Which Is Not Solitude-{++Will+Kathy}
There in the shades and ashes of the world she stood. A light lingering among the rumble. A flame that couldn't be put out. He watched from a distance, knowing he could call her name at any given moment and take her from this crowd. Knowing that she might or might not want to scurry back to it once they had a few words with each other.
He held a scorn for her, for the crowd that she so eagerly attached herself to. They had their way of inviting him but never really accepting him. So he watched, a pitiful observation from a man such as himself. He was without name or money, but he managed to intrigue them with his education. And they were thrilled to have a mind among them. Funny, you'd wonder just what they had in their heads if not minds.
He had retreated into his own corner. He had stamped all the isolated corners of drawing room parties as his. This corner would be his for the whole weekend, that is if he decided to stay the whole while. They had invited him and he had accepted. It was conventional to stay. But he was hardly conventional.
He decided that he would, though the idea beat against his better judgement, stay if Kathy stayed. And only then. Something told him that she would. That she'd meet expectations.
That left a bitter taste in his mouth. He tried to flush it out with a rolled cigarette and the whiskey in his glass. But that made it worse. Such fine tobacco, such fine whiskey. He'd wait for Kathy to come to him. She did sometimes, when she was bored with the rich and eager for keen mocking observations.