I've never been so alone. I've never had this much quiet to myself. It's so much; it fills my days with an uncomfortable lingering dread and fear—fear that I am unloved by everyone I know, fear that I am unloved by myself. Do you love yourself? Do I love myself? I don't know, partly because I'm scared of the answer, and I'm unsure of what it means to love oneself. Can you love yourself without being selfish? I don't think so. Is selfishness, then, a good thing in this case? I don't think it is. To say that I love myself is to admit to being selfish to some degree, and that is not an admission I'm proud of. Is it love, dear friend, if it isn't selfish? Is it love still, if it is selfish? I don't know. What I know is that I'm alone, and I wish I weren't. I hear the world around me give off dead silence when I'm mute and a loud echo when I speak. I see shadows around every corner, except they're not there when I'm not. The only signs of life besides me are the ants that conspire to find a route into my milk jar and the geckos that mock my aloneness by shaking their heads whenever we make eye contact. Every now and then, I see a cockroach scurry across the room or perform some impressive acrobatic manoeuvre. However, as a matter of personal principle, creatures that hell spat out do not pass the "signs of life" test, and the cockroach is top of that list. I'm alone, and I don't want to be anymore.
Twelve years ago, this house would have been very busy. Bodies running into bodies. Spaces intersecting. Questions asked about missing chocolate cookies and Capri-sonnes. My name would have been on everybody's lips. Murty, go put on the generator. Murty, see who's at the gate. Murty, take the fish soup out of the freezer. Murty Murty Murty. Then, I would wish for some quiet—a lot of quiet, in fact. I would wish my name were forgotten and I had me to myself. I would listen to music on the highest volume so that I could honestly say, "Sorry, I did not hear you call me seventy-seven times". I would dream of a day like today, where I'm by myself. Now that I'm living that dream, I want nothing more than to wake up from it. And have someone call my name, even if it's to accuse me of Capri-Sonne theft—a crime often labelled against me but always with insufficient proof. What has changed since then? I don't know. Maybe we never truly want what we think we want. Maybe it's the fact that then, I sought aloneness as a form of escape, and I found joy in the seeking. Now I'm joyless because there's no seeking of any sort, as aloneness is imposed on me. Anyway, the only remnant of the lives that were here a dozen years ago is the family picture in the rear of the dining room—that, and the note on my sister's door that reads, "this is girls room. knock before entering". I don't know what happened there—perhaps I barged in one too many times without observing the ritual of knocking. I suppose I wasn't the best brother when I had the good fortune to play that role. I'd trash the note, but I find it useful in reminding me that my past is not entirely imagined. Although it's a little too late, I now knock every time I go into the room. But no matter how polite or courteous I am, I don't find her there. I'm instead greeted by the same things every time, namely an empty bed, dust, cobwebs, purple floor and wall tiles, and more dust. I'm alone, and I don't know how to fix it.
For the last year or so, I've wanted to talk to only one person. I've wanted to be in her orbit and to see all her angles. She's great, and I spend many moments telling her this. I would ask her to help rid me of this aloneness, but she's far from here, and it would be unfair to make such a demand. Perhaps if I truly loved myself, I would be selfish enough to make the demand of her. Regardless, I've recently realized that she may not be for me after all. Her graces more than makeup for her faults, but she's not who I want to put my arms around. She's not smooth jazz; no, no, she's not a Louis Armstrong special. But I swear by the little lights still in my life that she's brilliant. She's like rap. She's like a Kendrick rendition—one that leaves me grunting, bopping my head, clenching my fists, and saying "yes" as he delivers each bar that I can make sense of. And in true Kendrick fashion, I can't fully make sense of her. She's electrifying, not in a manner that'd leave me numb or paralyzed but one that pumps me full of energy. She's like a million gold rings to my Sonic, which is great but ultimately not what I want. I've found that I have enough gas to go through life at a reasonable pace, and what I most need is a soft melody to put me to sleep. To warm my dreams. To relax my fists rather than clench them. To rest my head rather than bop it. To hum her rhythm rather than grunt. A melody. A piano joint or a sax solo. That's what I want, but that's not her. And I couldn't agree more with George Jean Nathan's take on electrifying and drowsy love. I'm alone, and love is a remedy outside my reach.
