One room, five people.

The room was empty, vacant even. One could say the room was full of nothing. It was just blank. But, in the center there was a table, and upon that table was placed five plates, five forks, five knives, five napkins and five wine glasses. And around that table, five people were standing, waiting. Within the room there were ten eyes but four of them were the same, with the same emotions, however the people present could tell the two apart from the other two. The owners of those eyes also looked the same, identical even. And the twins were looking at each other with genuine joy and yet the others were shaking. The room was cold. Although the room was empty, it was also full. It was so full of the trepidation, expectation, and tension they could all feel it in the air pressing up against them constricting their lungs to the point that most could not take full breaths. The air was so thick and heavy, the five people felt like they were wading through turbulent water. Even the oxygen that managed to go past the bronchi and bronchioles was so thick with dread that it felt as though a mild poison was slowly being digested by the individuals. The other six eyes were panicked and shiny and rubbed raw.

The dinner was planned from before but now, now it was after. And now, there were very few chances of this dinner going well. The twins over the years had set up the room and painted it, carefully put it into place as well as the people in it. The table was set by them, and the menu decided as well as the plans for how it would go. Everything carefully crafted put into place like it always was and that assured the twins that this dinner would solve the slivers of doubt and resistance felt by the other three. The twins were hopeful despite their deep-seated worries that this room that was so full yet empty at the same time was somehow a metaphor or premonition for how the evening would pass. No matter the end of the dinner they were sure to have a little bit of fun as they always do, especially when all five of these people are involved congregated together as they were around a table where anything could happen. The silence surrounding them all was strong but tempting, and although it was an oxymoron it was whispering and begging to be broken because it was a little masochistic in that sort of way. The first one to do it would be the first to weave a thread into the fabric of that night and begin to shape the evening starting to finally fill up the room with substantial substance attaching them all together. The first twin spoke with a sharp needle of a word puncturing through the silence “So…” and with that first word everything else started falling into line and creating the fabric of the night. The other three took a deep breath in harmony and responded with acceptance “So…”

The dinner could have been the chance for these five people who were so close to each other they felt surgically joined and magically bound but had such big chasms and built-up walls between them to start anew to begin to heal. Hammers could have been placed into their right hands and magnets in their left to begin to close up the space that was between them but instead within their hands this night there was nothing and the only things within reach were knives. Eight years they had been in each others company, although company is a strange word for the sort of relationship that bound them as it was a strong push where they would get so close, they would be constricted without ability to move, and then suddenly they were propelled away cast away with so much void between them. At certain points forced away alone in a closet in the basement of a big house burning under the sun, and others in a group with laughing edging each other on doing the forcing. But I the center always the twins. The dinner today could place them all in a safe distance as it had started and kept the whole tenuous configuration into a safe formation rather than this web.

Hunger was now the strong emotion permeating the nothingness of the room cutting through the intestines. But nobody’s mind was on getting food onto that table, and then eating said food. Everyone was hungry for release. The twin had once again taken the lead into creating the garment that would be worn by those present and would also get to determine who would fit and how. The twins knew how to do this well and so they once again delved into the process they intimately know and is vital to their being once again. The second twin spoke now “So this is all a bit dramatic is it not? A bit much to be placed in this place with this table and nothing else but us to eat a meal.” The first twin continued “Ha-ha yes, the whole affair seems very staged almost. Not the first time we’ve all eaten together.” “Not the first time we have been put in this place either though, is it?” one of the three dared to say and that was like a pair of sharp scissors cutting the threads that had been sewed by the twins. The act of courage revved up the feelings of the three and started boiling up all of the rage and anger and hurt that had been just simmering covered up in the pot at the bottom of their consciousness for all this time.

The boiling erupted and now the room was full, full of the three who seemed to have grown in size and stature ready to take over. But the twins did not yet seem to cower, they stood tall ready to begin again with their work that they knew so well that it almost was automatic. However, another of the three now started the work of chopping away at the carefully constructed relationship “Is this meant to fix things? Is this the purpose of this dinner? To delude us all into thinking that this is a thing that can be fixed? That this is a thing that we want fixed?” With that sentence the three grew so large there was no empty space left in the room. The twins were trying to stand their ground and did not make any moves towards willing to shrink and relinquish control.

The last of the three spoke and the words were a guillotine come to life slicing away at the heads of the relationships “I think this is the end. I think we have reached a point that is a true point, a full stop, an ending with no ability to be expanded upon. The pushing and the pulling of us has made us magnets and now we refuse. We will be steel, and we will not back down. The eight years we were pawns but now we are no longer willing to be moved, we are immovable, you cannot move us. All of the pushing and the pulling has left us warped and the shapes of the people that we have become will struggle to move through the straight line of life. We will have to chip away and make ourselves smaller and swerve away from others. We are no longer willing to be reshaped any further. No, I don’t think this is the end.” All together now the three launched the bomb that broke apart the walls of the room bounding them, the table that kept them apart, and the links that connected one to the other by saying “We know this is the end.” It was that last burst of energy needed to force for the room to come apart, and as such the relationships between them all. The twins were made small, forced apart, and made to release their ties. Their dinner had failed.

There was no room now, but if there was one it would be full, full of everything, everything but those five together.