Something.

        Looking out the window, I can watch all the people on the street below. The office workers overdressed for their weary days, slaves to the paper on their desks. The drab suits and blouses all uniform in likeness. They scuttle along towards the closest coffee shop, looking very much like dung beetles, all traveling in the same direction weighed down by bullshit. Young people are down there too. Their hair is shiny, and their clothes all reflect the latest trends. They don’t frequent the coffee shops on this street though, instead they search for the grimiest hole-in-the-wall that advertises free trade and poetry readings. I squint at the offending green coats. The green is earthy, and the waists are cinched, and the entire garment an offense to the uniform they mimic.

        I used to walk down there too, I don’t walk down there anymore. I used to walk down that street every day. I even remember the first time I had strolled down that strip of pavement. Shiny and new and ready. I had been fascinated by the tall buildings, and eager to learn what my life would hold. If only I had known, then I would have been prepared to fend off the vultures. At eighteen, I left my parents’ home and I moved into a small apartment further down the street with five of my best friends. I learned that year that I did not know my five best friends, nor did I like them enough to want to know them. I have not talked to any of them in the last fifty years.

        I was young back then, young enough that I fell for the fads. I had paraded through this street, walking confidently without a bra and waving peace propaganda. My hair not brushed, my clothes loose; only appreciating my modern philosophy class. I had spent those years trying to forget all of what my parents had taught me, and trying to instill the beliefs of my peers in myself. I was convinced that the world would change, that I was a part of that change. I remember the crowds of people around me, feeling hot and sweaty, and happy that I belonged to something.

        But as all things do, something faded away to nothing. I graduated, found my bra, and walked down the streets for a different reason. I dressed like the corporate clowns I used to mock, and played faithful servant. And the macho men I served beneath, looked down my shirt as their hands crawled up my legs.  I never had anything worth saying, and if I did; well, it wasn’t really my idea in the first place, now was it? I tried to remember what my parents had taught me, but couldn’t forget the things I preached and so I ruptured. I only lasted a few years until I burst, storming down the street until I got to the jewelers. And then, I spent three months of savings on a shiny ring that would sit on my finger, sullying all the beliefs I had ever believed. It was only supposed to stay for a little while.

        Time went by, and the shoulders on my jacket became larger, and the ring on my finger stayed. A man hadn’t talked to me, or touched me, in years. When I realised I missed the attention, I took the ring off. But I was too late, and the men on this street weren’t looking at me anymore. My little girl fantasies of the perfect family were dashed. No dutiful father, no loving mother, and definitely no joyous children playing in the yard. My finger felt naked, and I slipped it on again.

        Now I’m here, in a room overlooking the street that had hosted the majority of my life.A life that I had missed out on. I inhabited a small room, empty of all personal possessions. It’s doesn’t have my mirror, the one with the shattered corner from when my father had dropped it on the dog. Or the tarnished silver jewelry box that I had inherited from my grandmother when I was sixteen. I’m missing the two ivory elephants that my brother, Robert, had brought me from when he had visited India. The only true possession I had left was that horrid ring.

        I have made myself a place in this dungeon though, the chair I like to sit on dragged right to the window; farthest from the door.The door opens, and a vulture flies in. The young woman is too cheery and nice to be sincere. Her chatter is grating, always calling me Mrs, as though she knows of my marital status, or lack thereof. Today, she compliments my ring, like the horrid hag she is. She asks me if I miss my husband. I spite her, sarcastically telling her that I did miss him, he had been the love of my life. She pities me, I can tell. The vulture has become bored of waiting, and leaves the room. I'm alone again, alone with my ring.

        I'm nothing now. Just dying prey, watching the circling vultures fly slow circles around me. In the street below me walk people like I once did. I was something, I want to tell them, I was something too.