	Another Christmas, and another lonely train ride back to Sackville, the hometown which I can't seem to forget no matter how hard I try. Not because the town itself is particularly interesting, apart from an abnormally high number of buildings burning down in fires, a fixation upon ducks, and the Cube of course. But that's all old news to me, and what really keeps bringing me back is the memories. My parents don't even live here any more, having long since left it behind for their respective retirement fixations (one is living in Paris writing his "Great Canadian Novel," the other is living nomadically on the road in her coffee truck). There's nothing left here for me except nostalgia and a bitter taste in my mouth.
	Despite that, somehow I found myself at Union Station once again with a train ticket, preparing for a 25-hour journey. It was cold, cold enough for me to wear the scarf that she knitted for me, but I didn't because it woud've been an admission of guilt and besides, I haven't seen that scarf in years. So I braced myself against a wall to shelter from the wind and tried to not think about all the things I could've been doing over the holidays. Instead, I obsessively went over the details of where I would be staying over and over again in my mind: 14 Harris Drive. Key in the mailbox. 14 Harris Drive. Key in the mailbox. It was just those two details. Of course I had also written them down, but there was something about it that soothed me. Not that I should really need soothing at my age, or even in my circumstances. Just another PHD student who never learned how to doing anything besides school, whinging alone at a train station to an imaginary audience.
	Thankfully, the train arrived, allowing me to avoid this rather depressing line of thinking which had so rudely replaced my ritual of repetition and instead worry about finding a decent seat. I didn't, but as the hours passed by the train was slowly but steadily drained of passengers, smaller and smaller groups of them being ejected from the train like a drunken high schooler vomiting up their lunch. Does that metaphor work? It's been a while since I last vomited, but I'm assuming most of it tends to come out on the first heave, and then you get diminishing returns until it's over. Not sure why I think that though, or why I felt compelled to entertain such a metaphor in the first place.
	Actually, there's a similar kind of metaphor that I've been thinking about for a while, for some reason. I could only use it in a specific scenario, though. If someone asks me "How are you?" or some similar form of idle small talk that typically makes me feel dizzy with fear at having to actually confront the state of my own existence, I'll just respond "Still pickin' away at the scab of life." Pretty good, right? And it's not even a similie, but a true metaphor. As if that matters. 
	How the conversation would move from there is a mystery to me, though, honestly I try to not think that far. As soon as I give this potential interlocutor an impression of the sort of humble, pathetic vibes that I feel must fundamentally define me in some way, my mission's complete. I could die in that moment and be perfectly fulfilled, or that's how I imagine it going anyway. It remains to be seen if I'll get a chance to use it. After all, once I arrived at the place, struggling with the key due to my numbed hands, I opened the door and realized that the house was truly empty of people. This fact really should have occured to me beforehand, and still it struck me just how alone I would be for these three weeks.
	Well, except for the cat. I used a time-tested approach to get a look at the little rascal: exhaling softly while rapidly opening and closing my pursed lips, creating a sound that can only truly be described as "pspspsps." I continued to create this noise with my mouth as I moved through each room of the old house. It was old, as I just said, with creaking hardwood floors and dusty furniture from some forgotten age, and the tarnished brass door handles reflected nothing as my quest continued fruitlessly. Where's that cat? I continued on for about twenty minutes before giving up, just like I tend to give up on everything else. Mrs. Steeves did warn me that he was somewhat reclusive.
	Either way it was getting late so I filled up his food bowl and listened to a podcast while eating a frozen pizza for dinner. The hosts, some seemingly good-natured men with inflated egos, probably because they had a successful podcast, gave advice to callers with relationship issues. It's this kind of relatable content that really restores my faith in humanity. I turned it off and fell asleep on the couch.
	The bowl was empty when I woke up. I guess I'm doing my job just fine.