The Shunning(Radrook) The Shunning!

As a young man age twenty-two, I find myself gazing out of a third floor downtown NYC rented-room window with a facial expression that must surely convey my intense bitter loneliness.

No, I am not isolated on some forlorn island somewhere in the middle of the Pacific Ocean, or stranded all by myself on some abandoned facility on a deserted mining operation on some forsaken asteroid. Instead, I am sitting right smack-dab in the midst of a bustling, overcrowded, burgeoning metropolis, surrounded by the ever-droning sound of traffic on the wide asphalt paved street below, and by the incessant movement of others arriving and leaving from adjacent rented rooms

You see, to them, I do not exist, while to me, they are totally off-limits though I desperately yearn their friendship.

Nightly I lay on my cot staring at the green papered walls of my tiny room and repeatedly counting its little pink decorative flowers as I reluctantly listen to the laughter of others in the building's hallway, so near, and yet so infinitely far away.

Reluctantly, I hear the amorous sounds of lovemaking in the room next door. I listen to the many fervent expressions of endearment, imagine the gradual sensual merging of two bodies and souls just a few inches away on the other side of the infernal room's wall. Then, when it is finally over, their spontaneous prolonged laughter seems to mock me.

I very often feel like shouting:

“Here I am. It's me! I also am human! I also an alive. I also feel as you do! I am not a brick wall! I also need a companion. I also need friends!"

Yet, despite this natural longing, I must refrain. Instead, I must dutifully grit my teeth and hunker down, and pray for the superhuman strength needed to maintain my integrity, while always hoping that those who had just very recently considered me their spiritual brother in the faith, will once again express the same interest in my well-being which they had shown just a few years before, when they had considered me a possible convert to their sect, and then later, a brother good standing.

But now, now I am suddenly a nonentity. A man who must be unceremoniously avoided at all costs lest those who had once befriended me, contaminate themselves via some type of horrendous vile spiritual way by greeting me or by somehow acknowledging my existence. Suddenly, gone are the cheerful greetings and the broad smiles of acceptance that had once made me feel unconditionally loved.

I ponder the irony of this dismal reality that I have inflicted upon myself and desperately seek the solace of forgetfulness via slumber. A temporary alleviation of the bitterness of this turbulent existence. A respite from the infernal music that insidiously serpentines temptingly into my tiny, dark, and barren room, along with the tantalizing sound of these worldly human voices, which float like beautiful iridescent butterflies, and cunningly seek to snatch my battered, susceptible soul.

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