A Beginning?

I wrote this on a bench at Embarcadero, facing the Bay. I don't know what it is yet.

"For almost a full year after she died, Hilman left Jean's voice on the answering machine. At first, it didn't matter because the only people who called knew Hilman and understood what he was going through, and later because the only people who called -- selling auto insurance policies or subscriptions to the community theater's fall season -- didn't.

Hilman wasn't angry when his friends stopped calling. He didn't much want to talk to them, either. In fact, the first thing he felt when his birthday passed and the phone was silent was relief. Then he realized this was the first thing he had felt at all in over eight months and he felt a little sad, which made him feel more relieved, and then, exhausted from all that feeling, he retired to his room for the rest of the day where he read travel magazines and ate a small box of slightly stale saltines.

Hilman was not one given to self reflection with any kind of frequency. He had never kept a journal or seen a therapist. There had been a grief counselor, at the hospital that night, a thin woman in a purple shirt with crimped hair who arms jutted out from her body like a distended paper clip. He had talked to her a little bit. He wasn't sure if that counted."

If you have any ideas about where I should take this or if you would like to take i somewhere, let me know!