4.22

I clambered down from the rough plateau overhead about as gracefully as a turtle on its shell, but I got down without breaking anything. I skirted the poison oak and the forty foot drop beyond, winding my way down to the shade of a small tree. As I sat down, I was alone. The lizard sunning on a rock was no company. I reached out to it, and it scurried away. The lightning bugs were no company. They fell on the back of my neck, mating, and had no patience for me. The vultures were no company. They circled dispassionately, waiting for me to die.
I recycled the memory of the clifftop. There had been a girl with her shoes off, walking through the old lava, crunching, careful.
"That's brave," I said, wiggling my booted foot between us.
"Just trying to get tougher for the summer, you know." She walked away, barefoot, and I walked on, alone.
She was no company, either. All the women I meet are walking past me in the opposite direction. The only people I have conversations with are retired couples and boys with backpacks and snapbacks.

On my way back down, I saw a dog walking two women. I think it was a French bulldog; I didn't get a chance to find out.
"Beautiful dog," I said, in a vain attempt to convince them to let me scratch behind its ears.
"She's--woah, she's on a mission. Sorry!" My squat and outstretched arms meant nothing to her, nor to her, nor to her, and the two followed the one. They were no company. I was alone.
Maybe I'll never have a conversation with someone I think is attractive for the rest of my life. I just wish I knew now, so I could stop practicing what I would say in my head.