The walls around her occasionally cracked. She never felt indestructible or anything foolish like that, but they couldn't keep her down, "they" being anyone or anything directly or indirectly attempting to get in the way of her goals.
She disliked everyone else's smell. She wished she could walk down the street without ever having to smell anyone else. Shampoo recently rinsed out of hair still wet, perfume freshly spritzed, body odor of someone leaving the gym – none of it made her day any better. Home cooked foods steaming through open row home windows – there was a smell she could enjoy, moreso if she were hungry (but not too hungry).
The randomness of it all really got to her, that of the smells and that of the occasional circumstances conspiring to bring her down. That of those stories she read weekly in the paper or saw when she opened up Yahoo!. Devious, targeted attacks never bothered her. At least the planned stuff had some purpose, she thought, good or bad or indifferent. She'd do her best to stay one step ahead of those who plotted her demise.
But the random acts, those without rhyme or much reason, if any, those were a source of frustration. To accept a lack of control while preparing as best she could, that's what she tried to do.
Sounds like a frustrating thing to do.
ReplyDeleteLately, when they tumble down, they tend to land on me. I can sympathize with a rocky metaphor.
ReplyDeleteAh smells, they can evoke such memories good and bad.........
ReplyDeleteSmells can be such a problem - just the other day, I caught a whiff of wet tarmac and it reminded me of walking through Putney in December 2004, and then I got to work where someone steadfastly refused to use deodorant. The nose is a powerful thing indeed.
ReplyDeleteGreat portrait of psychoneurosis. Truly, we’re sitting ducks out in the world. And even in our own homes we are, for sure, at the risk of a peripheral Yahoo! attack... It all does boil down to the closing, impossible sentence : )
ReplyDeleteSeems like a pretty bleak existence!
ReplyDelete