Lost In Nothing.

When you’re shrouded in darkness, time has no meaning.

It seemed like weeks until I saw Katya again. We’d spoken over the phone often, but we hadn’t met face to face since the Damo incident. She assured me that she wasn’t embarrassed, though somewhere in the back of my mind I felt she was. Perhaps my feelings came from the same area of my mind in which I’d locked all thoughts of the notebook and of the mystery room in Damo’s house. Since our minor confrontation about the room, it hadn’t been mentioned since. Damo was busy with work, clocking in a horrendous amount of hours to afford a new car. He’d been using mine lately, but other people’s things are never any substitute for your own.

Mostly, I’d remained idle. As Damo’s work hours increased, so did my time on the couch staring at the television. I’d all but quit writing, mostly because of the weird notebook stuff. I could always start writing in another notebook, I figured, but every time I went to write, all I could think of was what I was trying to hide from. The problem with writing is that it encourages overthinking. Analysis. Labouring on every little detail. At this stage of my life, overthought was the last thing I needed. What I needed was distraction. Detachment.

It was weird, I thought, that I hadn’t seen Katya for so long. When I wasn’t watching television, my mind fixed itself on her. First wondering how she was, then wondering why she hadn’t called, then wondering if she’d forgotten about me, then creating completely fake scenarios in my head of a phone conversation or an argument we might someday have. This is a facet of myself that I wish away constantly. Often, I take one thought and run way too far with it. No matter how positive the thought may begin, I can always find a way to make it depressing. To turn myself worried.

That’s one of my biggest problems. With my mind always worried, I’m never sure whether I’m happy and just convincing myself I’m depressed, or whether it was the other way around. It’s amazing. You’d think with all these thoughts in my head that I’d someday arrive at an answer, instead of being permanently confused and scared.

This was the reason I’d become glued to the couch, eyes fixed on the television. With noise and vision filled, my thoughts were momentarily numbed.

I hadn’t been to Salinger’s class in however long, since he told me to rewrite my lost pages. School was the last thing on my mind. My dwindling interest in writing carried through to Salinger’s class and my ongoing alienation of self and deliberate detachment willed me away from even considering going to class. Why bother when I could watch daytime soaps and lose myself in realities that aren’t mine?

On top of my becoming a hermit and couch potato was another reason that Katya and I hadn’t met for a while. She had been spending loads of time with her friend Jessie. More often than not I’d had to call Jessie’s house lately to speak to Katya. I’d never met Jessie myself, just spoken to her on the phone. She sounded okay, I thought. Though, anyone can sound okay over a phone line.

Damo was home when the phone rang, luckily. It was whatever time of day and I was sitting on the couch, on all my secrets, watching someone else’s problems on the tube. The phone had been ringing quite frequently lately. I never answered. If it was Katya, Damo would hand the phone to me. I didn’t want to speak to anyone else, I’d told him and myself. Katya was contentment. Katya was forgetting. Katya was my world away from reality.

Damo was in the kitchen speaking. Sometimes my ears would accidentally catch some of what he was saying. None of it registered, just played as background noise. A soundtrack to the lives I’d confined myself to on the TV. Occasionally I’d hear Damo say “He’s okay.”

As some random soap opera character discovered her father’s dead body, I’d hear Damo say “Are you sure?”

As a man awoke from a coma completely unable to remember his own identity, Damo’s voice would pervade. “I don’t know. I haven’t been around much lately.”

After a teacher had slept with a student, they lay in bed discussing the student’s problems and I’d catch the end of a sentence. “I’ll speak to him about it.”

The coma patient had decided he didn’t want to remember who he was when Damo entered the lounge room, clearly unimpressed. His voice came over everything else as he sounded accusing.

“When was the last time you went to school?”

“School?” I repeated pointlessly before breaking out of my trance, realizing I’d have to come up with a lie. “Yesterday.” I made up, whenever that was.

“Yesterday was Sunday!” Damo raises his voice and I knew I’d walked right into confrontation. The workers inside me told me I was stupid. “Seriously Owen, how long have you just been sitting here?”

I couldn’t answer, not just because I didn’t want to, but also because I didn’t know. For all I cared, I’d been sitting for a year. When you surround yourself with nothing, darkness, time has no meaning. My eyes were still fixed on the television when suddenly everything stopped. The world came to an end. Damo had switched off the television.

“You can’t just stay here and avoid everything!” Damo was pissed off. “You haven’t even seen your fucking girlfriend in weeks!” He yelled. “I know everything’s fucked up for you right now, but you can’t just hide in here forever.” And again it was as if I’d slipped out of my body and was watching a pre-scripted conversation.

“You have no idea.” I replied coldly. Mostly, when people confront me I try to avoid it. Sometimes though, I just dismiss them and try to shut them out.

“I have no idea?” He echoed incredulously. “Yeah, like I don’t know how it is to have a fucked up relationship with my parents.” His words made mine seem ridiculous. Damo hadn’t spoken to his parents in years. Life at the family home had always been rough, but one night of culmination left Damo homeless - until he found this place. Still, I was arguing, and being wrong has never stopped me from continuing.

“You could speak to them at any time. You just choose not to.” Words I’d never dream of saying usually. I was stuck in my own soap opera, just reading from the script. The stage directions following my line told Damo to throw the remote control at my face. The pain burned as it struck me in the lip. Licking the wound, I felt blood drain from me, then back in through my mouth. An illusion of loss.

“Fuck you!” Damo yelled. His eyes were furious and for a moment I was worried that he’d leap at me offensively. On the couch, I lightly guarded myself, preparing my arms and legs for any sudden movements they may have to make. “Fuck off!” He yelled. “Get the fuck out of here. And if you’re not going to go see Salinger anymore, you can pack your shit. You can’t just stop doing shit because you’re living here.” And he stared me down before going to enter the kitchen. The last thing he said before he disappeared behind the kitchen wall was “Just leave me alone for a while. Get out of the house.”

I didn’t know if I wanted to keep arguing or not. I was already wishing I’d never said what I had to Damo. Why is it that we hurt the people we care for? More, why do I continue the hurting when I know I’m doing it? Questions to set me off into another think-cycle. Another analysis of everything.

What I saw was the cordless phone sitting atop the television where Damo’d put it before grilling me. Katya, I thought. As regret and frustration flushed throughout my body, making me feel complete depression, all I could think was that I needed to speak to Katya. Or to see her. Before I knew it, the phone was in my hand and I’d dialed Jessie’s number. Habitually. Lately, Katya’d been there more than at home anyway. I couldn’t even remember the last time Katya’d answered her phone.

A few moments of dial tone led to what was probably Jessie’s voice.

“…Hello?” Slurred and muffled came the greeting and took me by surprise. Wondering what was happening, I asked for Katya. “Katya? Yeah, she’s here.” Jessie responded before I heard the phone get passed around. After what seemed like hours, I finally heard Katya’s voice.

“Owen.” She said. “What’s up?” I put to the back of my mind that she sounded weird and maintained my need to see her.

“I need to meet up with you.”

“Oh. Well you can’t come here,” she said almost defensively, “do you want to meet up in the city?”

“How about the Botanical Gardens?” I countered.

“Um… okay.” She replied less excited than I wished she would. We hadn’t seen each other in ages and she was making meeting me seem like a chore. “When?”

“Meet me at the main gates as soon as possible.” I responded and that was it.

On my way to the Gardens, I couldn’t take my mind off the conversation with Katya or the confrontation with Damo. Probably my two best friends and the way I’d treated them and they’d treated me had me utterly frustrated and saddened. It struck me suddenly just how weird it was that I’d gone without seeing Katya. Only a few weeks ago I would never have enough of her, now weeks of nothing. It wasn’t as if I didn’t want to see her either. It was just that it hadn’t come up. What the phone conversation showed me was that our way of talking to one another had changed. It’s as if after a certain amount of time you grow completely comfortable with someone and just stop hiding. You cease to fake manners and just talk to them the way you talk to yourself. Whether that’s a good or bad thing, I don’t know. It’s just the way life works, I guess.

Damo’s words were still ringing in my ears. If I continued skipping class, I’d have to find another place to live. He told me to keep seeing Salinger and I had no idea why he knew Salinger’s name. Had I talked about him? Think-cycles crowding my brain until Katya’s hand tapped my shoulder and freed me.

“Hi.” She said with a smile. Her lips pressed on mine and I hugged her so tightly she had to tell me to stop. With her vision gracing me again, the need of her company grabbed hold of me once more. In that moment, I couldn’t believe that I’d possibly gone weeks without her. I couldn’t imagine why I would ever want to. Seeing her smile, her eyes, feeling her reflected warmth, I felt safe again. All overthoughts vacated the premises.

We walked around for what could have been hours but felt like seconds, talking about nothing. It was a hot day and Katya was wearing a jumper for whatever reason. As we found a nice green patch to rest on, I noticed her sweating.

“Why don’t you take that jumper off? It’s boiling.”

Katya shrugged. “It’s comfortable.”

As we rested, stretched out, laying, watching the clouds, I let words emanate.

“Mum and I always used to come to the Botanical Gardens when I was a kid. I’ve always loved this place. It’s beautiful.” My eyes wandered sideways to catch the tops of trees amongst the blue sky, clouds passing by like big cotton trains.

“I know this is going to sound terrible,” Katya started, “but I’ve never been here sober.”

I laughed out loud. “Really?”

“Well I’ve only been here twice before and both times I was getting drunk with friends.” She chuckled.

“Kinda takes the point out of going to the Gardens, doesn’t it?” I asked rhetorically. Normally I had no problem with enhancing the beauty of the nature surrounding by devouring intoxicants. This was the one place where I would never get drunk or stoned. The natural beauty of it, the flowers, the scenery, the greenness of it all. This and the memories stored within were reasons I could never be here intoxicated. “Oh well,” I said, “I’m glad your first sober time here is with me. After sprinkling a kiss on her cheek I allowed my eyes to fix on the sky again. Clouds had now exited my gaze and all that spread above me was a vast blue nothing. A nothing like the seas. A space of infinity for you to lose yourself in. As my vision fixed, Katya’s voice floated.

“You miss your mum a lot, don’t you?” She asked. Still staring at the sky, I felt as if I was floating up and out of my body. Though I wasn’t moving. Everything suddenly started to drain and I was losing reality. What was going on, I didn’t know as I heard myself respond.

“Yeah.”

Nothing was real and I was losing my mind. Around me, everything was wavering and as I remained still I could feel myself being moved. As the sky engulfed me, I seriously believed I was falling to oblivion, until… Normalcy.

As I fell back into myself, reality resurfaced. And as I wondered what the hell had just happened, I heard Katya’s words.

“What was her name?”