Seven hours before she decided to die, Nora was in free fall, and she had no one to talk to. She felt lost and alone.
Her last hope was her former best friend Izzy, who was over ten thousand miles away in Australia. Unfortunately, things had dried up between them too, and Nora was left with no one to turn to.
She took out her phone and sent Izzy a message, hoping to reconnect and find some semblance of comfort.
Hi Izzy, long time no chat. Miss you, friend. Would be WONDROUS to catch up. X
She added another ‘X’ and sent it, holding her breath as she waited for a response.
As she waited, she found herself wandering by the cinema, where a new Ryan Bailey film was playing tonight. A corny cowboy-romcom called Last Chance Saloon.
Ryan Bailey’s face seemed to always know deep and significant things. Nora had loved him ever since she’d watched him play a brooding Plato in The Athenians on TV, and since he’d said in an interview that he’d studied philosophy. She’d imagined them having deep conversations about Henry David Thoreau through a veil of steam in his West Hollywood hot tub.
‘Go confidently in the direction of your dreams,’ Thoreau had said. ‘Live the life you’ve imagined.’ But who seriously goes confidently in the direction of their dreams? Nora realized that she wasn’t alone in feeling lost and uncertain.
Two hundred years ago, Thoreau had gone and lived in the woods, with no contact from the outside world, to just sit there and write and chop wood and fish. But life was probably simpler two centuries ago in Concord, Massachusetts, than modern life in Bedford, Bedfordshire. Or maybe it wasn’t.
Maybe she was just really crap at it. At life. She felt like she was stuck in a rut, with no direction or purpose.
Whole hours passed by, and Nora felt herself drowning in her own thoughts. She wanted to have a sense of purpose, something to give her a reason to exist. But she had nothing. Not even the small purpose of picking up Mr Banerjee’s medication, as she had done that two days ago. She tried to give a homeless man some money but realized she had no money.
‘Cheer up, love, it might never happen,’ someone said, but Nora knew that their words were hollow and unhelpful.
Nothing ever did, she thought to herself. That was the whole problem.
