How many times can you lie to yourself before the façade of your life caves in on and around you, leaving you standing knee deep in the rubble of your stories, your “memories”, surrounded by the unyielding light of truth?

If your notebook is rapidly filling with words you don’t remember writing, is it such a bad thing to hide it under your best friend's couch and pretend like it never existed?

When your mind erases memories, it isn’t always to repress or to hide things. Occasionally, it’s to preserve your sanity.

When Damo returned I could tell he was hiding a smirk. Fighting laughter. He apologized for seeing what he had and I accepted, then eyed him for a while, waiting for him to crack. Finally he lost it, almost falling over himself laughing, holding his aching stomach. I couldn’t help but smile, it really was quite funny. Eventually I went and shoved him, so prone with hysterics he was that he fell over.

“You’re a cunt.” I said jokingly as he still cackled. “I bet you had that all planned out. You were watching us through the window, waiting for the perfect time to make an appearance, weren’t you?” I continued as slowly he pried himself off the floor and calmed down.

“Oh man,” he said, catching his breath. “You’ve done well. She had great tits!” And he laughed again and I slapped his head playfully as I joined in. Once again I’d assumed character. Why is it we adapt ourselves to suit present company? Some instinctive need to fit in and be popular. To be normal. People mostly don’t have an identity; they just shift between characters as the need arises. The day preceding, I’d realised that Damo and I were closer friends than I’d ever really considered. I’d taken our relationship much for granted, I think. Now, we were back to our assumed identities. Back to normal.

“Is there a room in here where I can take Katya next time… to avoid visitors?” I asked, still lighthearted, half serious.

Damo’s head poked around as if he were looking.

“Don’t think so.” He responded. I started walking around, exiting the lounge room and venturing around the house. From the front door was a hall which led to nothing, along the right side of it was Damo’s room and another. Along the left was the entrance to the lounge room which led to the kitchen. Walking toward the door of the room besides Damo’s, I spoke.

“What’s in this room?” My hand was reaching for the handle.

“Nothing.” Damo replied bluntly as I went to turn the knob. Suddenly, Damo was in front of me and I’d been pushed slightly away. He stood before the door, defensively.

“What?” I asked, annoyed that he’d shoved me and confused as to why.

“I told you there’s nothing in there.” His defensiveness continued.

“So I can’t go in there?” I was incredulous.

“Why would you want to? There’s nothing in there.” Three times nothing equaled something was up. I eyed Damo oddly, unsure if he was serious. The moment was quite surreal.

“Okay. I won’t go in.” I said and turned away, walking back to the lounge room. Frustrated, I turned on the TV. Switched off my brain. Mostly, the only time I can stand television is when I’m angry. Or perturbed. Whenever I don’t want to think.