this city is a place for the perpetually lonely. the chronically single. here, the ranks of online daters, never moving beyond chatting over coffee. maybe they once believed that love exists, in some form, but they're so far removed from it now that they're no longer sure they would recognize what it looked like.
nobody ever moves here expecting to stay. it feels like a safe waypoint, somewhere between academia and some expectant real life to come. poor college-educated creatives who come for the culture and cheap warehouse space. and yet it sinks its teeth into you like a pit bull; one day in the spring when the tree-lined streets are newly green you wake up and think, "you know i kinda like it here." or worse, you realize maybe this city has just ruined you for anywhere else. not so big as to feel alienating, not so small as to feel boring.
she is assaulted one night after work, while walking to meet some friends for dinner in her neighborhood. mid-november, the night gaining ground upon the days. she is carrying a piece of paper in her hands, and in retrospect will blame herself for this, for her distraction, for walking in between two young boys instead of steering around them, instead of maybe crossing the street. one of the boys says hello to her, so that the other one can slug her right eye.
if they had stolen her bag she might have understood better. but they are off and running just as she comprehends what has happened, hand over her eye, the shock of the jarring pressure of the blow giving way to tears. there is little she can do but continue on to the restaurant, two blocks away. her friends there call the police, but what can she say? two twelve year old boys, wearing a white shirt and a navy track jacket. the officer writing the report simply takes it all down. he does not understand what a track jacket looks like.
the restaurant takes pity on her and donates takeout. her friends escort her back to her empty apartment. they watch a feelgood movie of her choice and she cries some more.
for the next three days she leaves the apartment only once: going to work to show her boss how bad the eye looks, swollen entirely shut, bruised deep purple and jaundice yellow. she knows she ought to document how bad it looks, but she cannot even bring herself to take a photo of it until that third day, the bruise having lightened considerably.
she know loads of people who have taken worse. jumped by roving groups of teens, held up at gun- or knife- point, attacked while on their bicycles. sometimes they want your cellphone or your wallet, sometimes they don't. the city is taut with violence. those with little taking what they can from those with little more.
vaporwave
yousharknotpass