As Close as We Can

I closed Tinder again. What a start to the morning. Everyday I just get more frustrated, but I keep on grasping for this dying hope of meeting someone. Although in the myriad of comparatively attractive faces with similar jobs and dreams, I will not stand out unless I have actually already achieved something. I’ve only been here for a while, just another face trying to make it in the big city. And the same description applies to my tinder profile, just another one. And here I am, getting frustrated about the others being boring. In my mind, they somehow translate to pokémon cards, I’m flipping trough them, constantly catching new ones and then just keep them on display, cards, but not humans anymore. Think I’ve been on there a bit too long already. But the hope won’t let me go.  

God, I don’t think I have ever been lonelier than since I moved to the city. And now this. We have to stay in, I mean, I understand why and plan on fulfilling it respectfully, but that won’t make the feelings of inconvenience go. Not that I’d have a better chance at meeting anyone new out there, it’s about the principle. But I have to say, I like being able to translate occasional home office to a full-time home office. Yet at this point, I don’t think there’s a person introverted enough not to have already registered the slow depletion of sanity.

Especially in flats. Here I am, one modest bedroom, small living room with an even smaller kitchen. The bathroom being just exactly big enough, that you can’t sue them for attacking your human rights. And that balcony. Facing out to the myriad of other windows. The best fun I get here is watching people who forget to close their blinds. Or get some adrenaline by making accidental frightening eye-contact with people who are up to the same activity as me.

But fresh air is fresh air and I am fucking tired of my room. I know every dent and every shape of a squashed mosquito on that white wall, and I swear I’ve stared at them long enough to see them start shifting into weird shapes. I had to go work outside today.

The outside setup was done. I was feeling pretty suave there, in my little kingdom enclosed by one of those bamboo sticks fence decorations. My new laptop on the table, next to it a cold fresh lemonade and a metal box with hand-rolled cigarettes. I imagined myself stretching my arms as the universal gesture to start working, opting not to do it physically, since I was still quite visible. And then, after pretty much the first bump in my work, I found myself reaching for one of the cigarettes.

A silent: “Hey.”

Must be somebody on the phone a couple of balconies away.

“Hey.” A bit louder.

I started twisting around to find the source of this attempt at conversation. A guy looking like a cheap variation on Portland hipster sat right on the next balcony, staring blankly at me. I don’t know how long he has been there, but I am not too happy about it. I hate this type of people. Stylish hippies that know what to say to look cool. They always get pricked over young serious professionals in this city. It took him surprisingly long to register me looking right at him and then proceeded to nod slightly and ask:

“Hey, got a light?”

That is when I realised, that he was extraordinarily high. As in, this level of high requires natural talent coupled with long dedicated practice. He just fucking sat there, eating Froot Loops out of a sack and petting a stuffed animal. I tried my best not laugh at this sad caricature in his pink slippers.

“Oh, sure. Here you go.” I reacted with a considerable delay, amazed by that magnificently tragic sight. It seemed like I was the one who was high.

“I’m Eric.”  He extended out his hand, still holding my favourite lighter in the other. Oh my fucking god, here we go.  

“Evan.” I answered and lightly shook his hand.

“E-E” He said oddly, while chuckling.

“What?”  

“Oh, nothing, just the first letters of our names are E and E. Funny, right.”

“Um, If you say so. Can I have my lighter back, please?”

“Sure.” He almost dropped it down from the balcony, dickhead. Then he had the audacity to chuckle again.

“Sorry man.” He said trough chuckles. I was starting to have enough of this Eric character.

I stood there politely for a while and kept on struggling to make it trough Eric’s awful attempts at making small talk. When we finished smoking, I mustered up the courage to tell him, that I have to get back to my work. He told me it’s fine, although he seemed pretty sad while saying that. Then he went inside for a while. Thank god, even though his sadness really threw me off for a bit there.

However, it didn’t take long for him to come back. I pretended not to notice. But I think he knew I must’ve heard the door opening and closing. As he sat down, he of course made a loud sigh. Now I had to acknowledge his presence. I turned around, smiled at him and turned back to my laptop. He just sat there for quite some time, silent.  

“Listen, I am sorry for being so high. Guess I didn’t make a good first impression.” Well, no shit, at least he has some self-reflection.

“It’s okay. We had to meet sometime, right?” I said.

Then he got very solemn all of a sudden “Felt like there was nothing else to do. Last plea to stop it, because I really knew I didn’t want to do it, but also knew I might not be strong enough this time. I really tried it all, just got of the phone with the suicide hotline right before I got high.”  

I took a deep breath. “I was there yesterday. My first time calling, didn’t help me either.” I muttered fast. Our eyes met in mutual understanding.

Trough occasional moments of silence, we talked a lot about our struggles. To lighten up the mood, we then played dumb little games to pass our time. And then we talked more, this time relaxed and about anything. When the sun set, we lit up those cringy Christmas-like lights they had in sale at Ikea. That is when he stated making fun of me for being a hipster. Fair enough. I threw the a half of the lights chain over to his balcony. And we made a table out of wooden planks Eric had laying on the floor of his balcony for some long-forgotten art project.

We then proceeded to go on drinking beers in the warmnight. Always a meter away from each other but feeling closer to humanity than in those masses on the streets before everything got closed down.

Eric isn’t that bad at all, he was just high out of his fucking mind, way beyond making sense. As he is coming around, I think he is actually one of those people the type I first though him to be tries to emulate. I think he honestly is one of those people, who just do not care and it makes them very charismatic in turn. At least that’s what I think and I told him. He was flattered by me thinking him to be the cool, ironic kind, and told me that it was him actually being very much the opposite of charismatic what happened to be one of the causes of the morning hotline call situation.

This high weirdo became a close friend of mine in a matter of hours. A whole meter away but haven’t felt closer in months. We helped one another to have the best, or at least one of the few good, evenings we had in months. Texts and videocalls with old friends and family back home sometimes aren’t enough, one needs actual live contact. Both of us were ashamedly silent about our issues in front of our beloved ones. Now instead of trying to find solace in thoroughly drilled phrases of suicide hotline workers, we could find it in one another. In the knowledge, that when we wake up tomorrow, we will know, that both of us have a chance for actual social contact in this hard situation. Someone real, nearby, someone to vent to, to understand. And by that, hopefully be able to start on our respective ways to never have to call that number again. At around 1:30, filled with security and prospects of peaceful sleep, we exchanged quiet thanks and decided to give our goodbyes by saying: “See you in the morning”.

It was only 2 in the morning, that the sirens woke us both up. We met at our balconies, still a meter from one another. Our eyes met, somewhat fearfully. We weren’t prepared to see one another just yet. The plan was to lay in wholesome tranquillity, recollecting the events until we fall into slumber to permanently engrave them into our minds.

Now we are standing here, looking down our apartment building, trying to figure out what happened. Or better said, we knew what, just didn’t know how or why. We tried to focus on overhearing people rumbling and paramedics exchanging information with police. Then we put the pieces together. Finding each other in the dim light, our eyes locked in speechless empathy. Someone committed suicide, they jumped from a place just one story above us.