I Am Nobody (phan)

7*Skype

Dan

I can't deny that I grew fond of him as a friend, the way his laugh echoed across the room; his chirpy, giddy, innocent personality and his light take on his existence. I think I could fairly say I'd set him up to fail his final examination at university with our late night/ early morning conversations on skype. He had made me feel better on every occasion we spoke, but only briefly.

Behind the screen that I laughed through to him on, I was crumbling into dust faster than I could breathe. Sometimes I thought Phil looked straight past this, only noticing (and possibly only choosing to notice) the bright, happy side of me. Other times I feel as if he knows exactly what I'm thinking and feeling, right down to my core. He'd give me a look of empathy for a brief second, allowing a sad smile to flicker the edges of his mouth when I stopped talking for a while during conversation, my mind overrunning itself.

Our calls became evermore regular with a mixture of the two of us contacting the other, starting once every other day and now almost guaranteed to be twice daily. Three months had passed, giving me two and a half weeks to finalise everything; to say goodbye. I wondered if Phil remembered about my plan that I brought up over text within the first week of us communicating, or if that was another thing that bounced off his optimistic mindset. Maybe he was counting on it and would be relieved to finally see me go.

'So in two weeks I'll be graduating, how cool is that?' he beamed, my attention seeping in to only hear the last of his plans, 'Dan?'

'Hm?' I directed, tilting my head up to view his pixelated face awaiting an answer, 'Yeah sorry, graduation. Any plans for after?' my voice beamed towards the end of the sentence, hoping to convince him I hadn't become lost in my thoughts once again.

There was a pause before he spoke, as he considered whether to question my behaviour or not, but it was quickly wiped off and replaced for the common wide-smile of his, 'Not really, but I'm hoping to lounge around at my parents until I think of something!' he chuckled.

I was glaring at the houseplant in the view of his room I had, half-cut off by the angle the camera was placed. What was the point in having such a thing that you were to just water over again until it withered into nothingness? To be honest, that was exactly what humanity was. A person was provided with more and more resources from the world, only to die and take nothing with them.

I sighed, rolling my head to the side where I spotted my half-completed project for geography: a sculpture built with analysations on the formation of a volcano. I didn't like it, though, and would probably scrap the three-hours work I'd put in to restart it.

'Dan, seriously you can-'

'What's the point in it all?' my voice monotonously rang out.

'I don't know, I think you find reasons for it along the way.' he casually let off, acting as if it was nothing he even had to consider. Maybe it wasn't anything to consider and I'd read too thoroughly into it. My head was resting heavily against the wall by my bed, too hefty to lift.

'Do you ever wish it was more simple to live?'

'Not at all, else I'd be bored. Don't you think?' he smiled. I shrugged my shoulders, sighing as I collapsed farther down the wall. My eyes darted to the time, realising it was approaching the time to gaze out the window, 'I was thinking after I graduate, you could stay at-' he quickly rambled, the words hardly audible.

'I have to go, it's eight-thirty.' I shrugged, ignoring his words before. But I knew what he was offering and that was to visit him at some point. The first issue to this was maybe this meant he had forgotten about my plans, as such. Or, maybe he was trying to ignore them in case I'd decided to not follow-through on them. The second issue was he was opening a whole new door I wasn't even expecting.

Whenever I was to stalk someone, it'd take months to eventually get to the point where I could figure their house address and view the person. It tended to be that once I'd caught sight of them in their house with my bare eyes, I'd drop the task then, since that was usually my target point. Not once, when I began researching Phil, did I expect him to be inviting me over as a friend. I'd never talked to people I was tracking down (unless it was through text or indirectly at court), let alone skyped them twice a day for months.

I was considering what this meant, would I see Phil and cut all connections off with him there and then? Would I follow through with the analysation and use our friendship against him to collect more information about his life? Would I decide to proceed further with our relationship, misleadingly trigger false emotions to confuse him, cut off his current relationships with other people to gain full control over him or break him down into nothing, like me?

I scoffed at myself, forgetting I'd never even have a chance to proceed on my task with him, seeming I wouldn't be alive little more than two days over he graduated.

'Bye then, Dan.' he smiled, waving me off as I returned the gesture and closed the screen.

I sighed to myself, realising I'd only have two days to follow him down to his house and view him by it, with him living on campus currently. It would be difficult, but maybe that's what I need: a big bang before I leave for good.