Looking Into Another Dimension

Episode 8 has arrived. Does “Hopefully Hopeless” even make sense as a title?

I have lived alone for the majority of my life. Even when I lived in the same house with other people I felt as if I was living in a parallel dimension. I could see and hear them but we passed without touching each other’s lives. That sums up my first roommate experience. If I had known her in high school she would have been one of the pretty girls sitting with the cheerleaders. As it was we lived in the same room, breathed the same air, and other than a few perfunctory words we never spoke. It’s been so long I can’t even remember her name. I do however remember her comforter. It was mesmerizing with a colorful peacock emblazoned in the middle. She spilled finger nail polish on it and then tried to fix it with fingernail polish remover. It took the color completely out of that spot. I rescued it from the trash when she tossed it out. It took me the better part of a month but I carefully drew an intricate pattern to cover the blemish and around and over the peacock and colored it with Sharpie marker. When I was done it had only a passing resemblance to what it had been. It served as an art project, a bedspread, a sleeping bag, a tent and finally as a funeral shroud. I don’t think she ever connected the peacock on my project with the peacock on her discarded comforter. If she did she never said a word. She moved on after that first year. If I passed her on campus or had a class with her I don’t recall it.