Room Empty by Sarah Mussi

Author:Sarah Mussi
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Oneworld Publications
Published: 2017-03-10T05:00:00+00:00

Outer Space is dark. Maybe there is no waking up.

Maybe it’s a choice, like in The Matrix. Here is the blue pill. Here is the red pill.

You choose.

36

Kerstin visits.

I’m hoping she may have news to tell me. Fletcher would like that.

‘Hi, baby-head,’ she says. ‘How’s tricks?’

It doesn’t seem likely.

I sigh. I don’t know why she bothers. I don’t know why I bother.

‘Anybody cute here? Anybody fanciable?’

‘Everybody here is an addict,’ I say. If she had news, she wouldn’t start on that tack.

Kerstin laughs. She draws in her breath. ‘Yeah, you’re right – you should definitely aim higher.’

‘I don’t know,’ I say.

‘Nonsense,’ she says all briskly. ‘You just haven’t met the right one yet.’

OK. There’s no news. Kerstin wouldn’t be able to wait this long before telling me what a great friend she’s been.

If she had been a great friend.

But I need to make sure. ‘Did you get my email?’ I ask.

‘Darling, I haven’t been able to do anything about all that yet. I’ve been so busy. There’s this new guy I’ve met, called Rod – he’s totally dreamy.’

‘Oh,’ I say. ‘That’s nice. But will you be able to?’

‘Yes, yes, of course, darling. I just need to think about it a bit. I hate doing things in a hurry.’

‘Oh. OK. Thanks.’ For some reason I’m surprised. Kerstin normally makes more of a show of being helpful. Especially after her last promises.

‘Now back to you and that special person.’ Kerstin shivers her shoulders as if her special person (presumably Rod) has draped a special-person arm around her and is blowing her special-person kisses. ‘That’s much more important.’

She leans forward and touches my hand. Perhaps she thinks that special-person-ness is catching.

I can already hear the Alien giggling and humming ‘Some Day My Prince Will Come’.

OK. So no news on who I am, or why, or even if . . .

I try to refocus.

I vaguely wonder if everyone believes in THE ONE.

‘There is hope, darling,’ she says.

Bullshit. You’re on your own. Fletcher was so right about that.

‘Your knight in shining armour is out there waiting for you. You just need to believe it.’

No, he’s not. Nobody is coming to save you. There are no heroes. There is no God. There is no meaning. Only you battling with yourself. All alone. And failing. And there is no final revelation that it all added up to anything. There is just this one messed-up life, and that’s it.

And it’s full of Kerstins.

‘You have to believe!’ says Kerstin.

What the hell does she mean? I don’t even bother saying anything. She has got that smile playing over her top lip. That one Fletcher noted about his mum. It means she is getting one over on me. She has taken up residence on Planet Superior. She’s believing in Beauty and Faith and Truth and Wisdom and Meaning and Love and Heroes and Happiness. Whereas I am not.

Anything I say now will sound morose and miserable and moronic. So I offer her a biscuit.

Luckily she accepts.

I hate myself.

I watch as she

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