A Brief Exchange Ending in Nothing

The sun beamed a gentle confidence in rays through the mostly-overcast Tuesday sky. It beamed down onto Momo, more certain than ever, as she strolled down the sidewalk. She did not care what she looked like as she skipped along. The whole city of Salem, Oregon could see her making such an unfitting display and she wouldn’t change her way in the slightest. After all, Momo had just made an important resolution.

Momo walked down Jefferson Street towards the house of her only friend and companion, Erin. It wouldn’t be long now until Erin had to leave for work, and Momo wanted to meet him at the door to announce her brilliant decision as soon as possible. She loved him with all her heart, and he cared about her more than anyone else. She couldn’t wait to tell him all about it. She knew he would be absolutely delighted and proud of her beyond words. This was big.

Erin was predominantly a writer. He had an enchanting way with words. Lately, though, his publications had been pulling in less and less profit, and so he had to pick up a part-time job at one of the shopping centers downtown. He hadn’t yet told Momo where he worked even after 2 months on the job. It’s fair enough, Momo figures, because Erin had always harbored frustrations about people distracting him from his work. He was a very dedicated man to his devices.

And so Momo approached Erin’s house. She could see it now, garage door open. Her pace jumped up to a brisk half-jog. He’s still there. He hasn’t gone yet. She’s just in time. A couple breathless seconds fell away until she got close enough to see him inside. He was propping up a broom or two that fell over. His mind was as far from her as it could possibly be; solely focused on his work to come. She couldn’t wait to tell him everything. It was right on the tip of her tongue, and yet it was faltering all the same. She tried to speak but nothing came out. This happened all the time with him. She just cares so much. She doesn’t want to mess anything up. Most of the time, she doesn’t end up saying anything at all. Ultimately, Momo thought, it’s better that way.

But this time was different. This time she had to tell him. So, after a moment, she did. “Hey Erin!” she began.

It caught him off guard. He jolted and turned to look at her standing beside his car. “Oh, hey,” he blurted out. After gathering himself, he continued: “What’s up?”

Momo got right into it, face ablaze. “I’ve... made an important decision, and I want you to hear about it!” She paused to gather her words and pick particular wordings. She was certain Erin would appreciate them. To pad things out, she added, “I think it’s a very good thing, and I think you’ll think so too.”

Erin visibly relaxed and replaced his cautious, worried expression with a pleasant, calm one. “Wonderful,” he mused, “let’s hear it.” He smiled at her.

Momo nodded confidently, her long hair coming down and obscuring her fragile face for an instant. She smiled at him in kind.

“Okay, so.” Momo cleared her throat. “I’ve decided to not involve myself in the worlds of many other people!” She paused again to gather more thoughts down the line. “I'm going to keep to myself and my own world and those who I must be around.” She got lost in some thought, visibly withdrawn a little. “...L-Like you…” She tried to swallow her bashfulness but abruptly decided to wear it instead. Bright red, she went on: “and then there's no way I'll be able to hurt anyone else or be pushed away by them!” It had happened to her so much throughout her life. She had no one else before Erin, besides Erin. She loved him with all her heart. She let the positive feeling of the present moment override the negative weight of her past. Somehow, it worked. With absolute confidence, she concluded: “It's perfect, right~?"

Dozens of times it had happened to her. Someone entered her life or she entered theirs, got close, and then messed it all up and had it all ripped away from her. Either that or the other person was simply a terrible person outright and had it out for her from the get-go. She had been stepped on so much, there may as well have been a bootprint permanently etched into her back. She was marked by it all. Marked and marred by only being able to induce misfortune on those around her. She could only make things worse. She had spent her whole life grappling with that fact, trying to live with it. At times, it seemed effortless, and at others impossible.

Erin was different. Somehow, it didn’t seem to affect him. Either he genuinely wasn’t affected by Momo’s misfortune aura, or he was and could somehow mitigate the effects. Even if it did affect him fully, he would still be there for her. She loved him so much. He cared about her so much as well. The two of them could handle Momo’s world together. A companion who could bear it and who made it all bearable. And with this new plan, she wouldn’t hurt anyone else anymore.

The writer boy turns to the girl, a snide grin across his face. He seems delighted at her decision. “That’s lovely,” he remarked.

The girl, standing confidently out on the sidewalk, looked to the writer expecting something good. There’s always something good in store for her when he smiles like that. He had his own internal logic, his own language of expression, and Momo had long since learned how to read at least this much. It was obvious.

Erin’s expression turned pensive. “Thank you for telling me, Momo. I have a lot to say about that. But, I have to go to work. I’ll get back to you once my shift ends, ok?” He pressed a button on his key fob and the white SUV beside Momo unlocked.

It was a crushing blow, but not a debilitating one. Momo had already waited all day to get to tell Erin. She could wait a bit longer to hear his response. It’s fine. It’s fine. Let him work. Let him work. It’s the least she can do to repay him for all his kindness and his willingness to listen. Things are still on an upswing, after all - once he’s off of work, he’ll praise her and then her life of heartache and suffering will be over.

The next thing Momo could recall was the feeling of slumping over onto her bed around 40 minutes later. Both of her parents were out doing something, so she didn’t have to deal with interacting with them. It had been half a decade since she turned old enough to be able to leave the house on her own, and still she remained. She figured herself lucky to be an only child, first so that she would have no brothers or sisters to tease her for being a pathetic hikikomori NEET, and second so that no sibling would have to endure the blunt neglect of her parents alongside her. They were never a part of Momo’s world. None of them were.

She had hours to spare before Erin would get off work, but Momo didn’t want to do anything to pass the time. No sitting around watching or reading stuff. No drawing something. No writing any emotionally-packed diary entries or making an absurdly long vent rant post online. Instead, she performed the usual ritual.

Momo’s bed was jammed up against a corner of her room, with the ornate metal headboard making it awkward to sit facing the door without a pillow propped up against it. Beside it and beneath her sole window sat her nightstand and a trash can, and beside those was her desk. The rest of her room was taken up by a closet and a bookshelf containing almost nothing but the books Erin wrote and a collection of plushies. Her usual ritual was to indeed prop a pillow up against the headboard and curl up into a ball, sitting as far into the corner as she could, blankets half-covering her legs, curtains drawn, door locked. The fluffy pink bedding mixed with the navy blue wall painted a saccharine sort of despair, most of the time. Today it felt more mild than that.

Now tucked into a fitting position, Momo put on her pair of cheap wired earbuds and plugged them into her phone. It was time to melt the hours away. She put on a comfort album that she had recently discovered from the good graces of the Spotify recommendation algorithm, Eye Cue Rew See by Plastic Girl In Closet. The first notes burned their ethereal way into her ears and she cranked up the volume. Momo found a surprising level of comfort in the sounds of shoegaze music, especially the Japanese stuff. She didn’t expect it from herself when she found out, and she figured no one else would have either. After all, up until then, she had only really listened to ‘mainstream pop music’. Not that she was some kind of music expert. Surely no one is. Anyone who says they listen to all music or know most things about music are lying. There’s just too much. It would take too much energy. You have to pick and choose your battles wisely in this world. And choose Momo did.

Slowly but surely, the music began to work its magic. Time slipped by. At the end of each album, Momo was snapped back into the deafening quietude of her room, her universe. But the next album was always quick to follow. It lent itself to an ebb and flow which made the waiting bearable. It may well have been the most important hours of her life, but it felt like the sort of waiting around she did almost every day. Disappointingly mundane. Life doesn’t change so easily, or so Momo supposes. Not until Erin gets back and things are finally set into motion, at least. Her new, solitary, quiet life. No more pain for others, no more pain for herself. No more accidentally locking eyes with strangers out on the street or at a mall and feeling a hole in her gut form as she wonders if she’ll have to learn anything about that person in her life, make a connection. She’ll be free of that and the world will largely be free of her. She won’t hurt anyone anymore. It’s perfect. It’s perfect.

In no time flat, 5 o’clock came around. It wouldn’t be long now until Erin got home and got to a position to be able to call Momo and tell her everything. Just be patient. Just be patient.

Ah, but what if Erin forgot? What if he forgot he had to call her? Surely he wouldn’t forget, right? Surely everything is okay, right? Right?

Momo tightened her formation a bit more. It kind of hurt her chest, but the catharsis of the tightness was worth it. Minutes pass through the air, slower than ever, caked in the tension filling the atmosphere of her room.

Her phone rang. Finally, it’s time. It’s time. She looks at the caller ID. It’s Erin. It’s Erin. She picked up. “H-Hello?”

Erin responded. “Hey, Momo.” He sighed. He must be so exhausted from his work. It probably goes against how he works to be working a normal job and not spending most of his day writing. Poor guy. But it’s okay. He won’t have to deal with as much from Momo anymore.

Momo, eager for anything, egged him on. “So... what do you think of my decision?”

“Ah, right, that. Well, I have a lot to say.”

“M-hm~?”

Erin cleared his throat. “First of all, I like it. I think it’s a good idea.” Yes yes yes yes yes yes yes. This is what Momo was hoping for. All the toiling away thinking things through was now entirely worth it. It’s perfect. It’s perfect. It was all worth it.

Erin went on. “However.” Momo froze up. However? Had she missed something? “I think you may have neglected to consider some things, Momo.”

Momo stayed frozen for a few seconds. Eventually, her thoughts returned to her. “...Like what?”

“Well... You talked about your own world, and the worlds of others. But those are only the worlds you yourself know about. What about all the worlds you can't perceive? Have you considered at all what you’re going to do about those, or how you’re going to evade them?”

No, Momo hadn’t. She hadn’t considered any of that. What? Was that something obvious that she missed? Was she being stupid again and not realizing that her life can’t be changed so easily, if at all? Had she done something wrong, even while she had done something right?

“What about worlds belonging to things you don't know to be real, things outside of the vision of your own world yet which occupy the same space? Have you considered that there is more to the world? Have you considered how to reckon with that?”

“I... I-I don’t know…”

“Even in simply having the blind hubris to declare something like that, you are already disrupting some world completely. Don’t you realize that?”

No, Momo didn’t. Is she already hurting Erin by having made this decision? Was it all a mistake? What is Erin trying to say? What is this supposed to be? Praise, or a warning? Criticism, or an attack? I don’t know, it hurts. I don’t know, it hurts.

“Momo, you are bringing worlds beyond your comprehension, beautiful beyond your eyes, completely to ruin, just by sitting in the corner of your room like you are right now. Have you reckoned with that? Have you thought about that even once when making your escape plan?”

“No, I…”

“Think, Momo. Think about all the imperceptible worlds you crush beneath your feet even just by doing what you think is keeping your leg still, out of the way, on the bed or the ground beside you. Think about how much imperceptible hurt you may cause by making this change.”

N-No... Just by performing her usual ritual? Just by being here? Just by being? It hurts. It hurts. And it doesn’t just hurt her, either. It’s hurting... everything? Nothing? Why?

“You are doing impossible damage to anything you can't see around you at all times, Momo. Even without changing, you were doing that. And now you will continue. With your decision, this will be the only harm that you do. Are you okay with that? Have you learned to deal with it? Have you, Momo?"

“I... I DON’T KNOW!”

“Then so be it. That’s how it is.” Momo could hear Erin grinning through these words. “Think on it well, Momo. You did well. I’m proud of you. Talk to you again later.”

Momo did... well? By hurting everything again? How? It can’t be. It can’t be. That’s a lie. That has to be a lie. It’s bullshit. It’s bullshit. It doesn’t make sense. It doesn’t make sense. It hurts. It hurts. All Momo wanted was to stop being a horrible worthless fuckup NEET who hurts everyone around her. She can’t even manage that. She can never manage that. It’s irrefutable. It can’t be changed. It can’t be changed. But Erin remained with her. Erin will be there. Erin pointed this out so that she could heal and move forward. He was helping her. He was helping her. She loves him so much. He cares so much about her. It’s as clear as day. It’s obvious.

The writer boy hung up unceremoniously, leaving the girl to her devices.

“...”

The girl, tears streaming down her ruinous face, shattered in place.

Nothing remained. Nothing will remain for a long time. Nothing.