How many wishes that this time, yes this time?
And at the same time: the lump in your stomach, a constantly gnawing little hearth of worry that must not be there, must not be seen or heard because it destroys, you understand Nikki, it destroys!
It cuts apart your digital aura that has become you.
It destroys all that you never had but that you run around in circles like a scalded rat to achieve.
Your persona.
So empty Nikki.
So human.
So real.
So you.

So you’re going to look at your phone again?
Is there a new message?

Ah!

As if you cared about it.
As if your ego cared about the message from him rather than the message to you.

A message that confirms you, Nikki.
Always you, you, yours, yours.
Except for the Look.
His look.
The looks of the others.
The look that confirms you.
Are you going to see again if he, or He, will be standing there when you enter the room?
Is it true this time?
Will this be the day you delete it, Nikki?
Will you delete the online dating app, that beloved, wonderful, lovely, scary, unwelcome, disgusting, useless, the happiness trigger for the app and at the same time an app that fills you with abysmal disappointment.
Or will you delete it altogether?
Because what if there is something around the corner Nikki?

What if there is, even though you are floating on the highest pitch of happiness, what if there is still something there that is more, bigger, prettier, richer, sexier…
only better?

And all the writing on Dating Line, the app for all those who dated and shared their experiences.

Wasn’t it just a way to get recognition?
All those thoughts.
Away with them.
She stood here in her armor now ready to be torn apart in the arena.
Then she couldn’t have these distractions of clarity.

If that was it.
It’s almost 8 o’clock now.
Darkness is falling slowly.
The city lights are getting ready with their cones, cracks, fields and the sounds with their voices, sirens, shouts, music, talking, laughing, crying, screaming.

And the smells, can we even count them all tonight?

Your heels now against the asphalt, that rain-soaked one, when autumn reminds us with gray skies and weather of concrete but also weather of clarity and the pleasure of novelty because what is New Year’s Eve really if not one big party where the promises are forgotten carcasses a month later.

No autumn, Autumn, it reminds you of the start of school and that’s when it all starts.

What?
What do you want to start with Nikki?
Are you woman enough to decide that?

For amidst all the echoing steps towards the asphalt and concrete on the way to the Dream, there is also Reality, however frightening and absent it may be, Nikki, to your senses.

But it is there and it says that you have one last semester left before you graduate from the Academy of Art and you don’t want to think about that either, do you Nikki…?

You just want to think about the steps to the bar and if he or He is there now, the Dream, the eternal aura, but you don’t really think so, do you Nikki?

Just a few steps left now.
Now.
Now you open the door…

Maybe the real problem was never love — only the way people searched for it.