Not for all the clove cigarettes in the world would she countenance that step

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Loneliness was all the rage, a thing to be cultivated. Thousands, most of whom were fundamentally OK with what they were and how much they counted less than a year ago, went to pieces. They went places, did things, and those I knew simply wanted to curl up in a ball away from everyone. Then of course get together to talk about the need to not be together raging inside them and smoke until their tongues chafed whatever area of mouth they contacted.

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Extravagant things happened. Some gave way to crushing insecurity, others simply gave way. Posterboard and markers were nearly always on sale. The radiators clunked on falteringly for awhile, then stopped. Clouds of cold breath pushed up against the ceilings, percolating for days on end. Girls with long faces and wide hips fashioned slogans that spoke to their condition.

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Fights broke out. Beers were tossed aside or casually broken at the neck, jagged instruments that bespoke bargaining power and casual engagement with strangers’ well-being. Men in pressed jeans and immaculate coifs walked out of bars, blood streaming from long gashes under their faces. They weren't real bars - just symbols - and the blood was more like divorces and the creeping perception that eventually all the pictures would stop. Journalism majors who deigned to stand above the partisanship slipped on the sopping floors of their glass-ceilinged prose and came out, if at all, broken. There really was nowhere else to go, and being nervous and lonely and unsure why didn’t anyone placate much at all.