text: The click of a mouse filled the silence, the screen light filled the dark, the purpose filled the void. Nora’s blank face was awash with a pool of blue light, her pupils as small as the eye of a needle. Her irises swelled with colour, her glassy eyes reflecting her avatar who bobbed back and forth on the screen. Right click. Collect confetti. “Are you doing the Green Orcas quest?” The white text appeared above a familiar avatar, an avatar with a saturated green cape: barbieblows94 . “I am,” typed Nora, the white text filling the silent space, stretching out across the empty arena. The arena was like a ghost town, a ghost town illuminated by ghastly white lights, the breeze whispering through both avatars’ knee-length hair, tickling the ends of Barbie’s green cape. After a concert, absence was tangible, silence was tangible; and it was the stark contrast that did it, the half hour that divided this vacuum from its prior fullness. It was like a black hole having swallowed up gas, dust, moons. And there they stood in the aftermath, as though the black hole had been defused, scraps of stars on its edge like bits of soup in the corners of one’s mouth. Collect confetti. “We both know I’ve already completed the quest,” said Barbie. “Did you need some confetti?” “I’d rather collect it myself tbh ,” said Nora. “It’s cathartic, I guess.” Plastic cups, cans and confetti littered the patches of grass, grass bleached white by the sterile lights. “Yup,” said Barbie. “I’ve got four capes already.” “Isn’t there another quest you’d rather do?” “Nup,” said Barbie, hovering over a crushed soda can. Nora scanned the arena for more litter, the click of her mouse prodding the silence as she collected another colourful lump of confetti. There was the crumple of aluminium as she fished a crisp from its packet, a crunch as she popped it into her mouth, her jaw pulsing beneath the blue light of her screen. Crunch, crunch, crunch. “And did you like the concert?” she typed. “I’m just here for the aftermath, really,” said Barbie. “I’m here for the silence; it feels a little louder after the sudden absence of so much noise.” Pause. The white text danced across Nora’s irises. She popped another crisp into her mouth, chugged back a mouthful of coke. Silence. Silence feels a little louder in the sudden void left by so much noise, silence echoes here in this emptiness. “...and I’m here for the privacy,” continued Barbie. “It’s a little more personal after the sudden absence of such a large crowd.” “You should write a book.” “Piss off,” said Barbie. “I’d flip you off if I could.” “Damn, what a shame,” said Nora. “But no, really, it’s a death of sorts.” “I guess.” I guess? Wasn’t it? It was as though the crowd had carved out the flesh of a kiwi, had occupied its hollowed skin and then left; it was as though they’d stretched the space like a hair tie, and it would never regain its prior form, it would never bounce back. They’d expanded the space and had then evacuated it; and what was once so whole was left loose and hollow. There was always a before, and always an after. Noise preceded silence, and presence preceded absence. Here, in the after , silence was louder, and privacy more personal. “You guess?” said Nora. “I keep coming back,” said Barbie, “because it makes me feel alive. I feel more alive in the aftermath of something, than I do in the absence of something.” “But they’re both absence.” “They’re a different kind of absence.” One was a before, and one was an after. Nora clicked on her inventory. She needed fifty more lumps of confetti and twenty-three more cans, then she too would earn a green cape, she too would have a sense of fulfilment, however trivial. She dusted the crumbs from her keyboard as she popped another crisp into her mouth. She too felt alive here in this semblance of death. She hadn’t understood it though, not really, not even now. She placed an oily hand on her mouse, double clicked a red can, twenty-two, click , twenty-one, click , twenty. “Did you like the concert, then?” asked Barbie. “Yeah, but Jade looked exhausted.” “Did she?” “I swear she almost fainted during Offline Love,” said Nora. “Don’t they all?” Idols lived so intensely that they burned through life like dynamite. They’d never stood in the aftermath, like this, here, now; they’d never had the time to live. There was so much life, constant life to plough through, and everything blossomed in their wake. And somehow this made the slow pace of monotony and mediocrity sacred. Nora had the time to live, the time to feel her joy, to feel her pain, the time to process them; and yet she didn’t. She ran from the void, she covered the void, she filled the void, but she’d never dived right in, she’d never examined its lungs, its heart, its skin. She double clicked on confetti. Forty-nine, forty-eight, forty-seven. The click of a mouse filled the silence, the screen light filled the dark, the purpose filled the void. “Woops,” said Barbie. “I gtg .” “Night.” Barbie’s avatar vanished, and Nora stared into the screen, the empty arena, the lights. Her irises swelled with colour, her chest swelled with the void. Exit to Lobby. Double click. Nora rose from her chair and waddled towards the wardrobe, her shoulders hunched. There was a girl in the mirror glowing blue with light, there was a girl in the mirror with acne and vacant eyes; she had oily lips, and crumbs in the corners of her mouth, but this didn’t constitute an aftermath. She hadn’t swallowed gas and dust and moons, she hadn’t burped up stars. There was no before, and no after; there was only this pristine and perpetual absence, as white as an unsullied napkin tucked into one’s collar. She craved collision, a before, an after, and her stomach grumbled for more. She wiped the crumbs from her lips with the back of her hand, and fell into bed, fell into ennui, into self-pity. Lobby music filled the silence, the screen light filled the dark, but nothing filled the void. Why couldn’t we sit in that space? The tranquillity of ennui allowed us to transcend this, here, now; it allowed us to speak to ourselves, our minds, and not merely our biology; and yet, it bored. It yawned so widely it swallowed us whole, and there we sat in its stomach, isolated and infected with its sleepiness. Why couldn’t we revel in the dreamlike languor? Why couldn’t we lie in bed and stare up at the ceiling, at the gotelé , at the objective self departing our body and floating above like a balloon? like a balloon attached to our core by an invisible umbilical cord. Why couldn’t we examine the subconscious? Nora reached towards her desk and shut her laptop, rolled over and closed her eyes. Her lids fluttered, her limbs twitched, her body sighed, and her mind swelled with colour. Silence reigned, darkness reigned, and dreams filled the void.