#sixth stop

I Would Like to Make Film to Tell Children ‘It's Good to Be Alive’

Shoshanna was mumbling to herself in French, falling in and out of a light sleep - the shivers keeping her from being completely lax.

Halloween had more than run it’s course and here she was, dressed as a zombified Elizabeth Bennet. At the behest of her roommates, Shoshanna had gone all out this time around. Adorned in a gold, short-sleeved underdress, and a white, sheer overdress with long sleeves. The neck of the sheer layer and the bottom of the sleeves had a thick trim around them, and the skirt of the top layer was embroidered in a diamond pattern. Her form was accentuated by the white hourglass corset that was laced in the back, and her cleavage was more noticeable than usual. Her hair was done up in a messy bun, her skin painted a sickly grey-blue from head to toe. If Cat or Matteo could see her now, so intricately dressed up and not in all black for once, they might’ve chocked on their own spit. She thought of the two briefly, wondering what they were up to. Initially, she had taken a week off but then she requested another. Her first week had been rather hectic; partying almost every night, managing to get lost, sleeping with Matteo again, Leon somehow bumping into her on the street, and her daily mix of drug intake. This second week hadn’t been nearly as fun, she kept to herself mostly; staying at home where she would drink by herself, run around the flat naked shouting out lyrics to angry songs, sleep for fifteen hour intervals due to her mixture of exhaustion and depression, snort some coke or smoke some weed. Margo had made some mention recently of how skinny she was getting. Lately, Shoshanna couldn’t say that she had much of an appetite. Josh questioned why she seemed more sullen than usual and Quentin advised her to go see a doctor since she seemed a little sickly. All of her roommates commented that she was being “too reckless.” She barely listened, feeling that their opinions didn’t matter since they had no clue what was truly wrong with her.

Yesterday evening was the first she had stepped out of her apartment since she had seen Leon all those nights ago. That just so happened to be the last time she feasted on anything substantial. Which made that about a good five or six days now. Her appetite for drink and drugs, however, seemed to only become more ravenous. She was destroying her body, she was well aware, helping that fucking infection that was within her but she was feeling too numb to give a shit. If she had a knack for anything, it was being imprudent when it came to her actions regarding herself.

Yes, well, who is going to take care of you if you won’t do it yourself? Her rational mind told her.

Everyone she knew was out there living their lives and here she was, too busy feeling sorry for herself, trying to hold a bolder that was beginning to weigh on her. She felt alone, completely and utterly alone and for the first time in her life the thought was daunting. She sighed, leaning her head against the cold, silver bars as she looked about. The train that she had boarded was taking her somewhere, she really didn’t know. After leaving the head-bangers and club kids to their own devices, she made a beeline for the nearest train station and snagged the next line that came up, not bothering to look at where she was going. There were a few people in the car she was boarding, seeing as how 5a.m. wasn’t usually the best hour for the sport of people watching - the partygoers tended to be sleeping on the train, the working men/women reading their newspapers and drinking their coffee on their way to work.

Yet Shoshanna took up her position in a content sort of silence, taking in the space around her. The art of observation at its finest.

By the door was a teenaged girl; jet-black hair down to her shoulders and eye makeup stretching from her lashes to her brows in one thick-yet-artful smudge. She glared at the floor and toed the ground with one thick army boot, skinny arms wrapped around a standing pole, though there were plenty of empty seats in the car.

On one bench was a couple: a boy and a girl - the girl fast asleep on her boyfriend’s shoulder, oblivious to the rattle and hum of machinery around her, perfectly within her own sleepy, trusting ease of life. And her boy smiled and held her a little closer, perfectly within his own waking, trusting ease of life.

A middle-aged man in a suit and tie, a young woman examining a rip in her stockings, some teeny-bopper boys playing it cool and loud in the back with rude jokes and ruder commentary on their friends in school. One by one they left, silent and sure and steady as they played it off like any other day.