Empty Chairs (...and be human?)

Calvin sat at the dining room table across from a lovely woman in a yellow dress.

"That's the problem with our government's system!!!" she said energetically, pounding the table.

"I see your point, but doesn't something built in to human nature mean that all governments will turn out this way?" he responded, smiling a charming smile.

"NO, NO, you can't base your life's philosophy on that, you have to have FAITH in people!!" she said exuberantly.

"I don't necessarily have faith in PEOPLE, when people gave us so much death and war and corruption. I have faith in kindness and the connections shared between people. I believe in love."

She smiled across the table at him. "That's what's really the most important thing in life, isn't it? Caring for those around you. Bringing kindness and positivity in to their lives."

He returned her radiant smile and felt his heart swell with a warm sense of contentment. This was the intimacy he'd yearned for for so long.

This conversation with the woman in the dress--this is the conversation he was having.

It was imaginary. The table across from him was empty.

He was staring at the empty chair, his eyes slightly disfocused, a vague smile on his face. His thoughts on the perfect conversation with the woman who his mind put there.

The real people. They sat directly beside him. To them he said absolutely nothing.

He smile widened as he grinned at the chair across the table. The conversation in his head had progressed to plans of peaceful marriage. He didn't hear a word his friends were saying.

We all have days

Where we focus our attention

On the empty chairs