The Void

I spit my morning prayers after I brush my teeth. Then I eat my breakfast in silence, oatmeal and spoiled milk. I dress up, look in the mirror, and my outfit sucks. I change. I think some more. Chang again. By the time I leave the apartment; I'm wearing my dirty hoodie with disappointment on my sleeve.

I don't buy coffee. I make some myself and carry it in my thermal cup as I usually do. It wasn't that I didn't want to buy myself a fancy cup in a fancy cafe and walk to my fancy work, oh so fancily. I was broke, and my brew was out of a cheap sort of beans. I added some orange juice today just for the fun of it. How you'd have guessed already, I'm absolute shite at making coffee.

I'm absolute shite at many things.

Embodying it in words is freeing. I feel lighter if I tell some bad things about myself from the start. A long list of my flaws is too much. Only one random fact seems out of place. During the time, I found the best number of those revelations is three, as a prophecy in a fairytale. I have this established idiocies that I do daily and shamelessly. Also, I'm a bit rude. 

See? Here goes the magic three and you're already hooked. 

That's how during the years I establish a routine of some kind. It goes in threes. Sleep, work, rest. Sci-fi book, binge-watching Netflix, making a weekend pasta at 2 a.m. Cleaning up, drinking wine, washing dishes. It works, in the darkness of my rent-flat and with the blinds closed, among the piles of stuff I don't collect just simply can't find the energy to throw away. There I do all of the above. It's not that I'm very happy about the dust, the closeness of walls and cheap light bulbs constantly going out. 

If you think this sounds like a very depressing place, it is. But it's not like I'm an over-cheerful person either.

I'm not sad. The sadness is not everything I am; we're past this fifteen-year-old phase. Now I'm mostly numb. It's a pile of work to make this numbness an advantage because, honestly, I don't believe it is. 

 Do you know how in ancient Greece they believed the world emerged from chaos? Chaos wasn't a disorder back then. Chaos was emptiness, so vast and deep. Then we came along and brought disarray with us. Come to think of it, we spoiled even the void. Who could have thought something yet could emerge from that pit of blackness and air?

I entertain myself with a thought of being like this forgotten chaos, but we all know it's just easier to function, comparing yourself to the dark motherly folds of the world. It's easier to function lying to yourself about a bunch of things.

Living like this is static and familiar. No waves of changes, no storms of uncertainties coming for my fragile mind. My coat is always of dark fabric and a bit too long. I imagine it to be like a cloak of a cool warrior. I'd have a sword in one hand, shield in the other. I'd be renown for my valour and skill. I'd be praised for my bravery and golden heart. I'd be loyal and kind to my friends. I'd fearsome and ruthless to my enemies. 

I'm standing on a sidewalk, and there's a hole in my sock. I can feel it with my big toe, as my foot slides further in my shoe. I've dropped my umbrella and need to pick it up. 

Do I daydream about being cool even when there are drips of mud on my trousers and sweater as I walk? Of course, I do. Aren't you? 

It's not like there's a lot to do anyway. Routines are empty. Days are hollow. After some time you stop adding meaning to it. It's the flaw of the human brain - too adaptable. No matter which wretched case one's life came to be, he'll probably survive. Starvation, thirst, loneliness… 

I'm particularly good at the latter.

I don't call my friends that much. When it gets rough I simply wait it out. I adapt. I flow down the river, towards the waterfall patiently, until I spot an old tree and cling to it. I can take care of myself. Do I really need help?

My friends want to change me. Aren't we all try that with other people? It's our plan and design. I am to be a work of art with their name engraved on my forehead. The more I see them, the more I change. Of course, two can play this game. One hundred people can play this game. In the end, we all melt to appear as some inadequate shapes, trying to fit in each other's lives. Spheres broke in half, triangles with chopped edges… I am still not sure if it's worth it, looking at the thick greyish mass we all became. It's like we have no minds of our own anymore. It's like we're an anthill now. Each of us has their function: the caring, the hot-headed, the walking textbook, the artist. In reality, we're all a blend of these traits poisoning each other with our self. 

That's why catching a sight of beauty I ran. 

As fast as I can, as far as I can manage. Because I want it so badly. But when I touch it, it'd be ruined. So I watch and retain. At least I try. Sometimes it's so unbearable my breath catches, and I want to have it; I want to smell it and I want to feel it. I want to know what it's like to give in, looking around and seeing happy faces with smearing lipstick, soft fingers covered in paint, clothes smudged in ink. 

I usually look away. I don't want to be anyone's ghost. 

I think so at night, but in the morning I'm soft again. I'm needy, and I regret every breath of restrain. By the noon I'm back at it: determined and clammy as a corpse. I think everyone can tell, and it doesn't help. 

I'm not into revealing what I am even to myself yet.

That's how I spent several hours in a company that makes me feel better than my dusty burrow. Every time I come back, I'm astounded how empty it looks. There are piles of books, photos, papers. A coffee mug, red curtains, snacks on the table. Dried plant, guitar, some silly pillows. Yet, it's so painfully hollow, that if the police would come around to investigate my murder, they wouldn't think somebody ever lived here. Sometimes I wonder myself how the rooms can be bursting with junk and still remain so faceless. 

There are no posters, no family pictures, no polaroids hung on the walls, as I sleep my days away between them. Do I have all these? My drawers are bursting with things I brought from my parents' house, things I bought online and anxiously waited for. I found where to hang them, how to arrange them on my shelves. 

I never did. 

I don't want them on display. When I put them on… Well, my record is two days of staring at the fraction of my mind on this showcase my flat turns into. It's been five years, and I still can't help it. I hide my things away along with myself.

''Until I'm ready,'' I tell myself. 

I'm never ready. 

That's another problem. Me being uncertain and confused and stuck in the whip whirl of time, waiting patiently for everything to stop along with me. I wait for the sun to hang like a huge lightbulb in a breezeless sky forever. I wait for people coming back to the feral times I know. I wait for my friends to understand this about me and quit.

I crawl back under the covers and breathe into my hands to keep warm. The TV murmurs in my apartment like a beating heart, and I feel out of place. I remind myself that it's mine. After my family house with constant shrill cries and no personal space, no room for me between two people who created this talking snobby body from nothingness, I won finally. Even lying here in my smelly pyjamas under my cheap blankets. All this space and air and things, — they are all mine. After so many years I get what I deserved, right? I get what I wanted. I won, so why do I feel so down?

I know you can't feel that awful if you won. 

That night I dream about my old high school races again. I'm running, and my lungs are burning, and I'm so close to the finish line until I'm not. So I'm plastered on the ground watching dozens of feet stumping the sand around me the whole night. There's a thing that happens when you lose. When you were trying so hard just to stumble upon your own feet. 

When you fall down, you want to stay down. 

You want to lie there forever and suddenly you don't care. The race seems so silly altogether. You don't have any idea why would you even want to participate in such a horror show: strained, exhausted, panicked. And the dirt you're resting in is cotton-fluffy and warm while you melt. And there's no time trouble for any of us, allowed to rest at peace and decay at our own pace if we want.

And I want to stay down. I do.

Only in the morning, when my room is still dark and blurry at the edges, I wake up again to spat my morning prayers after I brush my teeth.