Abstinence from Abstinence

(bloodbath)

Alex stands in the middle of the bedroom, his heart sinking and his stomach growing cold. Each hair on the back of his neck stands on end as he notes the pileups, and that’s pileups in plural; there’s dishes, clothes, rubbish, and lies and lies and lies. The air is still, growing heavy with realisation and regret.

Then there’s a bang as the door slams open and Ted walks in. Then silence. The kind you could slice with a knife.

“I know what you’ve been up to,” says Alex.

There’s an almost imperceptible raise in Ted’s eyebrows. “Don’t go jumping to conclusions.”

“I’m not. I know that you’ve been…you’ve been…” Alex falters.

“I’ve been what, Alex?” whispers Ted.

“You’ve been doomscrolling!” The accusation thuds to the floor.

If hours can be turned into minutes by the simple action of scrolling reels- where the swift movement of a thumb across the screen acts as your own personal time machine- then, Alex realises, eye contact is its polar opposite. In the few seconds that Alex feels Ted meeting his glare, years stretch by as he considers the possibilities for events about to transpire. Is this going to be a bloodbath? Is he going to have to throw a punch? Should he have washed his han-

“How many digestives do you guys want?”. Crumbs fly from James’ mouth as he calls out from his lounging position on the bed.

Alex rolls his eyes.

“Listen,” he begins, “It’s Lent, and we promised we’d give up Instagram Reels for 40 days. We agreed to do it together, that it would make us better people and-”

“Feel free to stick around in the living room if you want,” interrupts Ted loudly, “but I need to study. If you’re hungry, it looks like you’ve already found the digestives.”

(strawberina)

Ted sits at his desk, the notebook ten inches away, the phone five. He isn’t really the deluded type; he doesn’t hide from the truth and he doesn’t feel the need to pull the little mind tricks on himself that most people use to dumb down the discomfort. He knows he doesn’t stand a chance. He lets himself pretend for a little while anyways. As he begins to read his lecture notes, in the back of his mind, a timer starts.

Okun’s law states that a 1% increase in unemployment results in a 2% decrease in output. (tick, tick).

This results in an ever-widening gap between your growth and your potential. (tick tick)

Production and output have a relationship. (tick tick).

Strawberina and Grapenzo have a relationship. (tick tick).

His nose is already three inches deep in Fruit Love Island when the timer goes off.

The thing is that he will still fight Alex at every corner, till he is drunk on bruises, that he hasn’t broken Lent. Because, he had taken care to make one key distinction: he isn’t on Instagram Reels, he is on TikTok.

So, Ted stays on the time machine for long enough that even this compressed tunnel of time begins to feel long, till his eyes are red raw and it’s like this is what his life has always been, and he can’t imagine there ever being anything else to it. This is all he knows, Stawberina and her drama with Grapenzo and his beef with Orangelo and his love triangle with Cherrita.

Ted’s mind is usually a tidy place. That’s why he can get away with this. He can hide truths inside technicalities and omit until the facts are but a lie, till his half-baked attempts are successes and his life holds meaning that is deep and profound. There isn’t really any other way to survive this life or to grow into a ripe old age of contentment. Sure, just like everyone else, he’s had dreams of being a person that he can be proud of. But, eventually you accept that you’re probably just going to end up with moving your goalposts closer. He’s just not afraid to get that over with early on.

Sunset has come and gone when James and Alex return, and they stand outside with their ears pressed against the door.

“I don’t think I’ve ever studied for that long,” says Alex, raising his eyebrows.

James rolls his eyes. “Please, if a guy feels the need to lock himself in his room, there is only one thing he could be doing.”

Alex perks up and then throws back his head and laughs. “Ah you’re too funny, Jamie old boy. Just excuse me one moment.” Alex hurries off to the bathroom across the landing and locks the door.

James stares after him. “Everyone I know is a pervert.”

(a new hobby)

Alex roughly pushes the bathroom door open and doesn’t spare a second after slamming it shut. He reaches into his shorts and begins working at it.

Okay, so he’s been doing good with staying off reels, but he is now considering the possibility that some new addictions have been growing in the void.

It was a few days in, when he first started this thing with Ted where they were abstaining from doomscrolling for Lent, that he made a brilliant discovery. Or rediscovery, rather; he wasn’t raised completely uneducated. He realised that, when he wasn’t preoccupied with the repetitive but precise movement of scrolling, there were so many other wonderful things he could do with his hands.

It had started as a hobby to pass the extra hours in the day, a spiritual experience that allowed him to spend those glorious 40 days getting to know himself better. It was something to look forward to at the end of the day, and he’d find himself dreaming of it on bus rides home, while eating dinner, while mid-conversation…

Looking back, he can’t quite pinpoint the moment when it became his whole life.

Once, he had wielded power over his own actions and desires, clasping his life firmly in his right hand. But now, he is clasping…

Whatever, something isn’t right.

Yes, he has succeeded in dropping doomscrolling. It isn’t a lie and it isn’t a loophole. Alex has been following his suspicions on the clues left by Ted, forming a growing realization about what he has been doing. He is determined to save Ted from himself. Yet, somehow there seems to be a similar sort of mental gymnastics involved in labelling this as a success, this replacement of one coping mechanism with another.

Alex shakes himself and stands up to wash his hands. He really can’t be arsed with purity testing his wanking.

He shoves the bathroom door open and looks up to see, from across the hall, Ted shuffling out.

(cabbages and kings)

James watches as Alex takes in the bleary eyes and matted hair, while he personally tries not to take in the expeditious assault on his olfactory system. Alex turns to catch his eyes.

James is quite fond of the legendary, almost mythical perception that exists on campus of him and his best mate Alex. He doesn’t really dwell on himself enough to tune into the rumours but, if he’s in the vicinity, he will catch a line or two. Among the more imaginative ones, there is the theory that they can read each other’s minds.

Of course, it’s bollocks, but what they can do is read each other’s facial expressions and body language. Right now, he’s pretty sure that Alex is thinking “this guy is a hopeless case”. James internally sighs. It seems that the melodrama of his friends knows no end. “He can do this, you pessimist,” James thinks, and hopes it shows up somewhere on his face.

James looks at Ted still leaning against the doorframe, and he can kind of read that face too. It’s a subtle deadening in the eyes, that look of retreating into oneself.

“I’ll make tea, shall I?”, announces James, and he marches downstairs. He hears the other two dragging their feet as they follow him.

As he sets the kettle on the stovetop, James ponders that logic puzzle he read about once, the one with the farmer and the goat and the cabbage, and the goat can’t eat the cabbage, and the farmer isn’t allowed to eat the goat. Something like that.

So, he ponders. Ted can’t be left alone with his phone because he will get up to god knows what. James doesn’t want to be left alone with Alex until he gets some sort of grip on his paranoia. Alex clearly can’t be left alone, period. The tea kettle dings and James opens the tea bag drawer.

To be honest, he has never actually managed to solve this puzzle, and it isn’t an accident either. This, right there, is exactly the reason why he is having such a hard time understanding Alex and Ted, with their secrets, deception and bloody moral dilemmas. As he hands the others their mugs, a small wave of pride swells through James. You see, he has never, not even once, had to lie to himself about whether his life is a success because he has never, not even once, made the stupid decision to set a goal for himself. Yes, and you’ll have to forgive the cliche, he is indeed one of those guys who says, probably with a backwards baseball cap and feet up on the desk, “fuck yeah mate, ya can’t fail if you don’t try”. Is this something he would recommend? Well…at the very least, he’s not the one with his hand glued to a phone or inside his pants.

Though, James is now thinking, it might have been a little beneficial if he had given that logic puzzle a shot. Right now the three of them are sitting cramped up on the couch, thighs touching and staring down into their mugs. They really should have spent a little more on furniture.

James’ tea is nearly gone when there is a knock at the door.

(the ultimate flip off)

Ted groans. “Alex, get the door.”

“It’s your turn,” Alex reminds him.

Ted flips him off, then tosses his tea bag in the trash and sticks his head out the door.

“Hello, yes I live here.” Ted speaks to what looks to Alex, from view through the crack in the door, like a tradie.

Ted listens for a moment, then, “What? I thought that was illegal!” He looks over at Alex, his expression utterly unreadable, then turns back.

“Well, we’ll get out of your way,” says Ted. “Bye, thank you.”

James gets to hit feet as Ted shuts the door. “What was that about?” he asks.

Ted pauses. Then he lets out a soul-worn sigh. “It’s the wifi. It’ll be out. All. Fucking. Night.” Alex smirks.

“And,” continues Ted, “They have to remove all our doors for a couple days while they do pest control.”

Alex’s mug drops to the floor with a smash.

(dumb and dumber)

Since they had to leave the flat to give way for those inexplicable pest controllers, James made them all go down to some frat party down the street. Ted felt like he was carrying a weight inside him during the whole two-minute walk there.

Now, he is sitting on the outside deck, the muffled noises of music and chanting behind him. Soju in one hand, his chin propped up by the other, he stares down at the grass and knows it’s going to be one hell of a night.

Ted feels Alex's weight drop down beside him but he doesn’t look up.”

A beat.

Then, “I’m sorry.” Alex pauses. “This shit is hard.”

Ted considers the whole situation, with the standards that they have tried to hold themselves to, and how they didn’t seem very high, yet he continues to fall short. He is right about to get even more philosophical about it, explain the whole thing where he twists truth, where thinking there is success means that there actually is because “I think therefore I am”, getting ready to quote fucking Descartes-

Someone projectile vomits in front of them. The surrounding people cheer.

Ted gives Alex a side glance where he meets his eye. He says, “Maybe we expect too much of ourselves.”

His sentence isn’t even finished by the time that Alex has his phone out. Ted shrugs. The night is beautiful and the stars shine bright as the two of them scroll away, feeling blissful and in heaven.