Choices Not Taken

I could learn the language of the place, easily, if I wanted to, if I was that kind of person, if I didn't have an aversion to taking roots. • There are so many places though, that is the first choice: you can't learn them all. You'd have to pick a place and decide to get stuck there for a 'while' that could turn into a 'forever'. Around me the locals talk, in their own tongue, as they should, this being their land. And so, I am more alone than if I was alone, colder than, more bored than. There's no resolution to my barrier, I'll forever be uncomfortably pushed against it till I choose to pay the toll and bar my way back. There's nothing waiting for me back "here", where I am now, and that's what I'm like, even if it feels empty at times, sweet nothingness, all possibilities open, a corridor of paths I walk by. I peer into all or some of them with interest, but I'm too curious to see the next one to risk putting both feet into any one path. Who knows where there'll be quicksand. • The second choice is not to cave in, but to have a cave. As a Dweller of the Abyss I've learned to love the option of solitude and I can't ever go back to being like others, even if I can act the part convincingly. There is no rest for me if I don't have my cave, my Van. I must not forget this at any time. The Times have put people in communal living, how they should be I guess, but I am not people. They all need to live in closeness, it seems they have a room, but all they really have is a door, and an impending invasion, which is nice, for people. I like my invaders to be controlled, this isn't true, I just want to reserve the right to bar the door, to be with only me when I want to be. So there is no other choice for me, I must achieve the cave, a relief, another fix of my drug: the missions. Crystallize the idea so it can carry you to the future.