I love the new apartment. It's spacious, clean, well-maintained; it's all you could ask for in an apartment. Well, sort of. The off-white walls are so stark, so bare now - I need to put up some posters, get more furniture, get more this, get more that - my apartment needs to be filled with junk. From wall to wall, the enormous rooms will gradually be occupied with chairs, tables, cabinets, appliances, the walls covered in posters and photographs; the gaping spaces which return my blank stares day after day after day; soon they will be replaced by my desk, my plants, my furniture, my apartment.

Except the apartment isn't just mine.

Or at least, it shouldn't be.

The more I fill the empty spaces which linger, the more I realize that the apartment doesn't seem empty for lack of furniture. When I unlock the backdoor, staring down the long corridor, I realise that, even if the apartment were full, the lights would still be off, and the deathly silence would not be broken except by my own empty hellos which resonate through the barren halls.

The loneliness is worst at night. I don't need to be sleeping with someone, or next to someone, though I suppose I wouldn't mind either, I just want to know that I'm not alone here.

Then again, even when I'm not by myself, sometimes I feel like I really am.