The Infinite Humiliation of Caroline Sullivan

No Connection

The internet is down.

Caroline drips shower water onto the parquet in front of her desk from beneath her mint bathrobe, watching nothing happen. It seems emblematic of a consistent, broad-strokes type of nothing that has permeated every aspect of Caroline's being for months. Maybe years.

She sighs, and leaves a trail of puddles to her balcony door, grabbing a mostly empty pack of cigarettes from the adjacent window sill before stepping out into the cold air. Her wet hair freezes into a solid snake around her neck, with a slippery tail buried in the shoulders of her robe, which she holds shut with one arm while struggling to extract her lighter from the opposite pocket. The pocket's edges are stained yellow and singed. Cat sneaks out, awkwardly padding around the thin snow on the balcony to rub up against her ankle because he wants breakfast. Absently, she nudges him back indoors with the toe of her slipper, and from the kitchen, his distant, forlorn meow goes unanswered.

Taking a drag, she scans the street, covered in snow that the city can't afford to plow with any degree of consistency, as tiny, bundled people in peacoats and blue jeans huff along to their destinations, leaving brief trails of breath lingering. They always look ahead, never up. They never see her watching them.

The cold makes Caroline's eyes water, and when she blinks, the tears feel thick and stick to her eyelashes. The sensation is a cousin to an emotion. Something like loss, or desperation, or longing. She fixes her gaze on nothing in particular and intentionally blurs a theatrical line within her between performing the emotion her body appears to have and experiencing it.

In the office building across the street, she can see the ghostly shapes of people starting their workdays, watching the tiny people huff along as she had from their own windows. Eventually, they always step away from the window and go back to work, and somehow, this makes Caroline feel completely alone. The only living girl in this moment. There is no further need for performance.

Directly across, a handsome, younger man approaches the window. He gazes downward, holding a coffee mug in both hands in front of him. Caroline fixes her teary gaze on him. His attention remains on the street, and the longer he lingers, the stronger Caroline's yearning becomes. Longing to be seen, to be known. Aching to be perceived, and to know that they both exist.

Cold, but determined, she wills him to see her. Silently, she begs him, with her frozen hair, stained mint bathrobe, and wet eyes to look at her. Equally determined, she supposes, he does not, but remains at the window, people-watching. Shaking, both from cold and emotions that seem to have crept up on her from nowhere, Caroline insists to him and herself that she is also a people. Her lips pinch tightly around her cigarette - nearly down to the filter now - as she waves both arms violently.

Startled, in a double-take, he looks up from the street and in her direction. In her desperation, Caroline fails to notice that her frantic waving has caused her housecoat to fall open. His eyes scan from her slippers to her pale, pink knees, up and up - slowly - to her eyes. Gazes locked, Caroline, at last, feels the satisfaction of being seen - of knowing that she does still exist. Refusing, for once, in that moment, to be embarrassed about exposing herself, Caroline boldly shakes off the rest of the housecoat and stands naked, but for the cigarette and the slippers, on her balcony in the snow. The morning sun reflects off the windows of the office building and casts its glow onto her radiant, smiling face.

Their eyes remain locked each other, and Caroline waits for his reaction. He stares back at her for a while, sipping from his mug without breaking eye contact, and then just turns away, fading back into the office.

The joy empties from Caroline's body entirely, along with the illusion of warmth. She drops to her knees, silently and thoughtlessly picking up the damp robe from the ground and returning inside to feed her awful cat.

The internet remained down.