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why i choose to live alone

by sonja berlin-jones

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1.
xxxxy 13:22
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2.
xxxyy 16:48
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3.
xxyyy 16:37
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4.
xyyyy 29:35
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about

Four very difficult pieces, though I think a few people could possibly like the first thing, a few less might like the last one, but overall these are quite challenging pieces, simple but alone. Talking of which, I shall tell you about a couple of things that happened to me - last night, and the night before. Last night I was at a posh-ish concert, the sort of thing where the audience sits down and shuts up - yes I have reached that age. I was with a couple of friends. They sat on my immediate right. On my immediate left were a couple of strangers, a man and a woman, obviously married or very good friends or whatever.

They were already sitting in their places when I shuffled along to sit next to them. I don't know if you do this, or even if it is the done thing anywhere, but I shyly smiled at them as I sat down. They looked poison at me - as though they'd recognised me as the local serial killer or someone. So that was the end of that. I ignored them. But even without wanting to, I couldn't help noticing that they said very little to one another, and those words were cold and blank and horrid and yes I am certain they were a married couple, living the full-horror life of a long and unhappy marriage.

The evening before that a very similar thing happened. This was the theatre. No I do not enjoy the theatre and almost never go. But this doesn't really count - it's the local am-dram thing, tickets are a tenner, and we all troop along because it is the sort of thing you do in a community - and to be honest when the theatre is done as intimately and cheaply and badly as this it is much more enjoyable than Laurence Olivier declaiming Bottom or whoever. Again, my friends (different friends) were on my right, and a stranger-couple were on my left. Yes I smiled at them as I sat down. The woman ignored me, but the man (sitting immediately next to me) stared at me as though he knew me but couldn't quite place me. He kept on staring and it got a bit weird so I told him that he was looking at me in a very odd way and he opened his mouth and a gentle weak animal-noise came out and I realised that he'd either had a stroke or was quite far into dementia.

So of course I felt a bit guilty at snapping slightly at him. The woman/wife was very attentive to him throughout the play, longing for him to die in the end. He kept turning and looking at me, and I really didn't mind at all. These things are why I go to the theatre. Once per decade. All four people in these two couples were about my age. How did any of them end up in this mess ? What a hell life must be for each of them. They'd given up. They'd chosen misery. For three of them it is not too late. Get out oh do get out - imagine you are living among the clouds, above all the trivia around us all, I can't remember a thing that anyone has ever said that has ever mattered, nothing I have done has made a difference - so I've tried to do just the things I enjoy doing - getting out, oh always getting out, you must never care too much for people or expect to be cared for at all.

(recorded over the past few days, photo the New Forest by Vanessa Oliver)

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released March 14, 2023

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sonja berlin-jones Southampton, UK

katharinebeastman.bandcamp.com

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