The Search

by Tina Stager 

black coffee

Saturday night out with friends. We have been dancing for hours. The disc jockey played some of my favorite songs. I was having a fabulous time.

At four o’clock the music went silent. Is it that late already? I didn’t want to go home yet, so we went to the pub down the street to have the last beer.

There were five of us left. Dawn was breaking, when we decided to go to my place. We took the first bus and went into my apartment. There was enough room for us on the big couch.

MTV was playing eighties songs in the background and we were drinking and chatting about this and that.

After a little while, I got up and went into my bedroom, where I started emptying my closet. Piece by piece. Until there was nothing left in there. I did the same with my nightstand, then returned to the living room.

Next was the kitchen. I checked the fridge for its content, opened all the drawers, but didn’t find anything. I took out the plates and glasses, even the pots and pans. Nothing to be found in the cutlery drawer either.

The others had been observing me for a while now. They didn’t quit chatting. They just kept observing me interestedly. There was only the living room left to search, that’s where everyone was sitting.

I went to the sideboard with all my papers and started opening one door after another. I took out the entire pack of folders, and checked them, just in case. But nothing.

After the sideboard, I went to the brown wooden tv stand. It had a couple of doors on both sides and two drawers in the middle. I started going through the left side, then the right. Nothing either.

When I had emptied the last two drawers I sat there, in the middle of my living room, between the disaster I had just made. I was irritated. I had been searching the whole place for almost two hours. But there was nothing to be found.

One of my friends finally asked what everyone else was too scared to ask:

“What are you looking for?”

There was a sudden silence and stared at me, curious for my answer.

“The sense of life,” I said quietly and went back to going through my drawers without another word.