Kind Of Like Sisyphus

Azim & Bala

“I don’t… really care. I’m not gonna get all bent out of shape about it. They didn’t see me, so when I heard Andreas, when he said what he said about me, I just put the drinks that I had just stood in a very long line to buy, on the nearest table, and I walked out. I just left. He didn’t even… he didn’t text or anything until like two days later.”
“What did he say though?”
“When I was coming back with the drinks, the guy, Corenton…”
“He’s Micha’s friend?”
“Yeah, we were all drinking together, and so, I was coming back and then… Corenton must have asked if… something was going on because that’s when Andreas said something like ‘He’s too’... and then he started like, prancing... is that what you say in English… but like doing like this… and then he said he’s not interested in people like ‘that’ and he also said, ‘I like people who are in shape’.”
“Okay…”
“Ja. So that’s what happened. I guess it’s my own fault.”
“Okay, why is it your fault?”
“Cos I shoulda never let him… If I’m honest, I knew, I knew that that’s what he thought about me. He said things about what I was wearing a lo.”
“You told me he asked you something like, ‘Do you like attention’, or something like that.”
“Ja, I forgot about that one. He was taking off my shirt. It had sequin patterns all over it, and he said something like, ‘You don’t need all this’, and then he asked me another time when I was getting dressed for work and he was still in my bed… he looked at me and I was wearing a jumpsuit with a halter neck, and he asked me, he said, ‘Do you really think that looks good’?”
“That was a sign.”
“Thanks Azim. I know that now.”
“I’m not trying to be…”
“Don’t worry about it. I know…”
“I’m not the best listener. Everyone expects me to be, but…”
“I see you trying.”
“Hm. Really?”
“Yes, I see you. You’re biting your tongue.”
“I just say it like it is, and I don’t wanna make you mad or...”
“ You are the real no filter, all the way.”
“They don’t call me Zero Filter Zim for nothin.”
“Nobody calls you that.”
“They will when you tell them that’s my name, ha ha, or that’s how I am when you come over to tell me about your problems.”
“When I tell them? I’m not telling anybody anything. You’re the only one that knows. I mean, Club Full Moon…”
“Of course they already know cos… cos we always saw you waiting around for him. You were always on your phone, glued to your phone texting him or…”
“Or waiting for him to send me a message and tell me where he was.”
“Let me ask you something? What was it about him or about your communication with him, or that relationship? What was that? For you?”
“I ga… Hm. I don’t know. I want to say that it was… ja, I don’t know. It’s a good question.”
“When he did show up… I wish you saw yourself. Sometimes you were glowing.”
“Ha ha. No?! Glowing? Was I really?”
“Yeah. You were, but I…”
“Uh oh. Why do I feel like… what did you call yourself? Your new name?”
“Heh?”
“Um. Snap snap snap snap snap snap…”
“Oh you mean, Zero Filter Zim! Snap snap snap snap snap!”
“That’s the one, he’s the one. Is he coming through? We are now awaiting the spirit of the unfiltered truth, bitter, cold, brutal…”
“Zero Filter Zim says… ha ha ha ha ha ha.”
“Ha ha ha ha.”
“... no, I… I wanted to say that you looked like you were glowing from the inside out, but also like you were just, kind of like you were on fire.”
“What does that mean? What do you mean on fire? Like I was burning?”
“Hmm. Yeah, that’s it, burning...”
“Okay, I was burning, I was glowing, I was happy… maybe not happy is the word, but it was like finally, he’s here. I’ve been waiting. But what do you mean?”
“What do I know? I told you I’m not the right person for this. You’re here because I’m suppose to cheer you up. Failing miserably.”
“Yeah. That’s why I’m here. That’s what you promised, and I mean look, there’s weed, we’re gonna play video games. You made Oleleh…”
“There might be some carrot cake from your favorite Jamaican.”
“You know I love them both, equally, and I’m never choosing.”
“Either way it’s there for you…”
“So this can also be a part of the buffet. The truth. That’s what you’re good at. When you tell the truth, even when it hurts, it still works! It still helps. It’s not what you want to hear but it’s usually, ‘Okay, but what Bala said, I was already thinking’.”
“I will say this. I will say that… whenever he was around… you stopped being you. Ugh, that sounds like, like a judgement and maybe it’s too much but it was like you weren’t with him, you were next to him, you were talking, or whatever but you weren’t ‘with him’ with him… you always look at him like you’re looking for a sign to tell you... it’s kind of like he’s an alarm and you’re trying to make sure it doesn’t go off. Like you were monitoring his facial expressions, his body language, everything that he was saying to make sure that he was okay, not because he’s… he needs that, but because you were scared of… I guess him leaving. Yeah, I don’t know, I don’t know if it makes sense.”
“Sigh… Because it’s over now, I’m thinking about it a lot actually. That’s… that sounds like what it was. I wanted him to… I wanted to make sure that he was having a good time. That everything was okay… so that he would stay with me. I never knew when I was going to see him, so when he was there it was like I, I don’t think I could be happy. Maybe it’s… ja like you said, I was watching, all the time watching him. Trying to make sure he was okay, trying to make everything really, really good so that he would remember, ‘Oh Azim, is…’, ‘With Azim it’s always a good time’. Ja, I don’t know… I think that was it. When he would leave my apartment I always felt like, like I just didn’t know when I was going to see him again.”
“Phew… that’s, sweetie that sounds a little bit desperate. Don’t you think? He should be there when he wants to be there and you like that, you have the time that you have, I mean the, the, not the time, but I mean, he’s there and you know that he’s not there as much as you want, but you’re okay with that. If you’re not okay with that, that’s also, well, what can you do about it? But do you allow yourself to want what you want?”
”Ja, I… I don’t want to say it, not out loud, but it is desperate. I am feeling like that.”
”Why?”
”I don’t know, I think it’s normal. I want that, that, is it companionship? Is that right?”
”I… maybe, what do you mean? What’s companionship? Who, who do you have that with, the companionship?”
”Ja, okay, it’s also a good question. Of course there’s the friends, Club Full Moon, and family, okay family is a catastrophe… but… companionship is… it’s a relationship where you, you… I think you want to spend that time together, to really spend time together and you are, you are also connected. You are connected to each other. And, ja, with friends you can have this, but I want that with one or two people where it is more than, more than friends. Where it is also sexual, and physical, and it’s there, it’s there all of the time.”
”Is that, is all that what you have with him?”
”Mm. Mm. Mm.”
”It’s really a yes or no question.”
”Then… my answer, it has to be no.”
”What does he want?”
”He… he wants… I think he doesn’t want anything.”
”When did you tell yourself that he did want something, or… that he wants the things, the same things you want?”
”Hm. I see. I see. But that’s not fair. It’s not fair to, to say that because I never asked him and also because I never told him what I want. Sometimes I really had the impression that he was open, or that he was, you know I would text him and he would, he would leave his friends and would meet us or the Club… he would be there. Okay, but you’re right. Maybe you’re right, you have a point. Maybe that was not the effort or… you’re, you’re making think about it. Everything. The handful of times he, he came to meet me… in the beginning I didn’t think it was like…”
“...a date?”
“Ja, I mean no, I never thought that. No. No. I thought it was… something though. Not like, uh, we were getting close or something like that. It’s just, everything happened in my apartment always, normally. After the first night when we met I… I only saw at mine and Jamal’s. At first he would always message me, but randomly…”
“Way after booty call hour…”
“Ja. Like that, and I would never hear back from him if I dared to text him, but I told myself ‘Don’t care about that’.”
“Yeah… that’s that’s”
“What? What is it?”
“Just… just say what you want! If you can’t say what you want just to yourself, you have to do that! Please listen to yourself more. If you’re not gonna listen to him please listen to yourself. You know, you already know what he wants, deep down and I think you need to be honest with yourself or more honest with yourself. Stop moving around things, stop trying to make something fit that… that you don’t even really want. I don’t think that it’s, I don’t know, I think it’s okay if he wants to see you when he wants to see you, but you have to, well you don’t have to, but if that’s not okay, if that’s not what you want don’t… maybe try… I would’t like, build things around something like that.”
“The first night I met him, I was really surprised. I didn’t think he was gonna sleep over. I woke up and he was snoring and spooning me. Then the next thing I know, he’s shaking me and I jump up like, Ah! Then I’m walking him to the door, he looks down at the floor, and then he says, ‘Aren’t you gonna ask for it’? His number.”
“...yeah...”
“Then it was like what I said to you. He would text always real late, and then he stopped that, and, and then he would just show up and ring the bell, or he would come find me at Modulor and he would wait for me to finish.”
“What did you think that was? Why did he do that…”
“I didn’t think. I was, I was just letting it happen. It was just happening and I, I followed. I liked… well, I didn’t always like it, because maybe I wanted to be alone that day, or maybe he came over at four in the morning and I was, I don’t know sleeping… but it felt like somebody wanted me. I want to feel wanted.”
“Everybody does, I think on some level but you can’t just… does it… is it working to have people want you but you're apprehensive about texting them? You should just be able to send someone a message, like, ‘Hi’, or if you wanna I don’t know go… for a walk or something, like, ‘Hey let’s, let’s meet up’, or if you wanna do more than walk, you say, ‘Hey let’s… do you wanna come over’, but no matter what you feel like you can just send a message. If you’re making space, and time, and really just, so much space for someone who… they’re telling you by showing up at four in the morning, they’re telling you by talking about your clothes, the way you present, they’re not answering your texts… but they’re answering. That’s an answer.”
”It is… it’s so hard you know. It’s hard to find someone who, wants it like I want it. Who wants what I wants, I mean what I want. I don’t e… I don’t feel like I can meet someone… Sometimes I really have this in my mind. Then there’s the empty inboxes on my apps, or, or just messages from the older white men who are older than my grandfather… and it’s like what? Phew… You have Yonnier.”
”For now.”
”Just for now?”
”I don’t know what’s in the cards. He’s here now, but you never know!”
”Ja but, look at this, this is your place together. You two have been together for how long?”
”For a long time, but people leave. You don’t, you never know. I think I, I also thought maybe I won’t meet anyone but I’m scared for us because when people see that you want it so bad, they tend to take it advantage of it. People do like you, people do want you, but that’s not everything and sometimes I don’t know, I don’t know if it makes it like you’re not so lonely or alone. I’m not tryna make you feel bad. Hhh. It’s hard. It’s like you a see a friend that you think is such a beautiful person, but they don’t see it, and you other people treating them like they’re… sigh.”
”Ja, but I’m okay. You can say what you want. And um… I know, I know already what you mean because I have been thinking some of the same things about it too. I like Zero Filter Zim. I know that you care, so, so let’s talk about something else besides my relationship problems.”
”Okay. What do you wanna talk about then?”
”I don’t want to talk, I want to eat all of your food and play this new game you got, and when I cycle home tonight I will try to think of a way out of this Greek hell.”
”Huh?”
”That’s what I call it. When you do the same thing all the time. You push the rock up the hill and you know when you get to the top, that you’re gonna have to do it all over again. When I know what I’m supposed to do but I don’t do it, and I know what can happen, when it does that, what I thought it would, I always feel kind of like Sisyphus.”

Written by Isaiah Lopaz, Anthology / Appendix 2021