The Infinite Nothing

VII : the cosmos doesn't care about you

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Affection had always been weird to Tristan.

So were tears and dreams and illusions of a future in a universe that didn't care about you; but it was affection that mainly struck him as odd. Letting Ivan cry in his arms while staring at the only star that dared to make an appearance in the bright darkness of a falling night made Tristan fall back into his quiet state of contemplation.

Once Ivan had calmed down enough to behave in a way Tristan could deal with, they laid down on the dusty ground and watched more stars follow their bold leader. One after another they showed their face, smiling at a population that thought it mattered most when they were so unaware of what there even was to compare itself to.

"I feel so lost. I don't like my friends or family anymore. I don't know where I should go."

"A library," Tristan muttered, quietly letting their arms touch as they laid side by side. "Pick up a book about the meaning of life. Any meaning, there's so many to choose from."

"I thought you didn't believe in meaning," Ivan sniffed. "Who's your favourite philosopher?"

Tristan hesitated. Questions like these didn't make sense to him; he understood theories, not people.

"I don't know one I would want to completely get behind. I like most of Nietzsche's ideas, but then again, Nietzsche also said that creating women was God's second mistake."

"Second?" Ivan asked, glancing at him.

A smile settled on Tristan's lips as he watched another star wave down at him. "Nietzsche tells the story of how God got so bored, he created a man in order to cheer himself up. Then the man got bored too, and God created animals to cheer the both of them up. This proved to be his first mistake since animals had no free will; they were ruled by God and the man and therefore, they were boring."

"What's wrong with women," Ivan wondered quietly. "I like them. Some are pretty to look at."

He was oblivious to the doubting glance Tristan shot his way and instead waited for him to continue. And so, Tristan did.

"Creating a woman first proved as success as all their days of boredom seemed to be over. But woman was by nature curious, so she persuaded the man to eat from the tree of knowledge. God was most afraid at this point."

"God was afraid?"

"Religion only has power when fuelled by man's ignorance. By eating from the tree of knowledge, the woman set in motion a science which declared man equal to God and as a result, made them enemies. This is the first sin. When a man becomes a scientist, he is done with priests and God. He breaks out from his cycle of unawareness and starts to think for himself. Clearly, a sin." Tristan smiled and closed his eyes as the many stars started to make him dizzy.

"Saying entire mankind became failure for God and it was all because of a woman proves that even Nietzsche was flawed. Basing anything on religion in the first place is a flaw. Nihilism makes sense to me, though."

Ivan's expression was still serious. "God seems so evil. The stories I hear in church and from my mom, it's so evil. Religion has caused so much war and death. I don't know if I want to believe in it."

"You aren't following the wrong god. You aren't missing out on your purpose in life. And you haven't misunderstood your place in the cosmos," Tristan stated, smiling at what made so much sense to him. "It's that there is no god. You have no purpose. The cosmos doesn't care about you or anyone else. I can tell you ten other versions of the creation of man and woman and the entirety of mankind, and yet any meaning you try to ascribe to your existence is nothing more than a story."

Ivan felt hot tears building up in his still glassy eyes, and he turned his head to look at Tristan in shock. "How can you constantly tell yourself these things and still manage to smile at me?"

Tristan met his gaze, the softness in his eyes contrasting vividly with the distress in Ivan's own. "Some say existing in the face of meaninglessness is an act of rebellion, fulfilling in its own way. I'm torn between believing in that and shitting on any notion of meaning in general."

"So you're living out of spite?"

"On some days. But it's not all bad. I always find a reason to smile."

"But it rarely seems honest," Ivan muttered, breaking the eye-contact. "You just live. I don't think you enjoy it."

"I enjoy this moment," Tristan replied with a shrug. Their arms were still touching and their eyes were fixed on the same sky, and Ivan wished that when he woke up tomorrow Tristan would still lay next to him, smiling with his eyes that seemed to hold the entirety of the stars above them.

"You have so many earrings."

"The pain keeps me grounded and connected with my mortality."

Ivan's eyes widened ever so slightly. "Really?"

Tristan's soft chuckle completed the feeling of lonely contentment residing in his every bone. "No Ivan, they were a gift from Tanya. She's a piercer. I let her practice on me."

"I never know when you're telling the truth or messing with me," Ivan stated, admiring Tristan's grin that for once seemed so honest and pure and full of hope in a world that didn't allow him to be happy. The world he must have created in his head for it seemed so ridiculous to Ivan.

"Don't worry. I don't, either."

In reality, Tristan didn't know if any of his words were pure reflections of thoughts already abandoned by someone smarter than him, or actual pieces of truth the world had yet to confirm. He didn't know and it drove him insane, but at the same time he enjoyed how messed up his entire existence seemed to be. It meant there was always something to doubt, always something to dwell on in his quiet state of contemplation.

But now wasn't the time to think. Tristan allowed Ivan to move closer to him, their arms now pressing against each other as they kept their gazes fixed on the universe. To Ivan, it felt as if staring right into a dark abyss of oblivion that was, although scary and through its obscurity threatening, strangely attractive.

Tristan smiled at the darkness because he didn't know how else to express the sudden warmth in his chest. For the first time in what had to be years, he wanted to raise his voice and yell. He wanted to tell everyone who didn't care how he didn't care, show everyone who wasn't bothered how he wasn't bothered by his lack of purpose. Maybe he was an empty vessel fulfilling a role no one had ever truly defined, but as he laid next to Ivan and listened to his steady breathing and imagined to even hear the rapid beating of his heart, Tristan felt as if he belonged.

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