Psychic Energy

Thursday morning Luther woke up alone. Penelope had the early morning shift, and though she had spent the night at his apartment, she had left before he woke up. Alone and free from necessary tasks, he took his time getting out of bed. He took a long, hot shower. He made himself coffee and toasted a bagel. He grabbed the newspaper from outside his apartment door. He read, and drank, and ate, and he looked at the clock—11:26 AM.
Penelope would be getting off her shift at 1:00. He thought he might meet her there at that time, but in the remaining hour and a half the only prudent thing he could think to do was to look for a job. He went online and scanned help wanted ads until he realized that there were no positions available in any business he had the least interest in joining. He saw another ad for an audition, this time for a TV show, and he decided he would call in for that.
He did call and he made an appointment to audition for the role at 3:00 that day. Realizing he still had more time than he needed before he could meet Penelope after her shift ended, he took out his journal again, and wrote some more self-deprecating material.
“Today is a Thursday in October, and it is the day before Halloween and I still don’t know what I’m doing, except that I started seeing this girl Penny since the last time I wrote in here. Actually the last time I wrote in here she called me up and we ended up having sex for the first time afterwards, so I guess this journal is good luck to me now. Also, strangely, another girl approached me in the park that I was writing in then too. She was weird, but I feel like I’m putting out this glow that I never showed before. Like, so many people are suddenly paying attention to me. I think it’s this girl, Penny. I’ve been really happy with her these last few days. What’s weird is, she’s a widow, a very young widow. I’m actually almost a year older than her. Her husband was a couple years older, but still, can you imagine dying that young? I think it really did terrible things to her, but she doesn’t seem to show it. She acts like your pretty typical 25-year-old. What’s weird also is going out with her knowing she was married and she was trying to have a baby and she was trying to start her own family and then all of the sudden, nothing, and now there’s me that she’s seeing instead of her husband. Weird. But she validates me where everyone else sort of rolls their eyes at me. I may not be a very good actor, but I am going to another audition today, and I am going to do my best at this. I feel like if she went along with me I’d do a better job. She makes me feel stronger. I guess it’s knowing that she chose me after such a tragedy that makes me feel that way. Well in any case I have to go meet her at her coffee shop now and we have to pick out some Halloween costumes. We are going to dress up as Chilean revolutionaries.”