The Point Of Life.

Unexpected turns

Since Alice came round my house on Friday she insisted that I go round hers at 10am on Saturday. I was nervous about our project, I mean so far I could only tell that Alice’s ideas on ‘what’s the point in life’ is that the point in life is beauty. To either be it, look at it or want it. On the 20 minute tram ride to her house I began to think of ways to get this philosophy essay over and done with, so far all I has was:

*Question Alice consistently so that I could write up some crap about her whole perception on the reason humans exist,

*We each write our own essay and then we swap just changing names on the title,

*Time travel so I could either go back in time and kiss her vigorously or travel into the future and kiss her them,

*Hire a detective to follow her and make him do the essay instead,

*Quit philosophy class.

And as far as 4/5 of those ideas go, they are both unrealistic and/or impossible.

By the time I reached the address that Alice had written down on a piece of scrap paper for me I had completely forgotten all about actually being invited to Alice’s house. I imagined it to be filled with posters of 80/90’s bands and maybe a vinyl player in her room. I had never been invited to anyone’s house and as much as I wanted to be nervous I was too hungry to think about anything except food. When I reach number 91 I looked up and saw a classic looking 3 story high house. It was painted this light blue colour that was borderline white. On the left side of the house tiny little red leaves were growing onto the side of the house as if they were reaching for the sun. As I walked to her front door I exhaled as my stomach grumbled loudly. Sometimes I imagined a miniscule orchestra living in my stomach playing out of tune at random times so loudly that it literally vibrated the lining of my belly. I pressed the bell three times and waited for someone to answer the door. I waited a short while until Alice got to the other side of the door and then had great difficulty opening the door itself by the curses she whispered under hear breath and by the immense amount of pulling I could hear, slowly but surely the door opened and there she was. She wore an oversize sports shirt that looked like it didn’t belong to her and knee high socks.

"Sorry about that, this door is seriously in need of some TLC," she smiled to herself as she let me in, gesturing to the coat hangers by the door.

The inside of her house was wood panelled with no band posters to be seen and only framed art works by what I hoped was a younger version of herself. I looked at each photo for a while. There were small frames with photos of forests with rainbows in the background and a girl on a swing was in each one. In the bottom right hand corner I noticed little numbers ranging from 3 to 8 which I concluded to mean the age of which Alice was when she drew them. It was so welcoming and inviting that I almost forgot that Alice was standing next to me watching me curiously as I took in her art.

"I wanted to be an artist"she whispered as if no one except us should know.

"Why did you stop? You could still be an artist."

"No one has ever asked me that before…"

She seemed sad whilst she spoke and then took my arm and led me to the kitchen. I walked in, half dragged in if we were being technical, only to see a handsome eighteen to maybe twenty year old guy sat down eating toast.

"Aaric this is Jonah my boyfriend, who was supposed to leave before you got here but decided to make himself food first."

She looked at Jonah who had a rough look to him and mildly long blonde hair with stubble peeking through his lower face. But it was the way she looked at him that got me. She looked at him the way all lovers look at each other and she smiled with eyes filled with light. Her lips moved to his neck as she left kisses slowly moving upwards from his neck and she sat on his lap. Jonah smiled whilst still eating his toast and moved the hair away from her face when she moved up to kiss him on his slightly chapped lips. Feeling nauseous from watching the girl of my dreams make out with the perfect male specimen I looked down and played with my hands. Eventually she pulled away after sighing into his neck and looked at me, whilst Jonah said in a husky and rather soothing voice:

"I will leave you guys to finish your assignment now, I’m late for work. It was nice to meet you Aaric."

He leant over the table to move his large fist towards me to give me a fist bump. Everything about this guy made me uncomfortable and I watched as he let himself out of the house, looking back only to wave and grab his bag.

There was a long silence after he left and I stayed looking at the door. She shuffled around in her chair and moved it closer to the circular marble table in the centre of the kitchen. I thought about what I could say that would show that I was amazed at her absolute capabilities of making people feel like dirt and at the same time like the whole universe. I felt her heavy gaze on me for a long while and I looked at the clock on the wall, it was 10:34 am. It got silent to the point that I could hear my heart beating and I could hear her breaths getting slower. Eventually I gathered the courage to look at her and she looked straight at me, waiting for me to talk.

"I guess you can just make up some bullshit for the essay, I’m assuming bullshit is your greatest talent."

After I said it I hated myself for being so rude and I watched as she nodded and smiled at what I just said.

I felt a fire inside me, a fire that I felt a lot in hospital. A fire that was burning my insides but without heat or pain just the harsh reality for the coldness of everything. I began to feel mentally numbed and I felt my face drop. I half sprinted to the door grabbing my coat and walking as fast as I could away from her house and towards mine. I knew it was a long walk but when I felt the burning I knew walking would neither kill me nor help me. I walked with no thoughts in my head and just the aim that when I got home I would sleep. I wouldn’t let myself do anything stupid or feel small and worthless but the truth is it hurt. Even though I felt nothing real for this girl, it hurt. Even though I expected to be hurt it still hurt with such a reality that it felt like I was slowly slicing my skin open with a butter knife. That a blunt object was being put under so much pressure that it became sharp and brutally painful. I could almost feel my skin tearing under my sleeves and I scratched at my left arm until I got home.