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No, no, this right here, this was her new low. She had balanced a TV dinner on her grubby shirt over her chest, and she hadn't worn a bra since the last time she went grocery shopping, which was--what, three weeks ago? Yeah, that was when she left the house. She was very aware this wasn't exactly the best look. But what could she do?

She watched this incredibly banal show on television and just moved the spoon from the plastic tray on her chest, to her head, which was cranked to the right so she could see the screen. Frustrated by the motion it takes to get her head straight again so the food doesn't just fall off the spoon, she begrudgingly takes her eyes from this stupid show that she hates.

Where did it all go so wrong? Was it the performance two months ago? And why did she get cut from future auditions, instead of him? It was probably just sexism at work. Sexism can be pointed to as the cause of a lot of troubles, she reasoned, and she was partially correct, but that was a crutch she leaned on too much.

She shoved the spoon into the pocket of her pajama pants and flung the little plastic tray out of the living room, down the hall, and through the open kitchen door, where it landed perfectly in the nearly-full garbage can. She's not impressed by this anymore. She's a practiced hand. An expert latibulator.

Off the couch, television's off too, that show was so dumb, and she crashed down in her office chair and the word "posture" briefly floated into her mind. She sat up straight, and she sat straight for five seconds before slumping down, the unemployment claim website open. And she typed in the jobs she looked for this week. This week even fast food turned her down.

She couldn't say it was two years ago, cause years were exclusive to Earth, and she wasn't here. Years still felt right, cause she started here. She was singing to massive audiences, auditoriums packed with a sextuple balcony, layers and layers of people from worlds as far as she can remember. She was someone and she was talented and she was beautiful and there's a ravioli on her sweatpants.

She ate it.

Let's see. She got her fast food application attempt in, her home improvement store attempt, she even applied to some terrible telemarketing gig. And she tried not to cry. Didn't try very hard though. Her hair got wet, where it was hanging in her face. She worried for a moment it would ruin her mascara--oh, who the hell was she kidding?

The scandal about eighteen months ago, a year and a half, that's when things started to go awry. She was lonely. A friend she had performed with on stage for a long time, they were seen at some sort of nightclub, sharing a drunken kiss. He was always charming with his words and she always felt like she was playing second fiddle to his Stradivarius. He was always careful to avoid singing in her vocal register, cause he was always of the thought that her voice was pretty, needed to be heard, and that he was there to enhance it however he could.

She missed him. She thought it was love. Some tabloid broke the news and it propagated at such a pace that the speed of light was a slow walk. She was unbookable, and so was he. And they did what needed to be done. They took his boat and they left. They made for that tiny little backwater reservation planet that she was from. This one here. The one that wouldn't let her work at a convenience store.

Oh, that's why she's not getting hired, cause she doesn't have any sort of verifiable work history whatsoever, and it's not like she can tell the truth on these applications. It's a reservation, colloquially a prison planet for a reason.

She doesn't know where he is. Hasn't heard from him in months. Hopes he's okay. Her heart sinks. He can't even come over to her house and say hey. She's broken. She has no hope, and she hopes to gather her strength. She knows she can. She just doesn't know when.

(this fragment cuts out early)