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Too Empty
The first time I felt truly alone was three years ago off the coast of a fishing village in Malaysia, sixty feet below the surface.
It was my first real scuba dive after two certification dives. We swam along a coral reef sloping down to the bottom of the ocean, our guide stopping us to point out eels and clownfish and make descriptive hand gestures so we could look for what he saw.
In between sightings, I turned to look at the infinite wall of water opposite the reef. I felt a sudden, destructive urge to swim into it, the French’s call of the void, like when you stand on a ledge and have to stifle the temptation to jump. When I turned back, my braid caught on the knob of my oxygen tank, locking my neck backward at an angle. The rest of the group was already ahead of me, and I was voiceless, unable to call to them. It hit me that the ocean isn’t a place we belong. It’s not made for humans; we need so much equipment just to be there. We’ve forced our way in and nature tolerates our presence. This must be, I thought, how astronauts feel in space. Then I freed my hair and caught up to everyone else.
A year later, I started a remote job, moved across the country, and found myself living alone in a two-bedroom apartment. The apartment echoed as I walked through it since I never bought enough furniture to fill it, and it was two miles away from a subway stop, a social death…
