Roommates, or I am an Idiot.

**Error: [RuntimeException] - "NullPointerException: Attempt to invoke virtual method 'void com.example.app.someMethod()'
on a null object reference. Stack trace: at com.example.app.MainActivity.onCreate(MainActivity.java:72)
at android.app.Activity.performCreate(Activity.java:788) at android.app.Instrumentation.callActivityOnCreate(Instrumentation.java:1307)
at android.app.ActivityThread.performLaunchActivity(ActivityThread.java:3588)
at android.app.ActivityThread.handleLaunchActivity(ActivityThread.java:3761)
at android.app.servertransaction.LaunchActivityItem.execute(LaunchActivityItem.java:83)
at android.app.servertransaction.TransactionExecutor.executeCallbacks(TransactionExecutor.java:135)
at android.app.servertransaction.TransactionExecutor.execute(TransactionExecutor.java:95)
at ...

I think it’s been eleven hours, but I am not sure. If I had to guess, I would say I last got up from my chair around 5pm. The bottom right of my computer screen reads 3:41am. My code still isn’t working. For eleven hours, roughly, my back has been curled, ass hardened, and soul vanishing. The only parts of my body that have budged in the last several hours are my fingers, and heart, I guess. My eyes are dry, but not in need of any lubricant – they have been stuck at the same angle, agape at the code. The code I write is not mine. Perhaps it was when I started, but not anymore; the code has developed a will of its own, its intentions being to dominate me. Clearly, it has succeeded. Perhaps I am the code’s.

My body is stiff and numb. I don’t feel much. Besides my fingers, the rest of my body seems to have lost the ability to perceive through skin. I have never before felt so ready to empathize with a plank of wood. I should probably get up and drink water. I count down from three and stand up.

As far as the next 13 seconds go, I am foggy on details. I remember hearing lots of crunching and grinding. I briefly (yet viscerally) dreamed of an anthropomorphic laundry machine fighting another heavy-duty-machinery-person, clanging and ringing screeching and all. I now find myself lain down on the floor piecing together my incident. I once again try to stand up, this time succeeding with no problem. As I regain my senses, a dry mouth reminds my need for water. I turn to my dresser and reach for my oversized metallic flask. As I pick it up and begin to twist the cap open, my heart sinks as I realize with greater and greater certainty that the bottle seems to weigh as much as it does when it is empty. A complete uncorking of the stainless-steel cap confirms my initial suspicions, and my heart is filled with despair: I have to walk to the kitchen to fill up my bottle.

It’s not that I’m lazy. Well, I guess in some domains I am, but I’m definitely capable of taking five steps out of my room. It’s just that, the kitchen, and living room, and whole rest of the apartment, really, are a barren wasteland. Alice and Bob are the reason for this disaster.

You see, A. and B. are my two roommates. Bob, a devout hedonist, is a professional consumer. He orders packages from the web at unprecedented rates – faster than he is able to process them and put his shit away into his master bedroom. The waste he has single-handedly introduced into the world is equivalent to three metric tons according to my models. Everyday, he is faced with the possibility of nourishing seven hungry villages in Zimbabwe or feeding his gambling addiction. I need not tell you which cause he finds more appealing.

Alice, on the other hand, is a chronic lounger. She has a talent for flicking her thumb up on her phone to swipe through TikTok videos that, as far as I can tell, she doesn’t even seem to watch in full. She is the LeBron James of sitting-on-the-couch-and-doing-absolutely-nothing, and it drives me freakin’ bonkers. It doesn’t help that she, much like Bob, lives a consumptive existence, contributing only waste to the world.

I turn to my bedroom door. Hand on doorknob, eyes closed, I say a mini prayer-directed-at-no-particular-higher-power, and hope that I do not run into Alice or Bob into the kitchen. I count down from three and walk out.

It feels like I’m in a different country. I do not yet see nor hear anyone. The hallway with all of our rooms is empty and I can see the living room is too. The probability of a run in has dropped, however it is not yet zero – I still have to take a few steps and turn right to see the kitchen in full, behind the wall forming the hallway. I slowly inch toward the kitchen. My socked feet produce virtually no noise as they make contact with the ground with each step. I still hear nothing. I take one more silent step and pass the wall hiding the kitchen, shifting my momentum and neck right, to find, at my horror, Alice standing there in silence, boiling some water. I am startled, to say the least, but Alice is calmly unaffected. She quickly glances up at me with a warm smile and greets me.

“Hey!”

She somehow knew that not only someone was walking into the kitchen, but that I was.

I’m embarrassed at my trepidation and try to play it off cool, hoping she didn’t noticed.

“How’s it goin’?”

“I’m good, just cooking some ramen. Can I make you some?”

“Uhhh no thanks, I’m all set.”

“…”

“Actually, I guess some ramen would be good if you don’t mind.”

She smiles and gets out a new bag of the stuff.

We converse for a bit, she fixes me a bowl of the stuff, and I head back into my dungeon with some hot food. I place it on my desk and sit down with a smile on my face.

I think back to right before I walked into the kitchen and my smile fades.

I am an idiot.