“You can not lose anything in life, really!” said the Couch to me one day, while  having tea.

“How so ?!” I acted as interested, while being focused on my very important mission, killing those play station buttons.

“Absolutely nothing, I am telling you. In life you can’t lose a thing! “ She insisted annoyingly, giving away those sad sighs that make you stop the game and pretend you’re paying attention to her thoughts. Only if you don’t possess another Couch in the house to stand up to your everyday smut.

“How can you say that you can’t lose anything? Enlighten me, please. You can definitely lose everything! Look…you can misplace the house keys for example. What do you say about that?” I sustained my logic wayward of thoughts, trying to crush with my cheeky smile, the twitch of an idiot, nonsensical philosophical discussion that just took birth and was trying to spread its new baby arms towards the sun.

The Couch is looking at me in deep consternation, with its pillows buried deep in her embrace, a bad omen meaning that if I don’t start taking her seriously soon, I will have to play on the rug from now on. I light up a cigarette, showing her that my eyes and ears are all hers, for the next… 5 to 6 minutes maximum.

“What do you mean by not being able to lose anything?”I was trying my best voice to win her over again.

“Yeah, it’s as simple as that. You truly can’t lose a thing. I simply don’t understand you people, why you are being so much afraid, putting such effort into controlling everything in life, when basically, you can’t lose anything, anyhow.”

“This is the dumbest thing I have ever heard till this point. It is natural to be afraid. We have a whole bunch of things to protect, in order to keep them safe. Other people, houses, cars, dreams for which we’ve worked so hard to accomplish…there is a whole list I can work upon.”

I’ve already started to lose my vibe and interest in the game, the nonsense of this discussion really challenging me to stay calm. I somehow succeed. I have no disposition to put up with any more crap from this cheap piece of furniture, of Scandinavian origins. We were born and raised in different corners of the world, it is natural to see life differently, so I am doing my best to listen to her again and maybe I can finally understand her point of view. Although, I don’t think I’ve ever succeeded in this matter, when a female is involved. I am having the same problem with the cat too.

“All things pass. Their disappearance is inevitable. It is not you that loses them. They simply vanish when their time is up. This is the way the world is meant to run.”

“I am in no mood of such conversation right now!” I tell her, lighting down my cigarette in the ashtray next to me.”” I can keep my depression under control by myself, thank you. I am in no need of any motivational jabber from you now. You can talk to the cat if you feel like getting bored. Anyways, I am only hearing foolish statements… Yes! Maybe it doesn’t actually matter if you lose objects or things you’ve worked for. Maybe they are useless, or perhaps you’ve lost interest in them and you don’t like them anymore, so you willingly give them up. But what if, you fail places or people, that matter to you and are of upmost importance in your life?! “

I sip with greedy thirst from the hot tea, then I return to the quest that is quietly waiting for me to finish. I honestly don’t have the temperament for a useless blabber. The game is way more interesting and moreover, the deadline of MassEffect Andromeda puts a lot of pressure on my gamer shoulders.

“In life you absolutely can not lose a thing. Stop being so selfish, thinking that every chatter has something to do with you and your hypochondriac depression. In truth, this is my Journal. You just write for me, scribe.”

“But beg my pardon…it is total rubbish!” I pause the game again. “Ok! I understand that you don’t put too much price on objects, although frankly, that is kind of awkward, coming from you. But when you loose people in your life? Relatives, friends, lovers?”

“It is you people, who are too naive to think that those persons have ever belonged to you, to even say you’ve lost them. They are humans just like you…they haven’t disappeared. Everyone simply had their own way in life. At some point you’ve crossed roads, for the time being, then everyone followed their own destination. “

“But we lose them, because of the bad path that we choose at some point. Have you ever thought of that?”

“You just can’t have the same route, howsoever. Paths cross when they are meant to, then, they each lead to different purposes. Having two roads with the same identical route, is pointless. Think about it. Sooner or later, your ways just split in one direction or another. You don’t lose anything, for that matter.”

“Let me get this straight…if in fact we lose nothing in the end, then why are we so sad?” I ask her.

She smiles at me superiorly, whilst she cuddles with one of her red pillows, the freshly landed cat. I have a feeling she is prepared to erase any future argument, with what she is about to say next:

“It’s easy…because you simply are a bunch of idiots! You ignorantly think you have the power to control everything and all things will always be where you want them to be, even though you waste most of your time and energy, thinking the inevitable can be avoided, one way or another.”

I puff in disbelief and boredom and I start the game again, for the third time. For one split of a second, I really thought she would tell me something wise. But how can you expect something like that from a Red Couch?! Triumphally, I give her my final shot, over my shoulder, while I silently slash and hack some robotic beasts in Horizon Zero Dawn.

“You see dear…in the end, you still lose something in life! “

“What?” she asks me, arrogantly.

“You lose time…”