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“What was attraction if not a form of telepathy? The wild luck of two people feeling the exact same thing at the exact same time. That word again: purpose.”
The girl wakes up groggy. Hungover without the tricks. She flips out of bed to the purple plush carpet and lays awhile with the floor. Musing with the lint and hairballs layered into the yarn. Disembodied, her words didn’t fit the frame. Better to not talk.
She pushes herself up to start her morning routine. First, always, she sweeps. The entire studio, from corner to doorjamb. The clearing absolves her dreams. There’s never much to pick up from the living space. You’re a bit obsessive, Joe tells her.
Joe slept over last Tuesday; the girl had ended her period six days earlier and was antsy to be touched. She massaged her feet and legs beforehand to get the lymph flowing and laboured her palms upward to her chest, neck and cheeks. At the time Joe arrived, the girl crackled like broken glass.
He was truly a lousy companion, speaking incessantly of himself. His French essays, his depreciating Father, the unnecessity of the iPhone. It was a chore to be with him.
He spoke over the girl’s friends when they went to a concert and critiqued movies at an octave too high at the theatre. His depreciating Father had been a chef, specializing in Moroccan and Mexican flavours. Joe’s palette was developed at a young age. He invited the girl over for dinner to entertain her tastebuds with zaalouk, kefta tagine, harira, and chicken rfissa. The girl brought Riojas, and Joe had groused, placing it aside and selecting a preferred bottle from the vast wardrobe of wines he kept in the corner.
The girl sipped the grape slowly and still got too tipped. As soon as one bottle was empty, Joe would uncork another. She cleared the kitchen as Joe rolled a joint. In the latter half of the evening, he lectured on Camus and the Art of Freedom.
We are not free, do you see? None of us get to choose. Suicide is the only way out. It is the ultimate act to claim our being. To contemplate our ending before it is taken from us is the only legitimate freedom!
The girl did not agree and did not say so. She blithely uncorked the Riojas and filled a mug. The ascetic wine was the girl's only recourse.
I am not free. You are not free. We are slaves. Don’t you see? Death is not the answer—it’s the question! To question death is to confront mortality and acknowledge our finite experience. Suicide is a pathetic confrontation of the question mankind has contemplated for centuries. It is the only question.
What are we slaves to?
What are you talking about? You’re missing the point! Of course we are slaves—you’re a slave to your job, body, social constructs, politics; you have to work your entire life. You are a slave to me; women have been slaves forever. How are you not getting this?
I’m not your slave; I belong to no one.
Don’t be dumb. Of course, you are. Everyone is someone else’s slave; if not a person, then a concept. What about your job? Your body? You have to do the same tasks every day to take care of yourself. To make money. It’s a systemic structure to enslave each of us. Even the people at the top are a slave to something. No one is free.
There are conditions that subjugate people—entire nations—to forces beyond their hands. I do not feel that I am one of those people.
So what, you’re above everyone else? Are you better than me?
I didn’t say that. I have a choice many women before me did not. Depending on where you are born and how you look provides certain liberties.
So choice equates to freedom?
Yes.
Ok, I’ll follow your line… what about breathing? What about taking care of your body? The tedium of eating, cleaning, evacuating; the mundane tasks of taking care of yourself. You didn’t choose your body; you don’t make the conscious choice of breathing. It just happens, and it must happen for you to survive. You’re a slave.
I think all actions come down to intention. I intend to take good care of myself until I die. So every action is intentional. I do it for a purpose.
And what is your purpose?
To live fully and devote myself to the things I must do for the sake of doing them.
We are saying the same thing; you’re just dressing it up with pretty words.
No, we aren’t. You are choosing to look at yourself as a slave. I don’t wear that lens.
That’s ignorance. You refuse to see things for what they truly are.
I choose to see things as I want them to be; my body can be a vassal or a vehicle for self-expression.
You’re naive. You are part of a much grander construct that binds you to slavery—don’t you see that?
I choose not to join the conventional trope of existence.
You don’t get to choose! That’s the entire point! Someone else chooses for you.
I disagree.
Whatever. It’s no use explaining this to you. It’s over your head. Let’s watch something.
The girl sweeps to keep her hands busy, and her mind contained. As she clears the loft of non-essential debris, she reviews the existential crisis of tenancy. Why get up from bed? Why bathe and craft an appears suitable to civilization? Why respond to the ache of the heart?
Neti is next. The neti is a miniature clay pot with a slender beak. The girl adds non-iodized salt to the tepid water and slides the spout into one nostril. Leaning over the bathroom sink, she inhales and exhales through her mouth as the water moves into one nasal passage and out the other. She repeats the process on the other side before flossing her teeth and brushing her short dark hair.
Breakfast is overnight oats. The girl adds strawberries, hemp seed, lightly cooked kale, avocado, and a handful of cashews.
Chewing, chewing dispassionately, the girl takes out her phone and calls Joe.
It’s better to have someone despair the sentiments dear to my heart than sit in the ache, the girl thinks.
Photo source.
