At home, I’m sitting on a couch in the lounge room, staring at Mark, who is sitting on a different couch, staring at his iPhone.

I say, ‘Markkkkkkkkkk.’

And he doesn’t respond.

Just keeps looking at his iPhone.

I don’t even have anything to say.

But now that he has ignored me, I need to get his attention.

Because this is a game.

I wonder how he’ll react if I start singing Savage Garden.

I say, ‘Mark.’

Louder.

And still nothing.

I think: here we go.

You chose this.

And by doing so, implicated both of us.

Made both of our beds savagely.

I stand on the couch and raise my hands above my head. I scream the lyrics to ‘Truly Madly Deeply’. I scream about mountains and bathing and living forever. I scream about the sky falling —

Mark yells, ‘What the fuck?’

And I have won.

Mark yells, ‘What the fuck do you want?’

And I think: what do I want?

Like, specifically.

Like, specifically, what do I want right now?

And, specifically, I don’t know.

Generally, maybe.

Generally, I want a plan.

Like, even a small plan.

Some identifiable goal and a way to get there.

Some preloaded screen shot of a Google Maps journey with a definite beginning and an end. With me moving along it.

But this is big picture.

And what I need are details.

Attention to detail.

I say, ‘What do you want, Mark?’

And he says, ‘Nothing.’

Which is different from not knowing.

And I feel like he’s either said the most beautiful or the most depressing thing I’ve ever heard.

I say, ‘Come on, you’ve got to want something.’

He says, ‘I want you to stop talking to me.’

And I laugh.

I say, ‘Listen, just tell me what you want and I’ll help you get it.’

We stare at each other.

Twenty seconds pass and we are still staring.

It’s intense.

There are tears welling in our eyes from not blinking, and we stare at each other with these tears about to fall down our cheeks.

It seems beautiful.

If we were in a Hollywood movie, this would probably be beautiful right now.

In the movie version of our lives, Savage Garden plays softly on the stereo.

Tears are now running down our cheeks as we deal with some large conflict or series of events that have led us to this point.

In the movie version, what had preceded this was: Oliver was sitting on the couch in a towel, waiting for Sofia to get out of the shower, and staring at Mark.

Sitting on the couch in a dirty towel that was damp.

That smelled fairly rancid.

In the movie version, Oliver had said, ‘Mark, Mark, Mark,’ because later he was going to the store and wanted to know if Mark needed anything.

Like a new toothbrush.

Or something.

But Mark had ignored him.

And Oliver had said, ‘If you don’t answer me in five seconds, I’m using your towel.’

Because the viewer would have known that Mark washed his towel every other day.

And that today was the other day.

That today was the day.

Clean!

Carpe diem.

And Oliver kept saying, ‘Mark! Mark! Two seconds and I’m rubbing your towel all over my balls and arse crack.’

And the two seconds passed and Oliver looked at Mark in a way that made it seem like it had already happened.

In a way that made it seem like Mark’s towel had already rubbed around his wet balls and arse crack.

Tangled and held there.

And Sofia got out of the shower and Oliver went in.

Showered.

Cold burst at the end.

Routine.

Oliver got out of the shower not even bothering to swish the water from his body.

Just stood in the bathroom for five seconds letting the water drip onto the floor.

Smelling Mark’s towel.

Saying, ‘Fresh.’

And Oliver grabbed Mark’s towel and wiped it all over his balls and arse crack.

Then over his body.

He soaked up all the water from his body so that his towel was fairly wet before dropping it onto the bathroom floor so it got even wetter.

Then he wore it out around his waist and walked out of the bathroom and into the lounge room.

Dripping onto the carpet.

And Mark said, ‘Dude! What the fuck? That’s my towel!’

And Oliver said, ‘And this is our house and I’m not saying we need to share everything, but we need to share some things, and you need to acknowledge me because I don’t want to live negatively — like, with negative energy all around us.’

And Mark opened up.

Apologised for being ‘absent’ and ‘unavailable’.

Spoke about his childhood.

Pressures at work.

Life.

Oliver said that sometimes he didn’t understand ‘personal space’, and that he could be selfish.

And then, with Savage Garden playing, Oliver agreed to think about other people more, while Mark agreed to be more present.

With tears running down their cheeks.

Realising they were just human beings with feelings and emotions and sometimes emoticons too.

A happy ending.

Fin.

My eyes are stinging.

And I want to blink but I can’t.

Because I mustn’t lose.

Sofia walks in and says, ‘Hey, you motherfucking cunts! I brought pizza.’

And suddenly there’s a plan.

A thing to do.

And I blink about a thousand times because I can’t take it.

And Mark says, ‘I win.’

But laughing.

Both of us doing this.

And I think: this is what connecting is — people laughing together about things that make no sense.