001 Nada/Nothing
Episode 1:
Sad Elliot woke up in his bed not actually wanting to wake up, but he couldn't sleep any longer. He stretched a weary arm toward the bedside table, searching for the phone he knew he shouldn't check, but desperately needed a distraction from the ceiling. To be honest, it was the only comfort in his life.
The cool glass of the screen was a familiar weight, a small, glowing window that promised temporary escape from his thoughts. He really was into reading—really, really. He started reading his unfinished book on his phone. A small sigh of relief escaped his lips as he navigated to the familiar ebook app, immediately plunging back into the complex world of space politics and interstellar battles.
Then he slept more—at least tried to—took a ten-minute nap barely, stood up and brushed his teeth while jerking off, took a shower, then while changing his clothes jerked off again. It wasn’t like he wanted to, but he had to. The cool spray of the shower and the automated, necessary routine offered a momentary, blanketing peace, but the quiet, persistent compulsion still hummed beneath his skin, demanding acknowledgement.
He drove his car to the petrol pump, lit a cigarette, tried to bomb the entire place including himself—but instead got beaten and then drove to his office. His bruised body ached as he pulled into the office parking lot, the memory of the scuffle an ugly, throbbing counterpoint to the drone of the city morning.
In the parking lot he met a girl who kinda flirted with him every day. She said hi; he said yeah—and he really looked like he didn’t want to talk to her. She was kinda sad. In the elevator he met his friend who he actually saw as a coworker, but the guy saw him as a friend.
“Hey, who did that to you? Did someone hit you?” the guy asked.
Elliot said, “Yes. I tried to burn the whole petrol pump with my cigarette.”
The guy just burst out laughing like it was a sarcastic joke. “Good one,” he said. Elliot looked into his eyes with pure sadness—no one understood him. But it was good if nobody understood him, because then at least he had some sort of authority or power over others; people didn’t fully know him or how dangerous he could be. It was better to be not understood by anyone, he thought, like Nietzsche’s quotes.
His gaze remained fixed and heavy, absorbing the colleague’s cheerful, oblivious laughter as if it were a physical insult, reinforcing the cold, comforting fortress of his own isolation.
Then the elevator doors opened and they both stepped out and sat together.
James said, “Hey, today you look really out of place. I mean, did something happen?”
Elliot: “Yeah, I told you that I tried to burn a petrol pump on my way home.”
James: “Okay bro, it’s okay if you’re having a hard time. Just don’t try to deliver it to other people.” Then he burst out laughing. “I mean, the joke was… hhhhahaah, good, haha.”
Elliot simply stared down at the polished, gray surface of his desk, the fluorescent office lighting reflecting harshly in his eyes as he endured the ringing echo of James’s forced, misunderstanding laughter.
Elliot stood up to get some water. The girl he’d met in the parking spot said hi again.
Elliot: “Yeah, umm, nice to meet you,” he said with a cold expression.
Shawn: “Well, if you don’t wanna talk then don’t. I mean, I’m not forcing you.”
Elliot: “No, I’m just tired. I just wanna read.”
Shawn: “Read? Yeah, I also wanna read. What do you read?”
Elliot: “You can’t read what I read.”
Elliot continued his slow, determined walk toward the water cooler, his mind already forming the defensive shield he used to deflect any attempt at genuine connection. But Shawn’s unexpected challenge—“What makes you so sure of that?”—actually halted his steps.
Cut to black.
