[ WP ] You are on a midnight walk alone with your thoughts .

The clatter of my shoes on damp pavement breaks the milky silence of night, echoing back at me from the end of the street. It's unusually dark, aided by the smattering of fog I can see clinging to my pant leg when I pass under a streetlamp. The night feels close with the fog and narrow cobble streets. My eyes glaze over and my feet take control. 
 
 My mind wanders through the night even as my body does, and it's easy to forget the rest of the world is just a hair's breadth away. I use these walks to distance myself from the monotony, the dreariness, that has become life. School during the week, work on weekends. Weeks blend into one another in an endless chain of melancholy. And for what? At the end of it all I'll get a pat on the back and a piece of paper saying I've completed what society expected of me, and now I can stop working weekends and work weekdays instead. For the rest of my life. Hell, I'm only 20 and this is it? Surely this ca n't be it? Is n't there more to life than that? 
 
 In high school it seemed grown-up life would be fun and exciting, full of love and laughter. Each of us was told we were destined for great things. What happened? Everything's stressful now. I miss having friends outside of work. Things are getting too complicated. I've lost the innocence of childhood and now I'm an adult and it's never coming back. 
 
 Hey look, a rat. You know, people think they're disgusting but they're really pretty cute. I would n't mind a pet rat.
