The Paragraph: Microcosms of Travelling Lives (episode 3)

GROTESQUE

I killed my baby and everything changed. The news media painted me as a baby killer, an inhuman wretch, without an ounce of morality or common decency. After that, these friends I had, they disappeared, slowly, they moved away; physically, emotionally, metaphysically. Metaphorically we were close – theoretically we loved one another. But in all actuality I cannot recall a single instance in which I was overcome with a wealth of indescribable love or feeling for anyone of them. In fact much of the time, I was angry at my friends. It was a contentious existence between one another. I sold them short. I used them for my own instant gratification… just as they used me. We had a mutual understanding that as long as we could go on serving each others' immediate wants, we would go on spending time together. The understanding was an unspoken one.