From my window on Whitworth I spy: six friends huddled against the wind around a storebought birthday cake with twenty candles. One holds the cake, one shields it with a piece of plastic, one fiddles with the matches. The three others laugh at the antics, and make their own: a hug, a push, a dance. Happy Birthday to you, but blow out the candles before the wind can, and then race with us inside... it's raining. And they laugh.
When I see a circle of friends, I am flooded by an emotion that feels like nostalgia but isn't. I've never been in the circle. I wonder what it's like. I've constantly been the guy trudging past circles with my hands in my pockets. I feign apathy: who cares what happens in their stupid cliches? They only circle up because they're so immature and insecure. Oh to be like them. And then maybe I'd belong? Maybe then I wouldn't be lonely anymore? Nah. They probably aren't happy either. I hope they aren't. But they were happy tonight. At least I hope so. And why not? Can't any utopian ideal be achieved? Can't anyone be truly secure? Can't there be one place the guard can be dropped, where we are happy with no qualifications? And before we die? I hope so. Happy birthday happy people, oh happy, happy people.
And then I look round and see my circle: small, mismatched, and oblong though it may be. And I am happy.
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