I’m alone on a café terrace across from a stone church. Earbuds in. Radio playing whatever the algorithm feeds people who still listen to radio.

A family of four walks by and the mother is shouting about a lost water bottle. Two cyclists nearly collide with a nun. I’m drinking a cappuccino that costs more than my first car, and then Madonna’s “Like a Prayer” comes on.

I don’t flinch. I just sit there, a divorced 40+, watching humans perform their lunchtime theater. The choir kicks in. The part where she’s down on her knees, hearing voices, feeling something holy. I realize my only companion right now is a song about being ravished by God, and I am absolutely fine with that.

Society has spent centuries telling single people, divorced people, widows, and widowers that solitude is a waiting room. A problem to solve. A holding cell between relationships. You’re supposed to feel incomplete, like a half-finished crossword puzzle.

Meanwhile, I’m watching married people shove strollers and hiss at each other over parking spaces, and I haven’t argued with anyone about a water bottle since high school rugby.

The song peaks. She’s taking you to heaven, literally. I think, if religious ecstasy is just a chemical event in the brain, so is romantic obsession, so is the feeling of being left, so is the relief of being left alone.

The people walking past that church are chasing connection like it’s oxygen. I’m sitting here with a hot drink and a tune, and my nervous system isn’t begging for a witness.

We’ve been sold a lie that a life without a main character beside you is a deleted scene. The entire economy of loneliness (dating apps, makeover culture, pity invites to dinner parties) runs on that fear. I refuse to pay the tax. This café terrace is my pew. The church bells are about to ring and I’ll probably just turn the volume up.

The song ends. I’m still there. Still alone. Still undevoured by sadness. I order another coffee and the server doesn’t ask if anyone is joining me. She knows the answer.

The whole street keeps moving, and nobody looks at me like I’m missing something. I’m not. I’m the guy who got that needing nobody is not the same as having nothing.

When did we all agree that a life unobserved is a life unlived?

#LikeAPrayer #SingleAndSacred #DivorcedAndDivine #SoloButWhole #NoPlusOneNeeded #Flash #Fiction