Living In A Deserted City

Ever feel like you’re alone in a crowd? Now take away the crowd. How do you feel now?

One of the most important parts of my recovery has been about being around people again. I require a lot more personal space, and certainly more ‘me’ time, after having spent 100 days alone virtually every day. Counterbalancing this is a core group of good friends who know that getting over the starvation is as much about re-acclimating my head as it is my belly.

On Tuesday I had a spontaneous barbecue. I’d called up a mate of mine to suggest we get together for supper, and it evolved into eight people coming over for grilled steaks, fresh veggies, and mellow conversation ’till the wee hours. Because I was in the comfort of my own home and with a small group of drama-free people, I didn’t feel the usual need to excuse myself and go home to my own space lest I “suffocate”.

This from a guy who used to run around in the bushes with an automatic rifle playing war games – or the real thing, as required – alongside brothers in arms, and who would have described “personal space”, if given any thought at all, as merely two words in the English language.

A few nights after the dinner-invitation-turned-potluck I ended up having drinks in a lounge bathroom with two ladies in evening gowns. I’d been chatting on Facebook with then when they told me they were going to the lounge for martinis, and would I like to come along. The particular lounge had been a favorite haunt of mine but I wasn’t in the mood to be in public. “You won’t be” quipped one of ‘em. “You’ll be with us.”

Knowing her puckish ways I should have taken that as more than cheekiness. When we got to the lounge, the ladies looking lovely in their gowns, me in the one suit I have that still sorta-kinda fits me in that borrowed-from-a-bigger-brother way, we split up, passed through the respective bathrooms, into a new room built behind them for quiet socializing.

Like this, but without the dog. Or rifle. Or daylight. Or Will Smith's looks.

While the main lounge had a DJ barely qualified to press the ‘play’ button blasting tunes that smothered any hope of conversation, we sat in our speakeasy sipping martinis as though the rest of society had been eaten by zombies leaving us to play, alone together, in the remains of the city.

The following night I realized I was out of bread. For some reason that’s all I really wanted – a chunk of french loaf. I hopped on my bike and rode a few kilometers to the 24 hour supermarket.

Riding through the streets at 3am is an eerie feeling. It was as though the zombieocalypse had eaten my two gown-clad companions, leaving me as the last person on Earth (and i still wasn’t getting any, proving the axiom many a girl has said to many a guy through the ages).

There were 3 people on staff at the store, clustered at the front engrossed in their own conversation. Did I mention this is a supermarket? I was living my own Zac Hobson moment; I’d just pedaled through misty streets and intersections, their glowing traffic lights signaling to nothing in particular, only to enter a store and walk through the aisles, easily forgetting there were three other human beings present.

Well, four, really as I turned a corner and ran into another shopper. Literally. It reminded me of something I’d read as a kid, about how at one point in the State of Kansas there were only two licensed automobiles (horseless carriages being relatively new at the time) …and they got into a head-on collision.

We gave each other that apologetic half-smile and carried on. Later we emerged from the store at about the same time. As I placed my french loaf in one of the saddlebags on my bike and unlocked the chain, she was climbing into her massive SUV.

That 5,000 lb. cocoon, which probably gives her a sense of security in rush hour traffic, seemed like such overkill as she drove through an empty parking lot to turn onto an otherwise deserted thoroughfare. Unless of course there really were zombies out there – then her vehicle would arguably be a better choice than my bike.

I rode home, mentally poking fun at myself for stopping at lights and stop signs even though there wasn’t a a single moving vehicle in sight, or indeed any sign of human life except myself.

As I sat in my living room watching True Blood and eating a chunk of bread, it hit me. While the thought of leaving my house to go to social events still kinda bugs me, and while riding through the night air was bracing and fun, being around my friends and having that sense of community was much nicer than the loneliness of feeling like the last person on earth, alone in a market or the only thing moving down a wide main street.

Just as I’m starting to think of food as something other than utilitarian energy, and starting to enjoy the tastes and textures again, I’m starting to enjoy and appreciate the company of others.

If this is true, then my recovery has finally started.