Nikki does nothing but show.
Like she is the show.
When is a person acting and when is a person genuine?
I delete it though, since the lack of activity has decreased Meurks’s reach.
Nikki takes center stage.
Where’s the stage and what makes the stage any different?
I get confused and watch videos others have posted about various topics. I laugh when I think I’m supposed to laugh and I am disgusted when I think I am supposed to be disgusted. Then I remember that nobody is watching so I go to where I’m most comfortable. I go into a public chatroom where I originally made Meurks who Meurks became.
I chat with different names. All of them fade.
The talking isn’t what’s important; it’s the typing.
We type to get everything out.
And before I can finish typing, my thoughts and feelings are pushed up, the chatroom a wildfire of bursts and other bombardments.
Everyone is typing.
They are typing to get out.
And almost do. We wait for that one thing that does.
What does?
When they return, Nikki has no clothes on. Neither Rios nor Veronica seems to notice. I notice. It keeps my gaze immediately on my phone.
I have trouble speaking.
So I type.
Feel like there’s this atmosphere of a charade. Like everything is a surprise waiting to unfold and I’m the only one not included.
Maybe I don’t want to be included. I want to be surprised.
I want to surprise them, everyone; and that’s what people really want right? Someone that isn’t like everyone else, someone that will make them feel more like themselves. Everyone is different, or so a lot of people say … and the differences are important and valued.
What does any of this really mean?
The blog post gets a lot of comments but I have trouble focusing on them because they all force me up from the rocks and tell me about things I shouldn’t know. About how there’s going to be a big celebration tonight.
How the celebration will bring together their friends.
And Rios slaps me on the shoulder, “And enemies.”
That’s a joke.
I think it’s a joke.
Neither Nikki nor Veronica laughs.
I ask, “What’s the purpose of the celebration?”
Nikki reaches up to the sky, “To celebrate!”
Veronica looks troubled.
I have seen that look before.
I have seen it in the mirror, when I look.
People start arriving when it gets dark. I am in one of the upstairs rooms using a laptop that might be Nikki’s but it has never been used. I am the first to use it. I maintain a level of activity despite it being the time of day where many only participate in passing.
I type more about what I should be feeling.
I type more about things that have nothing to do with me.
The most important part of this is that I am freely typing and I can feel my body relaxing. I am able to breathe without paying close attention to breathing. I am able to blink naturally. I don’t even notice that I’m blinking.
I am blinking right now.
Veronica isn’t here.
I don’t know where she is.
Yet I keep thinking about where she might be. And why — that becomes something else that I type to get out.
Friends and followers offer their condolences.
I don’t understand why.
Friends and followers offer their advice.
Again, an omission.
They speak of dead relationships, and dead feelings.
I hadn’t thought of Veronica in such terms.
Why would you say that it’s over?
I see the words “denial” and “grief.”
I close the tab.
I reopen the tab.
I delete some comments.
Then I forget why I’m deleting them.
I continue reading what shows up.
They say that they understand.
Thanks.
And I read one comment that says, We offer so much but we don’t have a place of offering.
I hear a knock on the door and everything looks like my apartment.
Everything goes back to that place.
It’s just what I imagine.
I tell them.
They say that it’s a “delusion.”
I begin to sweat and I start rubbing my eyes. My eyes burn.
When the tears start dripping down my face, I feel a weight push down on me. I remember the party. I remember where I really am. I remember Veronica, and then I remember that I missed work again.
I remember the routine.
The knock on the door pushes it all back.
Nikki.
She has the key to every door. And walks in like it’s her room.
She winks, “You too?”
I look down at the computer screen.
“I’m addicted to this stuff. I think my record is 60 likes.”
She asks me how many likes I’ve received.
The number registers over anything else.
“210, approximately.”
She seems impressed, “Oh wow, that’s crazy. You got it all figured out, huh?” From the door to the edge of the bed, she sits and looks over at me hunched over in a chair off to the side, occupying a neglected corner of the room. “How do you know my brother?”
Answering requires little effort.
Answering adds pressure.
I watch as my fingers continue typing.
But I don’t know what I’m typing. I don’t look.
My eyes are on the keyboard.
I think I tell her because she keeps talking.
Then she walks over to me.
It happens in reverse. I ask and she tells.
I ask and she does.
The laptop is taken from me. I close my eyes.
The next thing Nikki says is, “Hope you have enough left for the party.”
She had been accommodating up until this point but in a single blink it all changed. “I expect a performance,” she says.
I feel dizzy from the pressure.
Nothing gives and everything bottles up inside.
Once again, I become conscious of my breath.
But she leaves the room without a bother.
As if to say that I am barely a bother at all.
My interpretations come from odd angles. They are tinged in maybes.
I reopen the laptop to find that I had written nine pages.
When I try to read the text, my eyes cross.
I feel nauseous.
It gets into the keyboard.
I feel my pulse quickening with the activity around me. I worry more about the laptop, and what I did to it, rather than where she is.
I take a second to figure out who “she” is.
I feel the room begin to spin when I realize that I am referring not to Nikki. The differences between her and I outnumber any other two people. It’s the only excuse that works. Rios is incorrect:
We are not similar.
Veronica and I are similar.
Nikki. I can hear her from across the room.
There are currently 22 people in the room, with at least another dozen populating the other rooms on the first floor of this building.
I let Meurks rebuild his activity.
Meurks needs to respond to every comment of the previous blog post; otherwise, it would go against his brand.
It means the party consists of people that search for that one true person.
Meurks comments.