Dancer
She lives on the edge. She likes it there, watching the flotsam, taking an occasional piece that appeals to her. Not many; when she does she discards another from her small collection. She only has so much room in her life.

The pieces are interesting only to her. She never has guests, never invites anyone else into her small space. She is content to live and watch and occasionally collect.

The edge constantly shifts: she was/is a dancer. Was a professional, now she dances for herself and the universe. Most times she moves slow earth rhythms, but occasionally her former self will animate her onto a table for a drunken can can or belly dance.

Without an audience. On the edge nobody is much interested in anybody else: the manic shouter walking and gesturing, the wanderer dressed in inner tubes, the curb sitter nodding and dreaming, all float by immersed in their own private worlds.

Drugs, alcohol included, aren't the only way to reach the edge; just the surest. It's not that human beings are born with an addiction just waiting to be energized, it's that when you reach a certain level you get the power to fulfil your pleasure receptors, and our species has long since passed that level.

Sometimes you have to go to the edge to find out where it is, to realign with the center, to reassess what is true. Sometimes you're driven there by nameless monsters internal and external. Sometimes the edge comes to you, catastrophic on a bright day overflowing with promise.

She dances on the edge by choice; she lives there by necessity. She watches the flotsam and collects an occasional piece.