Some things don't seem to change at all.

Like the way the horizon of the city stretches, light splintering between windows, solid steel breaking up into the sky. As I sit on the edge of the sidewalk, my stomach now filled, I try to tilt my head back as far as I can to fall dizzy into the clouds. 

For a split second the sun blinds my eyes and I'm laying in the crumpled grass with my school mates and the elementary teacher is trying to explain to us the types of clouds. Her hand points out the whisps and curls. My best friend holds my small hand, but I can't recall her name. 

Truth is. 

I don't know much of anything. Not then. Not now.

My head comes down, my eyes drop to the hands in my lap that still hold the white card. It's strange how we can have the feeling of wanting nothing at all while keeping the smallest tokens. 

Beside me is a crumpled paper bag with lunch scraps.

My feet dangle in space, the edge of the sidewalk giving way to open air. A thin railing separates reality from infinite nothing. Below, hover cars nearly graze my shoes.

Truth was.

I was bored.

On the Janie scale, that's one step down from dramatic misery and one step up from making the most horrible life-ending oops. Like how I could fly off the edge of this drop or accidently bend over to tie my shoe in the middle of a traffic zone.

And then you're like: Na. I'll settle for eating ice cream. Better to simultaneously destroy any nutritional diet I was on, rot my teeth, and feel sickly full. 

Besides, 

I know the difference between talking to myself and waking up to the world. 

Death is heavy. Regretful. Unchanging. Often painful. It can’t save you. It cannot change things. It cannot think. It cannot love nor hate.

It's something to remind yourself of, while you can. The whole concept can really put things into perspective. Cause you think you're dead inside now. You think this is bad now. It needs to end now, oh you think it…

You know, I think I'm depressed. 

I think that I came outside to be found. And even though I won't say I know. 

I know why.

There are unread messages on my bracelet phone.

I stopped reading them

'wait a while'

'sort out' 

Like...just go on vacation Janie. 

Well this adult (hardly) has never had so much free time in their life (always). 

I sigh.

Someone must be staring at me now. Must be. I wonder what their troubles are. Do they have a kid to fuss over, or are they one step away from a dream that is a few more steps away? Always a few.

I mean, why does a familiar face never appear at the time you need? Is it true? Are we born to be alone?

There are billions of people in the world and a hundred ways to connect. But do I want to?

Amid the rushing noise of traffic, I observe as a candy wrapper flies out a crack in a car window to plaster itself on the windshield of the vehicle behind, which engages the wipers to fling it off, and it gets stuck. Plastered to the side of a billboard advertising breath mints. 

YUM. Or whatever.

A tiny circular robot floats by to grab the scrap in its small pincers and shove it into its robot mouth, then float away. Litter and pollution have not become less as much as better hidden. They say that if you ride the elevators all the way down to ground, where they don't bother to install PortPads, the buildings looked like colorful poster plastered houses from all the paper junk.

I feel the edge of the plastic card press into my thumb. Making a decision, I slip the card into my back pocket, and without looking away from the glinting windows of hi-rise heaven or the zip-mobeales, I pull over the paper bag with my lunch and lift out half a tinfoil wrapped hot dog. 

I feel the plastic card half slipping from the pocket of my cheap jeans.

Soon I'll go back inside and I won't let the little things distract me.