The search for nothingness

It's raining today. The damp cold eats into my bones. It's Tuesday, I think. I've lost my sense of time for a while now. I spend too much time at train stations. Stations, no one stays here longer than necessary, except those who have lost their possessions or their minds. Neither applies to me.

I glance at the station clock: it's 6:30 am. I look at the display board to the left, the next train to the airport leaves in fifteen minutes. Once at the airport, I have to decide on my next destination, which is becoming increasingly difficult. At the beginning of my journey, I chose my stops carefully, but now I don't care. The main thing is that I'm on the move. My innermost being is numb, I am locked inside myself. I could free myself from this feeling, let go of life, but that would mean I would have to make a final decision and I've never been good at that.

The people who knew me before my trip said I would run away. But I'm not running away, I'm discovering. My job: given up. My apartment: sold. I live in the result of my decisions, in the hope of a better life. Every day I hope for a utopia to come true, a miracle, but I will probably never experience it.

Enough of that, I talk too much about the after. The before was much worse, at least I hope so. I'll tell you about it.

Even then, I felt restless, always and everywhere. People at work, in clubs and in public, with whom I had to have countless conversations. Next to whom I felt like a crumpled cleaning rag. The studies: open prison. Work: in prison. The vacation: time off. I enjoyed it, tried everything. Countless countries, attractions, women and yet I couldn't escape from myself and the gnawing feeling of emptiness that accompanied me.

I was talking to other travelers at a bar under palm trees. I noticed a woman with mocha-colored skin. I turned to her, made her laugh, ran my fingers through her curly hair. A short time later, we made love. The void was briefly filled, then no more. The morning after, paradise shone in its most beautiful colors, for me everything seemed grey. Nevertheless, I wanted to stay, snorkeled, discovered new dishes, met other people again, drank cocktails, slept with someone again, but everything was still shrouded in a gray veil for me. Three days later, I left.

Back to everyday life: skyscrapers, streetcars, people rushing past, all absorbed in themselves. Projects, files, deadlines, stress, alcohol, parties. I carried on, telling myself that I just had to keep going until the day came when my problems disappeared into thin air. I still don't know what I had in mind for that day. The next vacation? The great love? My pension? A lot of money? Freedom? Instead of dealing with this, I just waited.

While I was waiting for this day, the next vacation came. My inner tension eased. Four days before the end of the vacation, I was afraid of returning to my reality. The gray haze returned. I left early again and thought everything would go on like this until I died. But then I met Maja and something changed.

I didn't meet her in a club, like the other women I usually slept with, but in a bookshop two blocks away from my apartment. Before I knew Maja, I rarely went to bookshops. When I was younger, I used to browse through their displays with my mother at least once a week. Since the cancer had almost completely consumed her, I only associated bookshops with her approaching death and the realization that I couldn't turn back time.

I entered the store with the order to get her the latest work by the author Benedict Wells. I didn't know the author or the title: "The End of Solitude." She insisted that I buy it in the store. At first I wanted to refuse, but I couldn't refuse her. I didn't know how much longer she would be able to withstand the cancer. Every book I bought her could be her last.

The unmistakable smell of freshly printed paper choked my throat. I searched for the copy in the novel section, found it and headed towards the checkout. As I passed the reading corner, my pace slowed. A woman was sitting in an armchair reading. She was twisting a strand of hair on her finger, pulling it back and letting it fall again. I didn't believe in things like 'love at first sight', but I couldn't go any further. Something about her captivated me. She was sitting on that armchair and just seemed content. The opposite of me. I had to get to know her.

I sat down on the sofa next to it, the book for my mother in my hand. I opened it, but didn't read, instead trying to catch her gaze. I could have just spoken to her, but for some reason I was too nervous. She was so engrossed in her book that I didn't have a chance to make myself noticed. I started reading myself and waited for her to take notice of me. I read five pages, then ten. I was so captivated by the book that I didn't notice her get up and leave. When I realized this, I got up and paid for the book for my mother. From that moment on, I made a detour to the bookshop every day on my way home. Why hadn't I spoken to her straight away? Why had it been so difficult for me?

It was two weeks before I saw her again. She was sitting in the same armchair as before, engrossed in a book again. I had devised a plan to strike up a conversation with her. I grabbed the same book as her - 4321 by Paul Auster - and sat down an arm's distance away from her. I opened the thick book, read it for three pages, looked at her and finally caught her gaze. My hands were shaking and I left wet marks on the spine of the book. The first thing I said to her was: "Great book, isn't it?"

She smiled, looked back at her reading, then back at me. She immediately understood what I was playing at. "Do you think so? Then why do you keep looking at me?"

"Just surprised you read the same thing I did."

"I see. What do you like about the book?"

"That someone else is reading it?"

"Was that a question? Be honest, you don't even know what it's about. How much have you read so far? Five pages?"

"I um, I, yeah, I just wanted to start over."

She stared at me and there was a pause.

"You're right, it's not even five pages so far. I noticed you here last time and then..."

"So you thought you'd pick up the same book as me and engage me in conversation?"

"Something like that."

"And you think this will work?"

"We talk to each other."

"Touché." She smiled and brushed a strand of brown hair out of her face.

"Last time I was too late to say anything."

"I think it's kind of cute, but also a bit strange."

"Then can I buy you a coffee?"

She laughed. "How did you go from, I think it's weird, to coffee?"

"You also said you thought it was cute. You could also tell me why I should read the book and what you like about it."

She looked into my eyes, waited a moment and stood up. "Then let's go, there's a café opposite." She held out her hand to me. "I'm Maja, by the way."

We both bought the book and sat down in the café on the opposite street. There are few memories left of that afternoon. She mesmerized me with her ocean blue eyes, her freckles that danced up and down when she spoke and her brown hair that she kept twirling around one of her fingers. It took less than two weeks and we were a couple.

That afternoon in the café, I noticed that I was changing. Maja radiated a warmth that I had never felt from anyone before. For the first time in years, I came out of myself and opened the door to my inner world, even if only a small crack. It scared me to open up. I kept telling myself that I was doing the right thing. At the same time, she sensed that something was wrong with me. I knew she loved me, but I didn't want to flaunt my feelings, so I slammed the door shut inside again. In my eyes, I wasn't worth loving. My insides squashed like a frog run over. I didn't want her to see that.

"What's going on? You're always so absent. Is something wrong?"

"No, everything's okay. What's wrong?"

"You know you can tell me anything?"

"I know I will."

"Okay, good."

Although she understood me and loved me like I never could myself, our happiness didn't last. It was punctuated by breaks. First small ones, then big ones. First just minutes, then hours, during which we argued and then didn't speak to each other for days. At the end of these periods of silence, I revealed a piece of myself. Then the happiness returned. I stayed with her and isolated myself internally again. I tried to fathom the flaw in me that was causing us so much pain, but it remained a mystery to me. I didn't know why everything around me seemed so heavy.

A year went by for me. We remained a couple and were further apart than before our first meeting. She asked me again and again. "Why are you so absent? Where are you?"

I tried to explain it to her, but how could I do that when I couldn't even understand it myself? I didn't have the right words. It was like a foreign language that I didn't speak. Once, when we were sitting on the sofa, I blurted out a thought: "Empty. I don't even know why, but everything around me seems so gray."

Maja turned her head towards me and just looked at me for a minute. "Am I not enough for you?"

"Yes, of course you are. What makes you think that?"

"If you feel empty and unhappy, then I'm not enough for you. Then I'm not the right person for you. I have the feeling that you're hiding from me all the time."

"You've got it wrong."

"Tell me how I'm supposed to understand that?"

"Not at all, I mean I, ..."

"Me, me, me. It's always about you. That's exactly the problem."

Maja got up and left the room. I hoped I would get another chance to explain myself, looking for words that sounded friendlier than empty and gray. I followed her into the bedroom. There was already a bag on the bed, into which she was stuffing her clothes. I stood next to her, trying to put my thoughts into words, and watched her.

"I thought we would be further along after six months."

"Half a year?"

She shook her head. "I'm staying in my apartment for a few days, I need to make my mind up about us." With tears in her eyes, she stormed past me and slammed the door behind her. I went back into the living room and sank into the sofa cushions. I hated myself for letting her go. This feeling lasted for a brief moment, then there was only indifference again, which wrapped itself around me like a blanket.

Three days later, Maja called me.

"Hey Maja, how are you? You haven't been in touch at all."

"Yeah, hey. I told you I needed to reflect on our relationship."

"Okay."

"That's all? Okay? I've given you everything and you don't even seem to care. I can't take any more of this. I can't be with someone who isn't one hundred percent there, you know?"

I nodded silently into the phone. "Yes, you're right."

"You're doing it again. You know what? Let's leave it with us."

I nodded again. All I heard at the other end was sobbing. I wanted to say something, but there was the foreign language I didn't speak. She hung up.

After that, I started to feel old. I was 37 at the time, and when I went to clubs, two thirds of the guests were younger than me. In the event that my friends still joined in, I only noticed the bald patches on their heads, their incipient bellies of affluence and the photos of their children as screensavers on their smartphones. In those moments, I wondered why the years had passed so quickly. Apparently all forgotten in a single rush. All the dreams, hopes, wishes and promises of our youth to lead an exciting life swallowed up by our everyday lives. Not all at once, but very slowly. A flame that burns us anew every day. Scar tissue forms where we no longer feel anything.

I remembered my twenties, trying to hold on to all the memories of happier and more carefree times. I didn't succeed. Everything blurred into a single lump of bitterness that got stuck in my throat. As an antidote, I went back to sleeping with women whose faces I had forgotten. Women who were eight years younger than me and who seemed increasingly strange to me the more often I fucked with them.

During this period of my life, I thought a lot about the real meaning of it. As a supposed last resort, I turned to people who knew how to be happy. At least that's what they claimed. However, the more I looked into their theories, the more I realized that it was all a scam. They were putting their finger in a wound that didn't exist. Pseudo-happy people who made their money from the suffering of others. Self-help in its capitalist form. The meaning of life as a man-made construct, just a closing circle of consumption, experiences and the end of our existence to be avoided at all costs. We are thrown into a life that we don't understand and may never fully understand. So I stopped trying, because the more I tried, the more unhappy I became.

One morning, when I woke up, shuffled to my coffee machine, sat down at the table with my coffee mug and looked into the black brew, my smartphone rang. I was talking to the hospice where my mother was staying. She had passed away last night and they were sorry. I nodded into the phone, thanked them and hung up. I had expected it. Regret flickered briefly inside me, then disappeared into the black sea of my indifference.

Two days later, the funeral took place. As I was the only one left of our family, I stood apart from her friends, whom I had seen a few times. Each of the twenty people present came up to me, shook my hand, hugged me warmly and talked about the memories they shared. I smiled, listened and thanked them for coming. When her coffin was lowered into the hole in the ground, I tried to cry, but my eyes remained dry. After the funeral service, I was invited to the traditional funeral meal at an inn. I stayed for an hour and then excused myself. I couldn't stand it any longer among the other people, who told more and more anecdotes about themselves and my mother.

Back at home, I realized that I couldn't go on like this. All my indifference didn't help me deal with the grief that I was ultimately feeling. I wanted to break out, leave everything behind me, just keep moving, no more standing still. The next morning I got up, brushed my teeth, went to the office and gave my notice. After that, I gradually started to sell everything that didn't fit into a rucksack.

That was the before.

After that, I did what I liked to do best: travel. However, my feeling of being broken continued to haunt me and regularly woke me up at night. To make everything easier to bear, I started drinking. First three or four beers every evening, then at lunchtime and finally cocktails for breakfast. That was no problem on the islands in the Indian Ocean. The people who kept me company were on vacation or on a trip around the world. I pretended to be here for the same reasons as them.

The more time I spent with others, the more I began to hate them. For some reason, I blamed them for everything that happened to me. After six months, it got so bad that I got into a fight with a young man who had only asked me my name. I was thrown out of the bar after I smashed his nose. I left the island and returned to my home country. I was stranded again, riding the train from city to city, spending time at train stations and mocking people rushing to work, even though I now envied them for it. In those moments, I would have given anything to go back to my old life. It wasn't life, per se, that I wanted back: it was Maja.

By now I was drinking a bottle of whiskey a day, which I bought for seven euros in a cheap discount store. I asked myself what I was still living for, then I realized that I had been in the same place for too long. I had to move on urgently.

Back to the present: it's still Tuesday, I think. It's still raining. My sense of time seems lost. I haven't managed to get on the next train, instead I've sat in a corner with my bottle of whiskey and tried to drown my feelings in alcohol. Every day I see my emaciated mother in her hospital bed in front of me, followed by images of Maja storming out of my apartment. I get up and walk near the station clock, its stoic ticking ticking away the time. It's eight o'clock. People rush past me. I stand in their way and am pushed aside. A woman bumps into me and turns to face me.

"Is it really you?"

It's Maja. I pretend to have overlooked her. Shame rises from my chest to my neck and is visible on my face, which glows fiery red. I move away from her. She follows me, calling my name again, reminding me of another life. I don't answer, keep walking until she runs past me, blocking my path. I look at her.

"What are you doing? I've been calling for you the whole time."

"Hey Maja, I didn't know that was you."

"But you will still know your name?"

"How are you?"

"I heard you quit your job and sold your apartment. Is everything all right with you?"

"I've never felt better. I only travel now."

"Aha .... And how is that going?"

"Well, I don't have to go to work, I have endless time, I can do whatever I want. I'm finally free."

Maja widens her eyes and runs her gaze over my body. "I know it didn't work out between us, but I'm still here for you if you need anything."

"I appreciate that, but I'm fine. Honestly."

She looks me in the eye again, presses her lips together so that dimples appear in her cheeks. A sign that she doesn't believe me.

"I have to get on, catch the next train. I'm really sorry. I was only here for a few days. A stopover, so to speak."

"Okay, I won't keep you."

I nod, looking into her clear, alert eyes, which tell me that I can trust her with anything. But something prevents me from doing so. A magnet with the wrong polarity that, instead of attracting others, repels me from my fellow human beings. It is in my nature to be alone.

I walk past her. The lump of bitterness in my throat presses me so firmly to the ground that I can barely lift my feet. I try to keep up my masquerade, I can feel her looking after me. Why did she love me? Or did she never?

My pace quickens. The further I get away from her, the lighter I feel. I get on the next train to the airport and look out of the window. Houses pass me by. Slowly at first, then faster and faster. In my desperation, I pull my rucksack out from under the seat and look for the book - 4321 by Paul Auster - that I've had with me the whole time. I find it, place it on my knee and turn to the first page. Below the title, in tiny handwriting, is a text written in pencil:

"I guess you'll never read this book, but it will always remind me of us and our first meeting. I know that you never really wanted to exist and that's a shame, because then we would never have met, even if it was difficult at times. We don't have to find meaning in life because it doesn't matter. What matters is what we do in our lives, not after. What happens afterwards, or for what reason it does, are just promises or beliefs that no one can keep or justify. I can see that you are struggling with yourself and hurting yourself. You're drifting more and more into a dream that I can't follow you into. I've tried, but I guess that can't be changed and that makes me sad. I just want you to know that you don't have to hide, that I love you for who you are and that I'm always here for you, no matter what. With love, Maja."

For the first time in years, tears well up in my eyes. I had only discovered this message when we were already separated and I had sold my things. She had simply written it in the book without telling me. These lines don't make the encounter with her any easier, but it gives me the feeling that she really noticed me. When I think back to earlier, I wish so much that Maja had taken me in her arms, nothing would have been more beautiful and absurd at the same time. I would have had to confide in her everything I had never told her before. First and foremost, why I let her go. Even though I hid from this truth for a long time, I was basically just afraid of showing true feelings, of being everything for someone and then being disappointed. So intense that I might never have recovered from it. Maybe it would have broken through my defense mechanism. Now it's too late to find out.

So I'm condemned to keep getting on trains or planes, never being able to stay long enough in a place where anyone or I can get too close to myself. No matter how fast I run, the inner emptiness accompanies me: this search for nothingness.