Little Details

The sun had just left, and I was sure I was the last one (in the world?). I was in my car in an empty parking lot. I left the radio on for a while, but then I finally grew brave enough to kill the engine. I had expected a torturing silence, but the raindrops on my windshield saved me from a silence I might not have been able to survive.

The big picture was so ugly, so scary, so repetitive, so dark, so empty, so nothing. The dark clouds, the dark buildings, the parking lot, the empty car… I didn’t want to look at it all. So I focused on the little details:

I focused on the torn leather. The raindrops that streamed into one another and then slid downward to the gravel together. The old smells in the car that would never ever leave. The dark purple stain on the passenger seat. The little details, the little things, were better than the big no-things.

I closed my eyes. I opened them and looked around. I closed them. I didn’t want to go back to my apartment. I wasn’t hungry. I didn’t want a drink. I didn’t want another stranger. I didn’t want to risk hearing another lie to find a truth — at least not then — I wasn’t strong enough.

And when you know you’re just not strong enough in that moment, the question bleeds out of your skin: Where…where do you go from here?