I. Lacuna

A BLANK SPACE

More often than not, things don’t always turn out the way we thought.
– ʞɐ

It was a silent night, compared to most of the other nights. The nights have actually been the same, there is not really much happen around except for the occasional fire trucks passing through. The only thing that changed were the voices in his head. He thought he was finally able to sleep peacefully. It had been a while since he had slept without worrying about tomorrow or a million other things that evidently kept him up during nights and not to mention the days. He had to find ways to get him to sleep. Perhaps, a visit to the local pharmacy might have helped his cause. But then again, it meant that he had to talk about that and what if they ask for the doctor’s prescription. Well, that does look like much of a hassle, but then again he never got that thought to begin with. He was never accustomed to it, so perhaps one of the reason that didn’t cross his mind. But he did have one trick and that was tiring himself to sleep which meant that tiring the voices in his head or perhaps giving a distraction to think about something else other than the million problems he needed to solve. The trick did have a lot of loopholes but he had to make that work and if that didn’t work which was the case a majority of the time, he had to remind himself that it was going to be morning soon and that he needed to squeeze in the little sleep otherwise he might be late for work and that meant that other people will be involved. The last thing he wanted was people thinking/talking about him even when no one gave a damn. All this seemed to have worked and made him fall asleep. Or so he thought. 

He however was accustomed to the routine of tiring himself to sleep and he had been programmed to do the same despite the fewer voices. But then again, when one door closes another door opens. Life, as they call it does provide opportunities to people who need them and even to them who don’t. One just has to vigilant enough to see the lemons that life throws around. The basic difference being he doesn’t see any and then blames it for not giving any. And instead of finding the doors to open, he strings around the million other things that doesn’t even matter and the billion other problems that indeed need solving. He seem to drown himself in them without batting an eye. And he was back to his usual self, with a million mind crushing thoughts and sleepless nights. He should have lost it, and it is surprising that he hadn’t still. But then again, it is never too late, never was. He is not hoping for that to happen, but it is very much likely to happen. And the funny thing would then be that the timing couldn’t be better. He will absolutely tell all about it whenever, i.e. if he could then.

He clearly needed a break. If only.

The previous night’s conversation was intense. A lot of things were said and unsaid; he vented out most of the things he only kept to himself up until that point and not a single soul knew about it, except the pages in his diary though. It was evidently quite difficult for him to say all the things he had said because he had barely slept the post week leading up to that night. Though, he had played this very conversation a million times the past few months, it got pretty intense in the last week. And no matter how many times he had played this conversation in his head, it didn’t come out the way he had thought of. He did get everything out, well almost. In those million conversations in his head, he had not once thought of the reaction; what he would after he had said, how it would be taken; whether it would received positively or it would just blow up in his face, like most of the things he touches. The worst part of having the million voices in his head, he managed to royally screw this up. The aftermath. This revelation should have changed everything, or so he thought. Well, it did change a few too many things and nothing is what he had anticipated. He clearly was not thinking much of the aftermath. He was mostly focussed on getting the unsaid things known than what came afterwards. Perhaps, in his mind he had this ideology that everything will fall into place once everything was said and dusted. He would go back to how things once were and he will have a few lesser voices in his head. And maybe he could finally take that break he had always thought of.

The response was quite unexpected, but he knew that he had already opened the can of worms that he can’t put back in. He now had to live with the unforeseen consequences. There was still one slight problem in the gram scheme of newly created problems. There was this one point that he had wanted to get across more than anything else and even though he did, it was not been given the appropriate weight it actually deserved. There are always terms and conditions, a big red asterisk and he thought he cleverly managed to wing past them. Again, these were not something that could be told and keeping that in mind, he did the best he could under those circumstances. And the few reasons he did come up with were not even being considered. They were just blatantly discarded. Well, sometimes more often than not, people try to look at the brighter side of things than the ones that keep dragging them. Perhaps, this was one of them where the reasons were not given the required importance, because they might have seemed more like excuses. 

He thought he had just bought some time before he could come up a better reason, umm… excuse or he was mostly hoping to never have to to face that situation again. While he was slipping into this abyss of not having to deal with all this for a while, a message on the social media site caught his attention. It was from a girl. A girl, you say. This changes everything. No, not really, but who knows, right? This seemed to have surprised him for one reason alone that he had been away from social media for such a long time. The only thing he uses it to numb his mind out of the million conversations. So, despite drowning in anxiety, frustration, dilemma, almost losing his mind, and not to mention the untold – willingly never accepted depression, he knew what he would do. 

He had to respond, obviously. 

___