2020-03-16 - Hollow

Her key turns in the door to her apartment. The little alarm system makes its earnest beeping noise to prompt her to key in her code, and she obliges it with a sigh. Roxy looks at the dark expanse of her little home as she closes and locks the door behind her. Silent. Empty. Lonely. Her keys get tossed into a bowl on a table by the door. Her coat is shrugged off and hung on a wall hook. Her heels get slid off and plucked up off the floor in one hand as she flips on a light switch and the kitchen is awash in brightness that makes her squint after the darkness of the Pourhouse and her taxi ride to the Broadleaf.

The place is nicely decorated, tasteful, the best IKEA and Target can provide at her income. But it looks like a show place. More like something to be seen, than lived in. There are no photographs on the walls, no old favorite crocheted afghans for the couch, no thoughtful notes pinned by magnets to the fridge. It's hollow, like she is. It's devoid of any connections to any people, not even herself. There is still the seed of paranoia buried in her. If she makes any ties, if she lets her face get out there into the world, either the Asylum or her murderous parents will recognize her as Riika, and come for her. So there is no sense of the woman who lives here in the furnishing or decoration.

Her shoes are set on the counter before the pantry is opened and a bottle of red wine removed. She isn't much of a drinker, but she'd bought some in the hopes she'd have guests, friends who would come to welcome her into her new place, finally away from the murder motel. No one offered, though. No one came. She's the only person aside from the cable and internet installers who have passed through the door to apartment 103. She uncorks the bottle with a shiny new, previously unused, corkscrew and looks for a moment for where she put the wineglasses. She decides 'fuck it' and just drinks right from the bottle. No one is there to judge her, afterall.

She scoops her shoes back up in her free hand and moves to her bedroom. It's neat, tidy, and just as impersonal as the rest. She has tried to put down roots, but she still doesn't even know who she really is deep down. She was sheltered for so long, kept away from a normal life by her family, worked to the bone to make her a successful dancer. She was deprived of a childhood, of friendships, of romance or dating or even holding hands with a boy. And then she was put in that place, and the few things she does remember are pain and fear and trying to help others in the dead of night.

Were there any loves there? If so, she has no memory of them. Did she have any experiences? Again, there is nothing but blank spaces where those two years belong, with just those flashes and snapshots that she's learned have probably stolen some good things from her memory. So she is alone, stIll, and has been as long as she can recall. There isn't even a pet in her apartment to keep her company. She has co-workers and students, but their interaction begins and ends at the doors of the studio.

She puts her shoes away on the rack in the closet, sets the bottle of wine down on a nightstand, and undresses. The sweater and skirt go onto hangers in a section to go to a dry cleaner. Vintage has to be properly maintained, and the smell of stale beer and sweat and other things from the bar are permeating the fabrics. Pajamas, flannel and new, are exchanged for the dressy clothing. Makeup is removed. Her hair is pushed back in a headband. She crawls into her bed and cradles the wine bottle in her hands. There were a few people she had entertained thoughts of being with. But they had people already, or saw her as too young, too nice, too whatever excuse they could find to turn her away. It didn't help she had utterly no idea how to flirt, or express her interest in people. She was just missing those bits of a person that should have been imparted to her in her teenage years.

She turns on the television to an old movie. Roman Holiday with Audrey Hepburn and the ravishingly handsome Gregory Peck. That was romance, the sort she'd dreamed about. But it is just not in the cards. Half a bottle of wine later she's passed out in her bed, with some other hopelessly romantic movie marking the wall behind her with it's black and white brightness. Tomorrow is another day for the Hollow Girl.