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I'm Going Out

“I’m going out.”

I said it mostly as an instruction to myself. The empty studio apartment neither heard nor cared. On a really bad day I would have pretended the tiny barrel cactus in the window heard me. I wasn’t that bad off.

The light flicked out with an ominous fizzle. The door shut stoically, the lock thunking into place dutifully. I paused. The idea occurred to leave it unlocked, just to see if someone might come and remove from me the burden of tarnished possessions.

Plodding down the stairs in my melancholy way I felt the first wisps of cold creeping up from the entryway. The door never stayed shut all the way. Nobody cared. Three flights and I was out into the dark of another January night.

A morbid smile twisted my lips at the thought of my internal furnace, that innate combustion of life and love, struggling gamely to beat back the chill and shadow. It felt cartoonish, this struggle. What chance did my little candle of hope have?

“I’m going out,” I said entirely to myself.

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