What’s Wrong.

I’m not writing as happy as I used to be. It could be deadlines. Wherever I go it’s tinged with this pervasive kind of sadness and futility. It chokes you in odd moments. And I cannot understand where all of this is coming from.

I was in a taxi last night, going home for the second night in a row with my laptop. I had my empty lunchbox beside me. My taxi slowed at a junction close to Tugu Tani. A little street girl in a grubby yellow t-shirt pressed her nose onto the windows. A seat and a taxi door separated us. She was asking for money. I waved my hand away as usual. She looked down and saw the little purple bag. She asked if she could have some, whatever was in the bag. I turned my head away. There were two uneaten oranges inside. But she wouldn’t have seen them. I couldn’t move.

In that moment, I don’t understand why I did what I did. I would have given her the oranges but I couldn’t move. In a rewind, I may have rolled down my window. I’d give her the oranges. She’d run off into the concrete sidewalks amongst the headlights and disappear out of my life forever.

But she stays with me, hands and nose pressed against glass just looking with her empty eyes and wanting things, not even knowing what they are.

It was there, the gulf. A meter of emptiness and something else far worse.