There is a young man slouching his way over the sidewalks. His back is notably hunched and his eyes, could we see them, for they are covered by black bangs overdue for a haircut, are outlined with the eyeliner of life (the life in particular is a very self-destructive one): the eyebags. From this we could infer that he is having a bad day, received some bad news, perhaps his favourite TV-show took an unexpected narrative turn he’d rather it hadn’t, we could spend time and word count thinking of anything that would’ve given this a-postured adonis a negative emotional reaction, but the truth be told as it is written: he isn’t sad, bitter, somber, or lugubrious at all. Not quite the opposite, but he is feeling relaxed. He simply decided that nothing matters anymore and this apparently includes his physical demeanour. He is humming along to the buzzing in his unironed shirt’s chest pocket. His boss probably, or a coworker who has been instructed to by the selfsame boss, for employers are deceptive, mistrusting creatures, who would use unwilling thralls to investigate if you’re not feigning illness or do not actually meet the agreed-upon, acceptable conditions for missing work. Neither party (the second one is you, the reader!) will know, because the man simply keeps walking and keeps humming.
“Now nothing matters anymore, I can do whatever I want. Which is nothing. I want to fill time with my body as if it were a space, and nothing else. There is my existence I owe obligations to. There is nothing to be ashamed of doing or not doing, but I would like to exist minimally. That seems reasonable,” chuckles the young man underneath his dark bangs, obscuring his sight, the path to self-awareness of his own refreshingly simple naivety, and also the path he is currently lolling on, which we can assign as the direct cause of the physicality about to occur.
“UWAGH!!!!”
“You have bumped into me, you villain!! That is a direct challenge, you cannot refuse me or the pain I am about to deliver!!! Onto you!!!!” A loud voice and an aggressive stance fill the streets, glass is crackling as if frozen, cracks and fissures are forming in the stone, energy waves are forming underneath her feet. That isn’t what is happening at all, but given the mystery woman’s proclivity to flair and dramatique, it may as well be! Her sports jacket does suggest a certain assertivity, but she is also wearing a knee-length skirt, which disrupts, dispurposes the image we had so precociously built for her.
“Is that so? I do apologise — it is quite serious, I concede. If you believe your reasons just, I have no qualms to make,” smiles the young man back. He has no real attachments to his body, so gracefully he accepts his punishment, his relationship with pain is an odd one, there are times he has expressed desire for violent death, but only ironically, not true at all, all the while using the rhetorical device to uphold the surreptitiousness of his masochism. He is quite the unintentional elocutionist.
Her hand goes up, and her chop is about to CLONK! him in the head, technique and style are emanating from each microsecond of movement! But then a television broadcast interrupts this balanced exchange, they are standing in front of an electronics shop after all, and if you must know, the ‘UWAGH!!!!’ came not from either of them, but from a set displayed in the window, it coincidentally showed an episode of the series the man might have been upset about, which is very slapstick.
“This is a news broadcast. We are so sorry to take up some of your time. There is a small meteor storm headed your way. Sorry.”
“Well, that’s quite troubling, I would say that, had I not decided that nothing matters anymore.”
“Do you think so? There is so much we don’t know that is so lovely.”
“I’d rather it not be so covert, then.”
The girl moves her fist beneath her sturdy chin and begins to shake her head rapidly up and down, like an earthquake showing its understanding of concepts such as materialism and personal property and how detrimental they are to the human condition. But not vibrating at a sufficient Richter scale to make the nuance show up on the panicking geologist’s seismograph to suggest it also comprehends we still need conceptually bad things, simply because they offer the most direct solutions to our complicated struggles. And how can we blame her, for not knowing the exact condition of this young man’s psyche and ideology? They had only just met and their first interaction could very well have ended in manslaughter, we don’t know the girl’s strength, maybe neither does she, but she empathises with him, an empathy born of pity. She rather enjoys the world and its constant excitement, the yelling of everything happening on earth, the thrums of the universe and the echoes of life reverberate throughout her chubby frame, every moment she spends is great, every kiss she shares with her girlfriend is bliss, if only this young man could see that, too.
She looks up, literally and expression-wise, and implies for him to do so, too.
“Isn’t that just the loveliest thing you’ve ever seen?”
“Oh! I guess you’re right.”