The Writers' Circle

I stood with the other smokers by the wall; we stood together but apart, our learned code of conduct blocking us from interaction... An artistic looking middle-aged man in grey stood ten steps away, grey cigarette smoke winding upwards, his glasses an invisible barrier... He watched me as I watched the waves, the sea with its neverending rhythym calming me, and as I watched, things seemed to make more sense...  Yet still nothing seemed to be real; nothing I saw, felt or heard - no, none of it made me feel real, and nothing affected me. The way he looked at me, the way I looked at the waves, the way the wind made my hair fly around my face - nothing seemed to...and even now as I remember and live it over again, still my mind is confused and I just dont know...how things can happen yet I'm still so unfeeling, so unalive... I'm so unreal... Then the train came noisily down its winding path and there was no more smoking and no more watching of the sea or of people.  We made our way cautiously to the doors as they slid open with a hiss and the people spilled out; so many of them - eyes ahead and hands in pockets against the biting cold... And I sat parrallel to the artistic grey man. He read; I drank - both of us too busy to notice the beautiful greens, yellows, browns and reds that sped past us... By the time we arrived the bottle hidden in my bag was nearly empty and life was already seeming better...blurred... I left the station, made my way to the shops to smell the perfumes - so many different scents. And then to a bar, where I felt at home... Finally I set off to the interview... I had to ask directions... The woman was friendly and I tried hard to seem sober (a difficult skill mastered only with experience) and I was asked to complete a test which I happily did, although tests can be difficult when drunk... Even now, in my mind, it is hard to distinguish between yesterday, and the day of which I write, which was the day BEFORE yesterday... Yesterday...well, the second interview went well, for the most part; towards the end, anxiousness blurred my vision and her small white face with its small white earrings was the only thing visible through the haze of colours...  Finally they let me go and I walked the short distance to the train station where the restless anxiousness increased to a point where another drink was not merely 'wanted' but NEEDED...and then a sleeping pill - a 'hypnotic' - which I thought really seemed to fit its name as I sat feeling the familiar stillness spread through my mind and my body... Then outside, with more smokers in the wind, sharing our quiet bond... And throughout all this and returning home to my town and to the sea's dependable calmness, nothing - NOTHING is what I felt...taking the place of everything that I should have felt, nothing...