Donuts

I really don’t feel like it today – not at all. Alright, I never feel like it but today I really don’t. I’m tired. I don’t want to talk or contribute. I definitely don’t want to listen or think about God and how he saved me. I don’t want to pray because I don’t feel like lying. I want to be honest but I think I’m too tired for that. I don’t want to applaud or nod or understand or judge because you always end up judging even when you tell yourself not to, even when you tell yourself they are no different than you, you always end up judging even when they have the same problems as you. They are not you, they are different and so you judge.

I don’t want to be here today, especially today, everything started out wrong everything was a little off. I stubbed my toe as I got out of bed; it’s bruised and sore. There's a blister on my tongue because my coffee was too hot. And I bumped into my dad in the shop when I went out to buy cigarettes luckily he didn’t see me but now I’m in this stupid old gym hall with those stupid plastic seats arranged in stupid “Hey kids, lets pretend its show and tell” type of way. They always treat us like kids, we’re not kids, we’re dangerous screw-ups who have fucked things up in the most miserable way. We don’t need pity, we already feel sorry for ourselves. How else do you think we got here? I only need to look in the mirror and I get fucking depressed.

To avoid any conversation, I hit the donuts and coffee table. No eye-contact or anything, just auto-pilot to donutsdonutsdonuts. The only reason I come here. The only reason I put up with all of this, free caffeine and sugary goodness. Why else would I drag myself to this place, smelling of rotting athlete’s foot and stale farts. If they held these things in clean, disinfected type places I’d be more willing to go. My old flat smells better than this and you don’t want to know what has happened in there.

They have the pink ones today, the best kind. Which one has the thickest layer of icing? Which one has juiciest dough? Poke, prod – this one will do. I raise the fluffy pink donut to my eye and peep through the hole. Look at all these misfits in here – all the losers, loners and regulars like myself; the girl with that awful tattoo on her forehead, the bipolar game show host, the heroin addict with one eye. Like a family I always wanted arranged in a hierarchy of destruction, every seat raises the level of shame. There’s hope for those at the beginning of the circle, not so much for you lot by the supervisor hoping his holiness might rub off on you. No chance fatso, no chance you … –

Okay.

Who is that? Who is she and why is she here? I feel a rush through my brain like an inhalation of nicotine first thing in the morning. God you are beautiful. What are you? A deep-sea treasure I don’t want anyone else to discover but you’re here, completely out of place. Leather jacket, broken jeans, plastic green bangles with purple gems; anyone could just snatch you away. You don’t belong here in this sweaty school gym. You are the most beautiful blue-eyed alien. How did you end up here? How could you be anything remotely like me – remotely like anyone here?

You’re walking over. Okay keep it cool. Stop shaking, wipe your sugary fingers on your trousers. Not like that, that looks gay. Don’t stare at her. Close your mouth. Just stop staring. Look away, look at the donuts, count the donuts – give yourself something to do. She grabs a donut, I think she’s looking right at me. She’s smiling, she’s smiling at you. Return it. She opens her mouth.

“I love these”

Giggle. Shit don’t giggle you idiot. She’s walking away from you, well done. She takes her seat, it’s like she’s been here before, she knows what to do but I’ve never seen her. I need to know more. Of course she happens to take a seat between the biggest misfits in the room a fat beer bellied bus driver and an anorexic brace face. She smiles at them and the anorexic starts to cry. What a sight. I must plan how to go about meeting you, properly, and snatch you away before anyone else does. I need to know more.