(no subject)

On the way back from Neighboring Village today, a lady climbed into the communal taxi carrying a well-clad girl-child of perhaps three or four. Said small creature was wailing, not urgently but soft, a continuous undulating sound of tiny primate pain. The sound and the tears came out with her breath, and she barely broke the stream to take in more air.

M asked the lady what happened. The response: her mother has gone to Bombay.

It was the first time the appearance of a tall white foreign girl has not succeeded to completely distract all small children in sight. Bitty girl looked at me, looked past me, and went right on looking around, until she wailed herself to sleep.

I wonder what the rules are for loneliness. Is the compound graph concave? Does each loss hurt less than the last? But then I think of those who are crippled by grief, shattered beyond repair, and I wonder if maybe it's cubic. What factors go in?

When you contact the other person, their line graph spikes, but goes down for a net decrease. That formula's got to have, what? Length of acquaintance - in terms of percentage of your lifespan - and maybe not distance, but availability. It hurts more when you can't see them, whether they're across town or in Nepal. What else affects the pain? Common contributing factors?

and when did I turn into Randall Munroe?