I was by no means an unhealthy person. As a child, I caught something every other week. My mother used to remark that I was the higher maintenance child despite being the second one. By the time I reached my teenage years, I would only catch a cold once every other year—perhaps the tough love my immune system experienced had something to show for it. Or maybe it was because I didn’t go out much. Physical exercise lay outside of the set of my interests. It brought me no joy and the promised wellbeing benefits were irrelevant. But I respected those who committed to it. I might not understand physical exercise, but they might not understand mathematical exercise either. So while I wasn’t the beacon of what a healthy person looked like, I suffered no ailments. At least none that I was aware of.

And so I was perplexed when I woke up that morning with a head-splitting headache. Just as unusual, when my consciousness came I found myself lying face down on my bed. My blanket was messily splayed across the floor. On my bed, I was in my—now entirely creased—collared shirt and blue jeans and—to my immense disgust—shoes. As I tried to lift myself up on all fours, it was as if gravity had multiplied overnight and retrofitted my bed into a cost-efficient prison that was the envy of the free market. Every attempt was discouraged by a throbbing pain in my head that I hadn’t experienced in years. One side of my jaw clicked audibly as I tried to open and close it. The punishment of sleeping weirdly.

As I laboured myself upright, the change in the gravitational orientation acting on my stomach made me realise I had less than zero desire to eat anything. Like an unstable equilibrium, a single addition to my digestive system would throw it entirely out of balance. I sat on the edge of my bed for what felt like minutes, holding my head down, trying to compose myself to minimise any potential cleaning I might need to do later. Feeling myself slightly stabilised, I lifted my gaze and saw what sat atop my table.

Didn’t I shred the document into tiny pieces? I thought in confusion. Why is it whole?

I stood up at a slow, risk-averse rate, and sauntered to my desk. On approach, I saw that it was indeed the very same manuscript I had torn up, right next to a largely empty bottle of wine. It was held back together by surgical insertions of copious amounts of tape. What kind of a fucking masochist would torment themselves like this? I wondered, before, Oh shit.

The memories came flooding back. Indeed I had ripped up the document that had been the bane of my existence for the past few weeks. That was not entirely true; my troubles were more than just the research. But the document was the only tangible problem I had, and hence it was the only problem of which I could derive cathartic pleasure from the act of brutally maiming it. And so in need of an outlet, I took what I could get. Afterwards, I left my apartment in search of salvation, which was conveniently just a few blocks away from the engineering side of the campus. Stepping into the dim pub, I was rather glad that it was a Thursday night. There were only a few students around, which minimised the propagation of rumours about a downcast lecturer drinking his sorrows away. The pub was favoured because despite its sticky tables and floor, the prices were cheaper than everywhere else in the vicinity. I ordered a pint of stout and sat at a table far from the sparse patrons that had already settled in. It tasted awful, but that was precisely the point. The numbing bitterness on my tongue and the warmth of alcohol in my throat forced my mind to think about those sensations, not anything else that bothered me. I didn’t even like alcohol. And it had been a long time since I had last indulged. But its efficacy as a distraction was undeniable.

The stout disappeared in record time and I ordered a heavier drink. It could have been whiskey. I forgot. But as I nursed that drink, my mind returned to the conversation with my mother. The buzz of the alcohol allowed me to feel somewhat detached, as if I was revisiting the distressing event except it was some geezer named Alex who was experiencing some kind of trauma, not me. Trauma? Is that what I’d call it? I wondered. The alcohol in my mind gave me the unholy strength to dismiss the question. There were at least a couple sources of guilt, and I decided to think about the easiest. The family home. Gone, because I sold it to support myself.

Why should I feel guilty about that? I thought indignantly. It wasn’t a family home. It was barely a home. And I needed money if I wanted to do more with my life than flipping burgers while feeling sorry for myself. And she said she was proud. That she understood.

But it didn’t change the fact that I felt guilty. Memories, both good and bad, irrevocably demolished by the all too eager property developers. And what did I have to show for it? A worthless career on its uncertain, diseased breaths. A pathetic, thinly veiled attempt to escape a past that was about to be shattered into a million pieces. A life that amounted to nothing meaningful. It was almost laughably that my mother would want my forgiveness. Setting aside the other uncomfortable facets of the question, my forgiveness was worth less than nothing. If things had been any different, I should be begging for her’s. With great reluctance, it dawned on me that the bloody research thrusted upon me by Irene and her associates was the only card I had left. Solving the mathematical problems would be a way out of at least some of my troubles. It could very well be the only way to make my sacrifices worth it. Our sacrifices. And I had shredded it in a moment of weakness like an untameable ape. I felt a stab of bitter anger for no one but myself. And with the resolve of a gambler who had lost it all and promised to win it all back, I downed the rest of my alcohol—why are there four empty glasses?—and stormed out of the pub.

I stumbled into the only supermarket I frequented, and purchased a roll of tape and a bottle of the cheapest red wine available. Despite walking in a consistent sinusoidal path, I reached my apartment. Impressively, the only injury I had incurred was accidentally banging my head on the front door. There was no pain, the alcohol made sure of that. I collected the severed remains of the mathematical document from the floor of my room and made them into a pile on my desk. I couldn’t remember how long I had spent playing the most difficult rendition of a jigsaw puzzle in my life while being drunk and juggling tape and scissors. It was almost like a drinking game; each new successful application of tape was rewarded with a sip of red wine straight from the bottle. Except I hated red wine. And there was a lot of taping involved. And alas, the devil was resurrected.

Staring at the battered document, I wasn’t sure how I felt about it. On the one hand, there was relief that I hadn’t thrown away my only chance in a reckless meltdown. But at the same time, I felt a pang of disappointment that I was bound to the document in some intangible aspect. That I didn’t have the will to commit to a course of action that, despite being potentially ruinous, might have freed me in some way.

I had laboriously worked up my way to splashing cool water onto my face at the sink, when I heard knocking at my door. Jesus, I cursed internally. Each strike felt like a metallic assault to my skull.

“Coming!” I called out angrily when a second round of pounding struck my eardrums. My yelling briefly brought up the nausea I had been trying to suppress. I’m gonna really need a nicer way to say ‘fuck off’ in a few seconds, I thought.

I had expected to find someone I could unleash my unpleasantness onto on the other side of the door. That had not been the case.

“Oh. ‘Morning, Hope,” I greeted in a pitiful effort. It came out as more of a mumble, and I wasn’t sure whether that was because of the hangover.

Hope’s mouth formed a small O, as if whatever she had planned to say had evaporated. “Alex, are you alright?”

“Yeah, all good,” I responded nonchalantly. “Why wouldn’t I be?”

Hope regarded me for a moment, as if looking for hints of facetiousness in my eyes, before asking, “Do you mind if I come in for a bit?”

I, in fact, would. But expressing that would have been rather impolite of me. And I was anything but impolite. “Of course. Come in.”

Hope muttered thanks and awkwardly passed me in the doorway. Reaching the middle of my living room, she looked veritably incongruous and unsure of what to do with herself. I couldn’t blame her. My apartment had never been organised with the intention of having visitors. There was no carpet in the living room. No couch. Just a small table with a foldable chair.

“Take a seat,” I said with a nod to the lonely chair. “I’ll grab a chair from my room.”

I went inside and retrieved my desk chair and pushed it into the living room.

“Would you like some water? Tea?” I asked.

“No, thank you,” Hope said with a polite smile.

“Alright. Let me just go get some water for myself.”

I entered my kitchen and poured myself a glass of water that had been left in my electric kettle since yesterday. It hadn’t dawned on me just how thirsty I had been until I took my first sip. By the time I stopped, the glass was half empty. I returned to the living room and sat on my chair that was at the opposite end of the small table. It felt as if we were in a counsellor’s office back in the public secondary school I had attended. The table size was about right. I wasn’t sure whether I was the counsellor or the student.

“The view’s pretty nice,” Hope remarked.

“Probably the only nice thing about this apartment,” I said with a shrug. The view really wasn’t anything impressive. Not even on a low smog day. “So what’s up? Did you remember something from that night?”

Hope looked visibly confused. “That night?”

“Yeah. You remember, the night before I visited you a few weeks ago?”

A look of realisation washed over her features. “Oh, no. Sorry. That’s not why I’m here.”

“Oh. That’s alright,” I said, hoping that my disappointment didn’t bleed into my tone. “Is everything okay?”

Hope looked as though she wasn’t sure how to proceed. “I was actually hoping to ask you that.”

“Me?” I was taken aback.

“Yeah. I mean, did you just wake up?”

“Yeah I did,” I said, before sheepishly adding, “I guess it’s probably lunchtime or something.”

“It’s a little past that,” Hope said. “Nearly one.”

I chuckled. “Thankfully, it’s a weekend. Otherwise I’d—”

“It’s Friday.”

I regarded her for a moment. “You’re not kidding, are you?”

Hope shook her head.

“Shit,” I muttered as subconsciously pinched the bridge of my nose. I had a lecture on Friday mornings. Being late for a lecture with hundreds of students was embarrassing. Missing it completely was—“not good. That is not good.”

Hope looked at me sympathetically. “Don’t worry about it too much. You can always say that something personal came up. They’ll understand.”

“No, I don’t think so,” I said as I ran a sweaty palm through my dishevelled hair. “Not between this and my research rejections and everything in between.”

“But that’s not everything, right?” Hope asked in a reassuring voice. “You still have the research you’re working on.”

I snorted. “Yeah. And somehow I even have a grant for it. But it’s not like that’s going anywhere.”

Hope looked puzzled. “What is it, anyway?”

I froze. Could she be a spy? I wondered with suspicion. Why is she even here, anyway? “I can’t tell you,” I said resolutely.

“Why not?” Hope asked curiously.

“Because I don’t trust you.” It was only after the words had left my mouth that I realised how awful they sounded.

“Excuse me?” There was genuine offence in her voice. Her eyes were more than shocked. Indignant. I had never seen Hope being crossed with someone before. It was so far removed from her usual self that it took me aback.

“I—I didn’t mean it in that way,” I stuttered. “Things have been, well, strange for me lately. I don’t want to drag you into it.”

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Hope appeared at least a little placated by my soft tone. Perhaps she detected my embarrassment. But it was clear that the words couldn’t be taken back. “Fine. Whatever,” she said as she crossed her arms. “I don’t know about your personal situation, so I can understand if things are tough for you. But you’ve been acting really weird lately.”

“That I have—”

“You’ve never seemed like a heavy drinker. But last night when you came home I heard a bang. All the way from my bedroom. And you waking up so late. And outside of that one time I saw you getting angry at Peter in the staff room, I’ve never seen you around. I don’t think anyone else has, either.”

I leaned back into my seat and sighed. “Yes. I’ve been… under the pump. I apologise for not being my best self. Things haven’t been going well for me. I just need to get through it.”

Hope’s expression softened. “That’s okay. It’s been hard for a lot of people. Me too, to be honest.” She chuckled at herself. “I’m not even sure if I’ll last as long as you have here. But it’s not worth ruining yourself over it. My older brother did that.”

I didn’t know what to say. “I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be,” Hope said. “Look, I just want you to be okay. Be kind to yourself. Things will work out, one way or the other. And if you need someone to talk to, I’m literally just around the corner.”

I could feel my teeth grinding. Hope was naive. Painfully so. It made me angry. With a heavy sigh, I responded to her with the truth. “But things don’t just simply work out. They never do. It’s all so chaotic and fragile. All it takes is just one wrong thing at the wrong time and then there’s nothing left.”

Hope looked as if she had been struck. My reaction wasn’t what she was expecting. “I know it can feel like that sometimes—”

“I’ve seen it. Lived it. And it’s why I can’t afford to be kind to myself,” I said unwaveringly. There was a heavy silence, before I continued in a softer, quieter voice, “Sorry, but whatever it is you want from me, I don’t have it.”

Hope met my eyes, and I saw a range of emotions passing through her. I couldn’t be sure what they were, but I nonetheless felt terrible. After the moment had passed, she stood up and left without a word. But at the doorway, without turning back, she said in a small voice, “I was only trying to be kind.”

When the door clicked shut, I collapsed into my hands. I didn’t want to be awful to Hope, but I couldn’t pretend that the universe was anything more than an unfathomable randomness that was indifferent to our suffering. We all lose in the end, but our individual struggle against the chaos that unceasingly threatened to annihilate us was all we had in this life. Maybe she will never understand, I hoped. A part of me wondered why Hope had really come to talk to me. Taking people’s words at their face value was at best a convenient untruth. I knew better than most people that they generally didn’t understand themselves. The narratives we presented to others and ourselves were nothing more than alibi. And I was certainly no exception.

After emptying my glass, I stumbled back onto my bed. There was no point going to the university today. To show up with half the workday left was to concede defeat. To shout loudly that I had been tardy. Perhaps I had been, but that was neither here nor there. It was more important to present the facade of having intention. Hope didn’t seem like the kind of person to report on me. She was as likely to do that as Irene to profess her unending fondness for me. My unfortunate conversation with Hope hadn’t done my hangover any favours. As I closed my eyes, I focused on the throbbing sensation on the side of my head. Willing it to calmness like a sailor trying to placate the waters of a tempest. After some time, the rhythmic throbbing miraculously retreated to a slow metronome that lulled me closer and closer to a blissful oblivion in the void. It was pleasant. A respite from the unrelenting world that seemed bent on playing jenga with my sanity. Upon approaching the asymptotic threshold that divided consciousness and subjugation, I was violently dragged back into nauseating wakefulness by a violent earthquake.

My phone vibrated with the vigour of a battered vehicle. A result of me leaving it at the edge of the desk, its corner dangling out the same way my brother used to sit on our couch. I cursed as I reached for the phone.

Irene Law. If the vibration hadn’t shaken the sleepiness from my brain, then the caller ID certainly did. What does she want? I wondered, before thinking wryly, To check in on my enviable progress?

I sat myself upright and tapped to accept the call. “Irene.”

“Well this is an improvement,” Irene said dryly. “Yesterday it was ‘You’. Now it’s ‘Irene’. Before long you’ll be greeting me with ‘Humbled to receive you, your majesty!’”

I was not in the mood for her condescension. Her—admittedly impressive—imitation of received pronunciation only added to my irritation. “Please,” I said with an unconscious roll of my eyes, “I’m not in the mood for this.”

“Hm,” Irene hummed. “Had too much fun last night?”

There’s no way she could’ve guessed that from my voice. “No,” I responded nonchalantly, hoping that my indignance didn’t leak.

“Really,” Irene said flatly, devoid of any inflections that would have made it a question rather than an expression of confident scepticism. “Well. Are you in the mood for some answers?”

I loathed the way my heart leapt at the last word. Like a dog salivating at the sight of a neglectful owner holding a bone. The parched part of my mind was an addict ready to accept any sordid offers that could ease its insatiable thirst. The dignified part, my rational faculties, warned me. There’s no universe in which this can be good, it cautioned. Its voice was alarmingly muted. “What kind of answers?” I asked warily.

“The good kind,” Irene said. “The kind that I had to obtain approvals across multiple divisions to arrange.”

“Okay,” I said in a nonchalant tone that was unmistakably a challenge. “Do tell.”

“Not here, Alex,” Irene said. And there it is, I thought. “Not over the phone. Are you free later tonight?”

“I’m fairly sure you know I am,” I said wryly.

“That’s the spirit,” she said flatly, either dryly amused or not at all. I couldn’t tell. “Meet me at eight by the water fountain. Near the old philosophy faculty. You know the one.”

“Alright. I’ll be there. The ‘answers’,” I said with a mocking tone, my left hand unconsciously making quotation marks, “better be worth it. I’m tired of being strung along like a dog.”

Irene chuckled. “Well, I guess the dog deserves a little bone. I’ll see you later then.”

The line clicked dead. I wasn’t sure how I felt. On the one hand, the promise of information, perhaps an explanation, was intoxicating. But this also seemed like yet another carrot on a stick that will never reach my mouth. After all, what kind of context couldn’t be explained over a phone? International terrorism? I pondered with mild amusement. The back of my mind couldn’t help chewing on Irene’s metaphor. Was I the dog or the bone? The thought inexplicably made the back hairs of my neck stick out. What the fuck did I get myself into?

I fell back onto my bed and closed my eyes. There was a frustration in the vacancy left by my drowsiness, which had been purged and replaced by a restless anticipation. Sleep would not come now. With a sigh, I reluctantly pushed myself up and out of my bed and belatedly performed the familiar rituals of a morning. It was past two o’clock now, yet I sprinkled oatmeal into my compact pot as if it was seven hours earlier. I nursed the bowl of porridge languorously. Its warmness pleasantly slid down my throat and rested in the pit of my stomach without turning it inside out.

Returning to my desk felt like coming back to a lover after a bitter quarrel. The shame was there. Regretful actions that had taken place would be felt in every future touch. An apology lingered at the tip of my tongue. The only inconsistency with the metaphor was the lack of any sort of love that bound me to this ghastly document. The glue was obligation. And obsession. There was a brief moment when my thumb had slid over the uneven, taped pages of the document, in which I considered shredding it into infinitesimal snowflakes which couldn’t be revived even by the most advanced forensic experts. It would be an orgasm of freedom in the short run, followed by the early end of my career. And a lifetime of wondering what kind of forbidden knowledge was locked behind the cryptographic permutations of symbols. And so I resigned myself to returning to the mathematical labyrinth for the umpteenth time. A shifting maze that rearranged itself every time I thought I could see the exit.

It was in my nature to be early. Being a few minutes late was a greater atrocity than being a dozen minutes early. Of course, I wasn’t generally prone to preoccupying myself with what others might think of me, but I appreciated the importance of punctuality. Of establishing one’s intention. However, on this particular occasion I was late by ten whole minutes. This was intentional. Those who knew me might think I did so as a means of making a statement. I was not. I merely lusted for the admittedly petty satisfaction of wasting Irene’s time, making her doubt whether I was standing her up or not. It wouldn’t even be close to warranting the label of being a payback—not even a drop in the bucket of how much of my own time and stress had been wasted on Irene and her associates—but it would be worth it all the same. In life, one ought to take the occasional simple pleasure when the opportunity arises.

And so as I approached the antiquated fountain, I had imagined the impatient expression on Irene’s face. The annoyance in the corner of her mouth. The irritation on her eyebrows. It was night, so Irene wouldn’t be wearing sunglasses unless she found gratification in pitch darkness. This meant I would have the rare occasion of being able to enjoy every detail of petulance on her features.

“Why are you so tardy?” she would ask in an uncharacteristic testy tone.

“Sorry,” I would apologise in an indifferent manner that wouldn’t betray my conspiratorial delight, “I got carried away with something.”

I imagined Irene’s features souring not only at my cool, but also at the “something”. The very notion that I knew something she had no way of knowing. Because she was nosy. The fact that it would be a bluff was totally irrelevant.

“God damn it,” I cursed under my breath. After doing two complete revolutions at the decrepit fountain trying to scan for any signs of life, I plopped at its edges in disappointment. It was uncomfortable. The uneven surface was felt through my jeans. If Irene wanted to humiliate me, then this had to be the optimal scenario; a sulking man sitting at an unimpressive water fountain under a windy night with not a single living thing around. I couldn’t overstate how exceptionally unimpressive this water fountain was. One could immediately deduce by the uselessness of this fountain that its purpose lies in ostentation. To be glamorous. To impress. But—much like the philosophy building behind it—it lacked the renovation it sorely needed. Its design was outdated to the point of embarrassment. This was a manifestation of buyer’s regret; the investors tried to thrust the university into philosophy stardom over half a century ago, and realised afterwards that money didn’t motivate philosophy researchers in the same way it did for business administration lecturers. With a groan, I pulled out my phone and began scrolling through news headlines. Husband kills wife and two—no. United States rejects Treaty of Disarmament of Nuclear Weapons citing their necessity in world stability. Climate targets too optimistic, warns international climate body. Calls for investigation after report finds $43bn health misspend.

I hadn’t planned to go through nearly every article on the front page, but by the time I did, it was nearly half an hour later. And Irene was still nowhere to be seen. I was more than a little peeved. Had everything gone according to plan, it was she who would have found herself bored and sulking for a dozen minutes. Instead, I had incurred nearly triple the experience. Opening the contacts on my phone, I pondered for a good two minutes whether I should call her. Perhaps it was pride, but I decided against it in favour of sulking in the dark.

By the time it was nine o’clock, I was positively simmering. The wind had turned colder, but my red hot indignance kept me warm. The audacity! I seethed. I’m going to give her a piece of my mind. As I reached for my phone, I noticed that my fingers were shivering. I decided to go home and voice my frustrations when Irene couldn’t hear me trembling like a sick child. Getting up, the muscles in my legs whined with stiff lethargy. I had to be careful not to lose my balance and fall backwards into the fountain. No one would be around to witness such a failure, but the metaphorical tree would most certainly make a wet, freezing sound. Unfortunately, the water fountain was much deeper in the campus than my office, so the walk back home was longer than usual. It was, however, a slightly interesting walk. I had never wandered this much of the campus at this time of the night. The campus was dead quiet. The only noises were the sounds of trees rustling in the wind and the periodic vehicle on the main road in the distance. The university grounds took on a surreal quality, as if it was in a twilight outside of time. A shadow of time when strange and inexplicable things could happen.

As I approached the familiar mathematics building, there was a feeling of unease. Like someone watching me. This sensation compelled me to turn around. And I saw it. A shadow in the distance. It was standing. A man, perhaps. He stood in the middle of the campus avenue, perfectly in between the lamps on the sides of the wide walkway such that all of his features were obscured by the darkness. I had just walked from that direction so he must have been walking, yet I heard no footsteps. A deep dread washed over me.

“H-hello?” I croaked out tentatively. My voice cracked. The figure didn’t answer back. For what had felt like minutes, I stared at him, and I imagined he stared back at me.

Until he began moving. What had terrified me wasn’t that act in itself, but rather in just how slow he walked. It was more accurate to describe his motions as shuffling. Almost gliding. It was silent.

“Stop right there,” I called out. He made no indication that he had heard me, and his slow motions continued. In that instance, I felt a fatalistic horror. As if his movements were an inevitability. That I was powerless, subjugated to an outcome that had been determined far earlier than I was aware of. It took a moment, but my mind and body returned to me. My natural instincts stubbornly rebelled against that very idea and my legs kicked into action. I wasn’t a runner. It had probably been years since I had properly ran, but the adrenaline in my veins compensated. I felt the chill of the night rushing against my face and sweat dripping down my neck uncomfortably. When I had reached the edge of the university, with trepidation I chanced a glance backwards. There was no one there. But I didn’t bother to wait. I ran across the empty road. When I reached the other side, I checked again. He was there. And he was coming out of the campus. Running. There was more light near the road, and I could see that he wore full black from head to toe. His face seemed to be covered in some sort of a mask.

My heart pounded almost painfully. If it weren’t for the adrenaline, I would have passed out. I resumed my frantic sprint towards home. I was undoubtedly the fastest I had ever been on foot in my life, yet I felt painfully slow. The seconds in which my apartment building had been in sight felt like minutes in which I was at an arm’s reach from the danger that lurked. I turned into the doorway and ran up the stairs. My body was trembling with exhaustion but I didn’t feel it. The only thing I could feel was a tangible, existential threat.

With heavy footsteps I reached my door. My hands were shaking so badly that I had dropped my keys and struggled to fit it into the door. After some agonising seconds, I managed to get into my apartment and lock the door immediately. I hunched over and coughed violently as I struggled to fill my lungs with air. I forced myself to be as quiet as possible as I looked outside the peephole. The automatic lights in the hallway hadn’t triggered since they had turned themselves off, but I kept trying to find shapes in the dark, certain that he was on the other side of the door.

After some time, I decided to back away. It wasn’t that I thought I was safe, but rather that I needed water. I was on the verge of collapse. My vision tunnelled and my body trembled. As I turned around the corner to enter my kitchen, I felt gloved hands on my mouth with an overpowering grip. In a split second, I was being held by someone I couldn’t see. Completely immobilised. As I panicked futilely, I felt a subtle prick on the side of my neck. In the seconds that followed, my world dimmed to pitch black.