Town members of Co-dependentville have gathered to express their admiration and respect for a local lady who was spotted sitting alone at the cinema. Pathetic Patrick, resident of Stalkershire just few miles away, reported the story to us after he was ‘minding [his] own business, and just happened to see her there. And it wasn’t the first time either!’
‘It’s incredible,’ Mother Marlene said, nacho cheese on her dress and tears glazing her eyeballs. ‘I can’t believe how brave she is, it’s really quite an amazing thing to see how far we’ve come in the world, as women, as people. If she doesn’t want to have children so she can continue doing things alone (unlike the rest of us), she should definitely carry on! She should, because she won’t be able to do that after she has kids. Us parents have so much responsibility, it would be nice if someone could take our little wretche– bundles of happiness off our hands so we could have the same opportunities.’ She smiled as she looked down at the three children sitting innocently by her feet, red-cheeked and pouting, each with a mixture of ice cream and Fanta spilled down their front, one with a glob of snot hanging out of his nostril. Marlene seemed to have a handle on her animated children while the man beside her (we later learnt to be her husband) was intently tapping away at his phone, updating his 34 Twitter followers with the criticism they did not ask for.
Across the crowds, a local influencer, Vain Veronica, was spotted, fixing her hair behind her ears as she almost wept into the camera of her phone.
‘For real, she’s just so inspirational! I really hope I can be like her when I’m older; so unbothered about what people think. Her strength is like… really inspiring to us all, I could never in a million years walk into a cinema alone – imagine if someone saw me! They wouldn’t let me live it down, I’d be all over everyone’s socials. The meme pages just wouldn’t shut up about me. I just don’t live the sort of life that lets me do things out of the ordinary, I like to just keep a low-profile as I’m a really private person, you know?’
We didn’t get to speak to Veronica, so we captured her words, verbatim, from her Instagram story. We also learnt, a few hours later, that she went out for dinner with her two close friends, where she ordered three French martinis, a side of prawn dumplings, and another side of the waiter. She got food poisoning, however, sent the waiter home, and spent the night sat on the toilet instead. Our thoughts are with Veronica at this difficult time.
Some residents are not as inspired, and have, instead, taken offence to our Lady’s lone ventures. One couldn’t be in the vicinity of Jealous Jade without noticing the heavy green cloud she exuded, smacking her chewing gum against her teeth as she scowled monstrously at everybody around her. She spotted the crew and parted the crowds at once, stomping her way through it and reminding everybody that she also exists.
‘Er, I don’t know why she thinks she’s so special,’ she spat, spraying wet popcorn kernels over our camera man and accidentally dropping her hip-flask. ‘My mummy said that people who do things like that are doing it for attention, she could have easily asked someone to go with her. If she had any respect for her friends, she would have asked them to go with her, but she clearly doesn’t – what about their mental health? How will they feel after learning she neglected them? Being a good friend and a good person gets you nowhere. The fact that she knew I was going and didn’t even ask me to come. I mean, not that I would have gone, anyways.’
Jade stormed off before we could question why she was so bothered about someone who did not know she existed, but was later seen studying Veronica from afar, hands subtly twitching as she tried to memorise the Instagram sensation’s mannerisms. We spotted Patrick scurrying along to the exit, attempting to conceal the fact that he had just been hiding in a bin with a notepad.
‘Nah, I don’t have a statement,’ he said, scoffing. ‘Yeah, I’ve followed her here a few times because I just can’t believe someone could be so unbothered about everybody else – in fact, they probably do it because they want us to care. But we don’t. However, one must always be informed about the whats and the whys of other peoples lives. But at the end of the day, I’ve got better things to do than care about what she’s doing! Don’t waste my time asking me about her, unless you’re going to book in four hours with me today so I can really tell you about how much I don’t care.’
And just like that, Pathetic Patrick slithered away to his next viewing-bin. Check out our latest post, How to Overcome the Debilitating Tendency to Devote Your Time to Obsessing Over Other People While Pretending to be Unbothered.
One can only witness with their own eyes the wonder of frantically dispersing crowds when the object of their attention comes walking their way. Local lady stepped out of the cinema, narrowly missing the darting offspring of Marlene who, much to her dismay, still had way too much energy after the film; the prodding questions of Veronica as she asked for a skincare routine and complimented her on how good she looks for her age (she’s 32); and Eva, who was running towards the counter to book a solo ticket for the next show, whatever it was.
We tried to have a chat with the hero herself, but she left us pondering over her wisdom with very few words. ‘It’s just a film,’ she shrugged, giving me a disapproving side-eye before disappearing around the corner.