Pretend

“Do we have any food left?” I asked my wife.

My wife and I just eloped to an apartment.

A minimalist apartment—no furniture, no sustenance.

We have nothing.

We were still young; I was twenty-four, she was twenty-five.

I don’t know if it was the right decision to run away from reality.

After college.

“Hmm…the fridge’s empty. What now?” I heard her closing the fridge.

I’d been sitting on this couch for a few hours—wait, no, I’d been sitting on the floor for a few hours, glancing at the clock—wait, sorry, glancing at the walls.

My wife approached me. “Are you hungry?”

“Very.”

“Are we going to die?”

“I don’t know.”

“When are you going to have a job?”

“That’s a secret.”

She tilted her head. “Secret? Come on, tell me already. We aren’t even eking out a living—we’re merely existing. On the brink of death, of course. Well, if you don’t want to, then I’ll have no choice but to pretend.”

“Pretend?”

“Pretend.”

“Pretend to what?”

“Pretend to live.”

“Pretend to live…”

She nodded. “Wanna try it out? I’ve been trying my best to disregard your irresponsibility, you know.”

“We don’t have kids yet. Fret not.”

“How long are you going to sit there doing nothing?”

“I’m doing nothing because we have nothing.”

“That’s the thing, if we have nothing, then you should do something.”

“Hm, well, how can you do something if we have nothing.”

“That’s not true, you still have me.”

“Exactly.”

“Then what’s your point?”

I shrugged. “I don’t know. I just don’t know where to start. By the way, do we still have water left? I’m kinda thirsty.”

“Water? Go drink at the lakes. Now that I’ve mentioned that, if you say we have nothing, we actually have everything.”

“We have everything?”

“Mm. We have nature.”

My stomach growled.

Her stomach growled.

“Let’s eat something.” She went back to the kitchen.

I raised my eyebrows. I stood and went to the kitchen.

I was almost convinced that we still had enough food, but when I saw her fiddling with nothing, that’s the only time where I understood her suggestion.

To pretend.

To pretend to live.

“Honey,” I said, “what are you cooking tonight?”

“Tonight? It’s still morning.”

“Oh really?” I glanced at the windows. “Oh, sorry, I’ve been dependent on the clock too much.”

“I forgive you.”

“No need to forgive me.”

“Plus, you don’t call me ‘honey.’ You call me my first name.”

“What’s your first name again?”

“That’s a secret.”

“Come on.” I looked at her swift hands, pretending to cut onions and garlic on the board.

Our kitchen—was completely empty.

She grabbed the invisible board and slid the invisible spices with an invisible knife into an invisible bowl.

I don’t have to say invisible. You might get the point already.

“Hey,” she said, “boil the pasta for me.”

“What pasta?”

“Spaghetti.”

“Spaghetti? Where?”

“In the fridge.”

I opened the fridge. “I don’t see anything.”

She approached me; I set myself aside. She grabbed a package of pasta sticks. “Here. Boil it for me. One hour.”

“I thought this was quick-to-boil?”

“Just eyeball it.” She closed the fridge. I paid attention to how she closed the fridge.

Now that I’ve told you that our kitchen was empty—did that mean that our fridge was also nonexistent?

I had to ask, “Is our refrigerator existing?”

“Hm? Yes, of course. Touch it yourself.”

I touched the fridge.

I was losing it.

And to compensate for that moment of insanity—or should I say, a moment of hopelessness, I pulled out the sticks, dipped them into the pot, and turned on the heat.

“One second. Two seconds. Three seconds—”

“Don’t count. You’re distracting me.”

“I’m now a clock.”

“You’re not a clock, you’re my husband.”

“Strange. I’m still human?”

“No, you’re not human, you’re my wife.”

“What?”

“Sorry, I’m kinda losing it too, so pardon me for my slip of the tongue.”

“That clearly wasn’t slip of the tongue.”

She cracked eggs into the bowl, stirred it, and drank it.

“Woops, wifey, you’re not supposed to drink that.”

“What do you mean? This is instant coffee. I stirred it, right?”

“Oh, so I misinterpreted. Sorry, sorry.”

Then what the hell was that cracking-egg gesture for? Was she trying to tear up a package?

“Times up. Turn off the heat and let the sticks sit for a while. Remove it from the stove.”

I removed it from the stove and set it on the counter.

She lay a pan on the stove and turned on the heat to pre-heat the pan. “Now filter the pasta. Use that thing.”

“What thing?”

“The thing you use for filtering the water.”

“You mean a strainer.”

“Right.”

She was lovely.

As I was about to hold the pot’s side handles, my wife said, “Woops, you gotta use kitchen gloves for that one.”

“Where are the kitchen gloves?”

“You’re now wearing them.”

“Really.”

“Really. Now separate the pasta from the water.”

“But wait, where’s the strainer?”

“Oh, sorry.” She grabbed the strainer from her head as if she doffed a hat. “Here.”

I took it and got down to business.

I tilted the pot one-handedly to slowly discard the water into the strainer, held in my other hand, as the chewy sticks that’d been once stiff dripped into the filter.

When the pan began crackling along with the spices, Wife took the bowl and discarded the sticks into the pasta.

She stirred the pasta a few times then waited. “Can you buy us a can of tuna?”

“We got no money.”

“But we live in an apartment?”

“We’ll be replaced in no time.”

“It’s fair. No electricity, no water. The landlord will have nothing against us.”

“I think you’re missing the point.”

“I thought you love me.”

“Yeah, I do.”

“So why won’t you buy a can of tuna?”

“Sorry, it’s actually here.” I drew out a can of tuna from my pocket. “Here.”

“You don’t have a pocket.”

“Don’t tell me we have no clothes either.”

“And how would a can of tuna fit in a pocket, anyway?”

“It’s possible. You just don’t see my magical pocket.”

She glanced at the pan. “Quick, our meal’s getting toasted!”

“Just pretend it’s not yet overcooked!”

“Oh. Yeah, and we’ve already sauced it with tuna.” After sprinkling it with salt and pepper, she stirred it a few times before turning it off. “Phew, that was tough.”

“It was tough, indeed.”

“Now serve it into two bowls.”

“You mean plates.”

“You may use everything you want.”

I grabbed the pan and slathered the tuna spaghetti onto the plates. I sprinkled it with chili powder—

“No! Don’t sprinkle it with chili powder! Use this, instead.”

“What the hell is that?”

“It’s called love. You sprinkle it with love!”

“I don’t see it.”

“You lack the imagination, I see. Can you even smell the savory aroma of our delicious tuna spaghetti?”

I took a whiff out of it. “Unfortunately, yes.”

“Unfortunately?”

“Because I might have mental issues now.”

“Oh, don’t worry about that. Just pretend that we still got our shit together.”

“Hm. Good idea. Let’s eat now.” I took two forks and gave one to her.

We sat across from each other.

And looked down at our plates.

I grabbed the fork and scratched the plate, pretending to swirl some spaghetti and slip it in my mouth. “Mmm…tastes like nothing.”

“Tastes delicious!” She forked the whole thing and gorged down on it. Then, she sipped on a glass of water.

“Wait, now that I’ve set the plates on the table, that we’ve begun to eat our tuna spaghetti—I forgot to mention that we don’t actually have a table.”

She gasped. “You’re right! That would mean we’re now eating on the floor?”

“No, we’ve been pretending to sit mid-air and I’m getting tired.”

“Let’s just make it easy for ourselves.” She finally sat on the floor. I did that too, cross-legged, but it was a little hard to eat the meal.

We wiped off our mouths with tissues. Sipped on our glasses of orange juice. Savored our strawberry cakes. Shot the breeze as we might.

“Maybe pretending isn’t really a bad thing,” she said. “Only if you look it in an open perspective.”

“Hmm…well, when it comes to reality, it’s a whole other kettle of fish.”

“A kettle of fish? Sounds delicious.”

“Because if you keep pretending the things you shouldn’t pretend, then you’ll be stuck in this loop that you think you’re not as real as you might be, and being the kind of person who doesn’t like the things as they are now.”

“Basically, you mean that if I—or we keep on pretending, we’ll be forever discontented?”

“Discontented in what—like, status? Money, friends, family, and things?”

“No… Discontented in ourselves.”

“Exactly. That’s why most people pretend. It’s not so much as the external things that make us discontented, but it’s actually the everyday emotions or feelings that hold us back from feeling contented. For instance, how do you feel right now?”

“Well, ignoring the fact that we’ll starve to death—I feel okayish for some reason. No, I just feel hungry, that’s all. And thirsty.”

I smiled. “That’s right. I like feeling hungry. I like feeling dehydrated. Because whenever my emotions get the best of me, my physical sensations would chain those negative emotions to a halt. Feelings like being depressed, feelings like being discontented. I’d argue that you can’t pretend that.”

“Nah, pretending to do anything or act like anything isn’t that difficult. Oh, look now, I’m not hungry anymore. I’m not thirsty anymore either. Would that mean we can live on without food and water?”

“…”

She grinned. “I guess we can’t keep on pretending, huh?”