The computer program

18. Six days at the bottom of the ocean

I needed to do laundry.

Fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, I needed to do laundry.

I was rushing around my apartment, trying to find the buddy of the one sock I had found while brushing my teeth and trying not to drool toothpaste on the wooden floor I had just cleaned.

I drooled toothpaste on the wooden floor I had just cleaned.

I sighed. At least I had found another sock. It was white, while the other was black, but I figured if I found a pair of grey trousers, I could tuck them into the socks as a fashion statement.

In all the madness, my phone rang.

"Ewwo?" I said, mouth full of toothpaste.

"What?"

I ran to my bathroom, spit in the sink.

"I said, hello", I said.

"Hello. So you're late again?"

It was one of my university friends, and he didn't at all sound irritated. On the contrary, there was amusement in his voice.

"Is anybody surprised?" I asked.

"No", my friend said. "When will you come?"

I came back from my closet, where I had found a pair of trousers deep within that I hadn't used in ages but they were the only pair that weren't in the laundry. They were black, not grey, but they would have to do and I had managed to find and oversized grey shirt. I looked at the digital clock on the microwave.

"In fifteen minutes? So seven fifteen?"

"See you seven thirty then!" my friend said in a chirpy voice.

"You motherf-"

But he had already hung up.

It was rare, being able to see all of my friends from university at once. Most of them were busy with careers and partners and in some cases even children now, not to even mention we all lived in different places. But when we met, it was as if time had stood still and we fell back into the same easy jargon as all those years ago.

"Izuna!!" they greeted me as I came into the fancy restaurant, the prices on the menu matching all of our careers in the IT business.

My group of friends, five men and three women, had already ordered beers for themselves, but it touched me that they had ordered a glass of my favourite red wine for me. I sat down took a sip. The flavour burst in my mouth.

"Wood. Grapefruit. A touch of elderberry."

My friends gaped at me in disbelief.

"You're joking?" they asked.

"Of course I'm fucking joking. It tastes like red wine that is going to get me drunk. Thank you for choosing it for me."

We ordered together. I decided on bruschetta with pesto and olives as a starter, oven-baked parsnip and Hasselback potatoes in an umami and sour broth with grilled asparagus as a main, and a brownie filled with Brie cheese as dessert alongside a coffee drink with violet syrup. It was one of the best dinners I had had in my life. The conversation between us was easy, ranging from politics to our personal lives. I didn't have much to say about politics, but I did tell them a bit about my forest walks, about my promotion, about my new-found love of going to the cinema alone.

"Date anyone yet?" One of my friends, who sat next to me, nudged me and winked.

I looked down with a smile. I tried telling myself, once more, that they meant well, that they didn't know how much it hurt when they asked me. Strangely enough it hurt more now, when I didn't fear a life alone anymore, than it had done before, when I had been so scared of the fact that my heart seemed to have decided it had had enough. I knew that if I told my friends, they would be accepting and let go of the bantering, but I just couldn't bring myself to. Madara was the only one who knew, and I desired to keep it that way very dearly.