She had no idea why she'd let him click on her YouTube watch history. "Jesus, why the hell are you even watching this shit," he said, scrolling past pastel-coloured, luminous video thumbnails with smiling girls. "How to organise your mornings. How to be more productive. What a waste of fucking time, man." They were sitting on her bed, her battlefield during the last few weeks, or was it months? No, probably years. She sighed theatrically, knowing full well he was right. She didn't see the point, either. If it helped someone to get their life together by meticulously protocolling the times they took out the trash, then by all means, they should steer the course. It could never, ever become her cup of tea, though - she could barely bring herself to write something on a life-saving post-it note every once in a while. "Yeah, I know. All those minutes I won't ever get back, nothing of this ever works for normal people, etc. I know. I suppose it's just some meditative way of judging people while trying to actually figure out your shit, at the same time. Something along those lines. Or just a waste of time. I don't know." He glanced at her with a half-smile and a furrowed brow, and proceeded to check out the other tabs in her opened browser: several videos opened and paused on YouTube - a video essay, two songs, a photoshop tutorial and a Sailor Moon episode - a fanfiction site, WhatsApp. Nothing spectacular.
"So that's it then?" he asked her, leaning back against the wall and letting his gaze wander across the accumulation of pens, post-its, paperclips, stacks of essays on formerly pristine white paper, crumpled notes and chocolate bar wrappers. Her gaze followed, regarding the mess through a haze of continuous sleep deprivation and dust particles dancing in the air. "Yeah," she said, "that's it." Both sat in silence for a while, pondering the meaning of that short sentence. Of course, nothing was "it". The ship was still in the middle of the ocean, and would continue to be for potentially many years to come. "I was waiting for euphoria to kick in," she said after a while, sounding far less bitter than she felt, "it didn't." In retrospect, she didn't understand how she could be so naive, thinking that overcoming one obstacle could impact the hollow feeling inside. "I'm in limbo." His gaze was still fixed on a point on the opposite wall. "How so?" She sighed, shuffling a little bit on the blanket - her legs had grown numb under her weight - and taking her time to compose a reply. "I feel like I'm standing beside myself? Like, whatever I do, it's not me who does it, but some projection that does her best to keep up the appearance. And I'm like, sorry for her but I also want her to stop. And I'm reaching out to link back to it, you know? Because I need to go on, and I need that to be me again. But I'm grasping at nothing. I don't look forward to absolutely anything. You know?" Her voice wavered a little. He was regarding the blanket now. "Do go on." She punched him weakly. "I don't even know why I'm talking to you." He chuckled at that. "Because I asked you, and you can’t wait to tell someone. And also, I was trying to figure out if it's wine I should fetch from the kitchen, or something significantly stronger. By the sound of it, I'll have to make a shop run for some Captain Morgan." She couldn't help grinning. "Yeah, probably."
Most people, she mused, would have been bewildered by their exchange. There was no sympathy, no words of comfort or encouragement. He just listened, and she just talked, and she was sure it didn’t affect him. He never talked about himself - in fact, they barely ever talked, he'd just dropped by to collect two books she had borrowed for her work - but she suspected that he felt the same, or at least out of place, as well, and there was a little space for quiet feelings of camaraderie in their alienation, and their shared, pronounced disdain for niceties, false sympathy, and false hopes. However, he was holding up way better than she was, which is why he the one asking, and she was the one explaining. She doubted that he could stop being enigmatic even before himself, and she didn’t know if there was someone he talked to when all these feelings threatened to spill out in the least convenient way possible. Actually, she didn’t know absolutely anything about him, except his name and that they shared some friends and were getting the same degree. Sometimes she wondered whether she didn't just make him up in her mind.
"It's just so exhausting to feel so detached from everything,” she said. “You know, the other day I actually tried listening to one of those premade Spotify playlists, like those for different moods or whatever, or for coffee shops. The stuff that most people just listen to, apparently." He raised his eyebrows in amusement. "And, did you enjoy it?" She met his eyes for a few seconds, and both snorted out in laughter. "It was a fucking nightmare. There were some songs on one of them, the sunny day one, I think, you could murder me with. Like, the absolute worst type of standard techno beat, and some woman squeaking her lines...Or even worse, these awful singer-songwriter dudes who just whisper their stupid lyrics to the exact same guitar chords all over, to the point where you wanna smack them across the head and tell them to just keep it together, you know?” He chuckled. “I sat through most of it. I thought it might shift my perspective, or something. I was just so tired from feeling so fucking disconnected all the time, you know." His silence was, again a welcome one. He knew the playlist hadn't helped, as did she, and both knew the remedy to whatever was haunting them was still far out of reach, if it existed at all. Out of sudden, he reached out for something tangled in the blanket, and when he pulled it out, she recognised her paperback copy of a Kafka compendium. "Giving old Franz a try?" he asked, flipping the pages. She smiled at the book. "It's really strange, I don't even see very much in a lot of what he writes, like, it doesn't always speak to me, or stir something in me the way some other authors do, but I have a really, really intense feeling that if we had known each other, we'd be the best of friends. I don't know, it's probably weird, and probably hella transgressive. I mean, poor Franz. He doesn't even get a say in this, and I declare him my pal." She was tearing up, she realised, so she stopped talking. He paused on some pages, reading a couple of stray paragraphs. Then he turned to her. "How long since you bleached your hair?"
The question came out of nowhere, but after a tiny pause, she just pointed to her roots that were doing their best to grow out in their usual dark colour as fast as possible. "As you can see, it's been a while." "Going from black to almost white, and no selfies on Instagram? Impressive," he commented, studying her hair. It dawned on her that he hadn't seen her with the new colour before, and she was wondering why he was only bringing it up now. She refrained from asking. "I'm over selfies at the moment. Remember? It's someone else, not me. I just can't. I really wish I could.” She did wish it. She wasn’t in the camp of people who judged others for posting pictures of themselves on social media, because there was something liberating in being at ease with your own shell. “It's so stupid. I just wish I could enjoy something, express something, just being me. God, that sounds awful. But I can't. Like I can't move, metaphorically. I don't know." She broke off. There were no words in her brain to say what she had wanted to. He watched her from the side, and she felt herself shrinking into the pillow her back was leaning again. Then he pulled out his phone, and her eyes widened. "No, oh my god, stop, I don't want people taking pictures, I didn’t mean that..." She buried her face in her hands, shutting her eyes, and ducked her head like a tortoise. There was no sound of a picture being taken, but she reckoned it was just because everyone had their phones on silent all the time. She stayed in her frankly quite embarrassing position through the noises of him sliding off the bed, tucking his two books into his backpack and taking a few steps towards the door. The she took a peek through her fingers. "Are you done?" "Yeah," he replied. He sounded amused, but she wasn’t sure. He probably was. She’d never know. "See ya." Then he left.
She stretched out on the bed after the click of the lock on her flat’s door, and exhaled, staring at the ceiling. Her phone vibrated. He had tagged her in an Instagram story. Slowly, she unlocked her phone and opened the app. There it was, the picture he’d taken - unfocused, just the wall above her head, and about a third of her actual head, including her outgrowing roots and the tips of the fingers she was pressing to her face. The space above her head said: “franz wasnt home but i found his pal paul scavenging his fridge for pizza leftovers”. She couldn’t stop laughing until breathing became difficult and tears rolled down her cheeks. This was absurd, but it brought relief and she wouldn’t be able to explain to anyone why to save her life. She reacted with a laughing face. Soon, the little grey “Seen” popped up beneath it, but no typing followed. She hadn’t expected it anyway, though, and proceeded to google “franz kafka friend paul”.
"So that's it then?" he asked her, leaning back against the wall and letting his gaze wander across the accumulation of pens, post-its, paperclips, stacks of essays on formerly pristine white paper, crumpled notes and chocolate bar wrappers. Her gaze followed, regarding the mess through a haze of continuous sleep deprivation and dust particles dancing in the air. "Yeah," she said, "that's it." Both sat in silence for a while, pondering the meaning of that short sentence. Of course, nothing was "it". The ship was still in the middle of the ocean, and would continue to be for potentially many years to come. "I was waiting for euphoria to kick in," she said after a while, sounding far less bitter than she felt, "it didn't." In retrospect, she didn't understand how she could be so naive, thinking that overcoming one obstacle could impact the hollow feeling inside. "I'm in limbo." His gaze was still fixed on a point on the opposite wall. "How so?" She sighed, shuffling a little bit on the blanket - her legs had grown numb under her weight - and taking her time to compose a reply. "I feel like I'm standing beside myself? Like, whatever I do, it's not me who does it, but some projection that does her best to keep up the appearance. And I'm like, sorry for her but I also want her to stop. And I'm reaching out to link back to it, you know? Because I need to go on, and I need that to be me again. But I'm grasping at nothing. I don't look forward to absolutely anything. You know?" Her voice wavered a little. He was regarding the blanket now. "Do go on." She punched him weakly. "I don't even know why I'm talking to you." He chuckled at that. "Because I asked you, and you can’t wait to tell someone. And also, I was trying to figure out if it's wine I should fetch from the kitchen, or something significantly stronger. By the sound of it, I'll have to make a shop run for some Captain Morgan." She couldn't help grinning. "Yeah, probably."
Most people, she mused, would have been bewildered by their exchange. There was no sympathy, no words of comfort or encouragement. He just listened, and she just talked, and she was sure it didn’t affect him. He never talked about himself - in fact, they barely ever talked, he'd just dropped by to collect two books she had borrowed for her work - but she suspected that he felt the same, or at least out of place, as well, and there was a little space for quiet feelings of camaraderie in their alienation, and their shared, pronounced disdain for niceties, false sympathy, and false hopes. However, he was holding up way better than she was, which is why he the one asking, and she was the one explaining. She doubted that he could stop being enigmatic even before himself, and she didn’t know if there was someone he talked to when all these feelings threatened to spill out in the least convenient way possible. Actually, she didn’t know absolutely anything about him, except his name and that they shared some friends and were getting the same degree. Sometimes she wondered whether she didn't just make him up in her mind.
"It's just so exhausting to feel so detached from everything,” she said. “You know, the other day I actually tried listening to one of those premade Spotify playlists, like those for different moods or whatever, or for coffee shops. The stuff that most people just listen to, apparently." He raised his eyebrows in amusement. "And, did you enjoy it?" She met his eyes for a few seconds, and both snorted out in laughter. "It was a fucking nightmare. There were some songs on one of them, the sunny day one, I think, you could murder me with. Like, the absolute worst type of standard techno beat, and some woman squeaking her lines...Or even worse, these awful singer-songwriter dudes who just whisper their stupid lyrics to the exact same guitar chords all over, to the point where you wanna smack them across the head and tell them to just keep it together, you know?” He chuckled. “I sat through most of it. I thought it might shift my perspective, or something. I was just so tired from feeling so fucking disconnected all the time, you know." His silence was, again a welcome one. He knew the playlist hadn't helped, as did she, and both knew the remedy to whatever was haunting them was still far out of reach, if it existed at all. Out of sudden, he reached out for something tangled in the blanket, and when he pulled it out, she recognised her paperback copy of a Kafka compendium. "Giving old Franz a try?" he asked, flipping the pages. She smiled at the book. "It's really strange, I don't even see very much in a lot of what he writes, like, it doesn't always speak to me, or stir something in me the way some other authors do, but I have a really, really intense feeling that if we had known each other, we'd be the best of friends. I don't know, it's probably weird, and probably hella transgressive. I mean, poor Franz. He doesn't even get a say in this, and I declare him my pal." She was tearing up, she realised, so she stopped talking. He paused on some pages, reading a couple of stray paragraphs. Then he turned to her. "How long since you bleached your hair?"
The question came out of nowhere, but after a tiny pause, she just pointed to her roots that were doing their best to grow out in their usual dark colour as fast as possible. "As you can see, it's been a while." "Going from black to almost white, and no selfies on Instagram? Impressive," he commented, studying her hair. It dawned on her that he hadn't seen her with the new colour before, and she was wondering why he was only bringing it up now. She refrained from asking. "I'm over selfies at the moment. Remember? It's someone else, not me. I just can't. I really wish I could.” She did wish it. She wasn’t in the camp of people who judged others for posting pictures of themselves on social media, because there was something liberating in being at ease with your own shell. “It's so stupid. I just wish I could enjoy something, express something, just being me. God, that sounds awful. But I can't. Like I can't move, metaphorically. I don't know." She broke off. There were no words in her brain to say what she had wanted to. He watched her from the side, and she felt herself shrinking into the pillow her back was leaning again. Then he pulled out his phone, and her eyes widened. "No, oh my god, stop, I don't want people taking pictures, I didn’t mean that..." She buried her face in her hands, shutting her eyes, and ducked her head like a tortoise. There was no sound of a picture being taken, but she reckoned it was just because everyone had their phones on silent all the time. She stayed in her frankly quite embarrassing position through the noises of him sliding off the bed, tucking his two books into his backpack and taking a few steps towards the door. The she took a peek through her fingers. "Are you done?" "Yeah," he replied. He sounded amused, but she wasn’t sure. He probably was. She’d never know. "See ya." Then he left.
She stretched out on the bed after the click of the lock on her flat’s door, and exhaled, staring at the ceiling. Her phone vibrated. He had tagged her in an Instagram story. Slowly, she unlocked her phone and opened the app. There it was, the picture he’d taken - unfocused, just the wall above her head, and about a third of her actual head, including her outgrowing roots and the tips of the fingers she was pressing to her face. The space above her head said: “franz wasnt home but i found his pal paul scavenging his fridge for pizza leftovers”. She couldn’t stop laughing until breathing became difficult and tears rolled down her cheeks. This was absurd, but it brought relief and she wouldn’t be able to explain to anyone why to save her life. She reacted with a laughing face. Soon, the little grey “Seen” popped up beneath it, but no typing followed. She hadn’t expected it anyway, though, and proceeded to google “franz kafka friend paul”.
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