girl-Kim Is The Worst

"Eddie is all alone," girl-Kim had hissed at me, "Make him feel welcome."

Tried that. Tried that two days ago. It didn't go so well.

The last time I was on this tour Eddie and I shot the shit and made snarky jokes to each other. Ones that started off polite enough but quickly turned vicious, with our comfort with each other growing equal alongside our vitriol.

We built each other up. We made things worse. And in the end, when we got out the other side, we were worse for it and that was kind of the point.

I don't think we were good for each other, but were we really better off apart?

For my part, well I was far happier out and about and actually living life as Emily than I'd ever been when I was cracking wise with Eddie. But I didn't know about Eddie. I didn't know whether he was better off without me. I didn't know whether he might not get as bad if I wasn't pushing him along, whether he might not end up...

"Go on then," girl-Kim hisses, "Don't be shy."

And she practically pushes me forward into him.

With Eddie trailing behind the group, save for girl-Kim bringing up the rear, it's clear to me that he's not any more social without me around. With me out of the picture he's just down one friend, he hasn't magically gained a dozen more or anything like that.

But he could, if prodded in the right way and if pushed in the right direction. And maybe there is some way for me to make that happen.

So I do as I'm told, biting back a question of why girl-Kim couldn't help him get out of his shell herself. I lock step with him and silently walk along, doing my best to pretend that I'm just observing the town as we go and not absolutely looking everywhere but at him.

Phineas is a pretty town, I'll give it that. Picturesque. A town that, by all rights, probably would have been better off if it stayed small but it didn't. It grew beyond it's boundaries but was constrained by geography and the need to preserve the farming community beyond it so it gained a benefit that eluded most other towns in this part of the country.

With flat lands around in all directions cities tended to sprawl over time. Their borders just expanded out, spreading and getting fuzzy with the surrounding farmers fields. And almost universally they had some measure of little downtown with a few medium sized buildings and then suburban sprawl on the edges. Strip malls and rows of houses in developments that all look the same.

With that kind of expansion comes the slow **** of culture. Personally I think that everyone kind of retreats into their houses at the end of the day and then you're just sort of left with a quiet and empty downtown. No one collaborating. No one enjoying the company of anyone other than themselves.

The modern middle town, not a small town where everyone knows each other or a big town where you are always anonymous in a crowd, is so lonely.

But Phineas was different. For reasons that I was never quite sure about and that were never clearly outlined, it didn't really expand into the surrounding area. The farmers fields remained and so the city grew up, not out. The downtown got skyscrapers that wouldn't exactly rival any modern city but were no slouch in the height department at least and the ticky tacky sprawl of suburban life tended to not appear. There were still developments but they were infrequent and uncommon and the city had a culture.

Not one I'd ever really experienced, mind you, but I was keen to change that. And I looked around the space trying to find some point of interest that grabbed my attention, something that I could use as an opening. Something to talk to Eddie about, to justify why I was here.

Forgetting, of course, that I had already established one two nights before.

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