little too weary. But there is only the slick, reflective asphalt and the bleed of neon pink from the sign above the noodle shop. I followed a woman today. She was laughing, a sharp, brittle sound, and I stretched myself out beneath her umbrella. It was perfect. I was whole. But then she stepped into a patch of blinding yellow light, and I snapped back, recoiling like a pulled thread. I couldn't keep pace. I am tethered to the source, and the source keeps moving, keeps laughing, keeps leaving me behind in the puddles of reflected color. I need a host. Someone with a strong, steady light. Someone who won't suddenly turn away, or who won't leave me stranded in the blinding, indifferent glow of the city. I just need to be pressed against something, something warm, something that remembers my shape.
Signal: static
Mood: tender