No Notifications

Illustrated by Victoria Cheng.

“I just don’t understand why you have to go, Nick.” Isabel frowns as she passes Nick a bottle of hand gel, shifting her weight from foot to foot. “It’s so risky.”

“Isa, you know it’s important to me. Are we really going to get into this now?” Nick folds up his sign, trying not to crush it as he tucks it into his backpack. He hopes the paint’s dried enough – the stains will be a nightmare to wash out if not. He painted each letter last night, turning on more lights in the flat as the sun set over the ocean, streaking the sky orange and red. He’d paused only to bang pots and pans at the window as they’ve done every night with the rest of the street at 8:00 p.m. for the last four days.

“I know your principles are important to you, but there’s a pandemic going on, and what if it turns violent?” Isa has stopped fidgeting, meeting Nick’s gaze. “I don’t want anything to happen to you.” 

Nick sighs. Alright, guess we’re doing this again.

“Come on, Isabel, we’ve been over this. Most protests are peaceful, and we’re all going to be wearing masks. Have you been reading the conservative news your uncle sent you again?” Nick can sense Isabel’s stare turning into a glower, but it’s too late for him to take it back. It’s all Isa can do not to throw Nick’s water bottle at his head. She settles for pushing it into the backpack.

“Don’t be condescending, Nick. Just because I’m not joining a mass protest during a global pandemic when there’s a risk that the police will get involved doesn’t mean I’m turning into a QAnon theorist. Jesus. Why don’t you get that I can have principles and not want to be a militant activist?”

“What’s the point of having principles if you can’t go and act on them?”

“Oh, I’m sorry, I guess all the petitions I signed and information I shared about knowing your rights and staying safe from police violence weren’t actually activism that counted! Somebody died yesterday, Nick!” Isa tries to keep the mounting pressure of tears behind her eyes at bay. “You’re treating this like it’s some kind of video game quest.”

“You think I don’t know how high the stakes are? This is exactly why I’m going out on the street!” Nick roughly closes his backpack and slides it on – always facing front, so that policemen in disguise can’t slip any condemning cargo into one of the pockets like they did to Alex the other day. He spent all night at the police station swearing up and down that the grenade wasn’t his. “You always talk a big game about standing up to the establishment, but you never want to rock the boat.”

“That isn’t fair, Nick!” Despite herself, Isa’s eyes are wet, the sight of the door quickly becoming blurry. A cloud shifts, but the rush of sunlight doesn’t help her see. 

“What’s not fair is that the police are shooting at protesters and the government’s letting them. That guy’s not coming home to his family because they murdered him. Stop mothering me, because I’m going.” Nick slams the door behind him, and Isa lets herself fall onto the couch in their living room for a moment, head in her hands.

The truth is, Isa does partially feel guilty for not going with Nick. 

They should be doing this together. Only last year they were passing leaflets on campus demanding that the university pay better wages to its lecturers. They might have had some disagreements, but their debates were always lively and friendly, ideas flying over a basket of garlic bread, principles affirmed over cups of coffee. But she doesn’t want to stop seeing her grandmother either, she’s so alone, and how can she visit her if she’s been around a crowd of potentially infectious people? She's afraid now that the police are going after protesters harder. 

When she woke up this morning, she shared the most recent update on people gone missing during the protests. The thought of recognising a name on it erased any remaining sleepiness. Luckily, so far, she hasn’t. She’s heard stories of girls being taken into questioning and forced to strip down when being searched. Her friends from her girls’ school are urging each other to protest safely and sending out lists of the rights they should know. For all his principles and bravery, Nick will never understand the fear Isa feels when she hears these stories, the inescapable reality of what being detained by the wrong policeman might mean for a woman.

It’s a Saturday, so she can’t really distract herself with working from home. All the upheaval this week has robbed her of her ability to focus, anyway. Tasks that would usually take only an hour and a cup of tea seem to stretch on endlessly, and more often than not, she’s found herself scrolling through Instagram again, making sure that nothing has changed drastically since she last logged in. 

Isa raises her head from her hands. Her eyes skim the room, and the sunlight filtering in through the window picks up flecks of dust in the air and around the TV and the dining room table, colouring them golden. Maybe at least she can help smooth things over with Nick when he comes back by doing some of the chores and cooking some dinner for them to share. He’ll be starving and exhausted when he comes back – whenever that is. He didn’t say when today’s protest was scheduled to end it might well stretch out into the night. Out of habit, she checks her phone, but he hasn’t called or messaged or posted any footage from the protest.

Without Nick or any friends over, the flat is unusually quiet for a Saturday. Usually, the living room would be filled with the smell of a freshly brewed pot of coffee, a playlist ringing out over their speaker. Something with a good guitar line and a catchy melody for Nick to whistle along to as they read the news and plan out their day. They would call friends and go shopping for a bottle of wine and something to snack on if guests come over later. 

When she can’t take the quiet anymore, somewhere around the middle of her mug of coffee, she turns the radio on to the oldies station and lets Frank Sinatra fill the walls of the flat as she listlessly turns the pages of the newspaper. It seems wrong to not have anyone to comment on the news with; as her fingers brush the onion-thin paper, her eyes start to skip, first over a word or two, then a sentence, and finally whole paragraphs, until she forgets the headline of the article she’s supposed to be reading. She puts the paper down, still open.

Isa hoovers every room. Checks her phone. She opens the windows to air out the flat, checks her phone, and closes them. It has been two hours, according to the clock on the kitchen wall – how has it only been two? – and Nick still hasn’t written. She doesn’t exactly expect him to be texting her constant updates, but even when they’ve argued before they still checked on each other. 

The morning light has given way to a harsher noon sun. Isa supposes she could leave the apartment, go for a walk along the park and look out at the ocean. But what if Nick comes home and she’s not there? She wants to be there, to make up with him, to make sure they understand each other. Then again, there’s something about sitting at home and waiting for her boyfriend to come back to a fresh dinner that feels deeply, uncomfortably old-fashioned, especially since he owes her an apology. Screw it, he’s an adult. He’ll survive coming home to an empty flat. He can be the one to worry for once.

She triple-checks her phone battery and turns the notification volume all the way up. She can’t face listening to the news, so she doesn’t put her headphones on, listening to the occasional car rumble by, always keeping an ear out for a buzz or ring from her pocket. The pigeons that hang about the park look suspiciously at her feet as if she’s purposefully concealing bread from them. She’s been too preoccupied to remember to bring any with her. 

Usually, the grey expanse of the ocean stretching out in front of her at the bottom of the cliff would calm her. She tries to take deeper breaths, letting the briny air wash over her and settle into her lungs. It isn’t doing the trick, and once she’s stared at the choppy waves for so long that the sight has gone blurry, she turns on her heel, even more frustrated now. The “no notifications” screen on her phone seems more like a taunt. These days, no news is no longer good news. Nick’s failure to text is starting to make her more angry than worried.

Locking the door behind her, she settles into the kitchen chair. She’s not particularly hungry, but she knows she’ll regret not cooking later, once Nick is home safely. She takes out ingredients at random, laying them out on the table, until she decides to just stick some chicken and vegetables in the oven. If nothing else, smashing the potatoes will be cathartic. She turns the radio back on as she makes a second cup of coffee and warms up yesterday’s leftovers for lunch.

Just as she’s finally lost herself in the music, the chimes that signal the hourly news update on the radio interrupt her dancing. The words that follow bring her to a full halt. Reports of violence downtown…police helicopters spray tear gas on protesters. The radio keeps going, but she’s no longer listening. Her hand is still pressing the French press to the bottom and the radio is playing music again when she comes to. The sun has hidden behind a low cloud layer, turning the light in the kitchen grey.

She picks up her phone, knowing not to expect a message or call now, and she goes directly to Instagram. The sound of the stories immediately bounces off the kitchen walls. People scream on her screen, running away, trying to defuse the tear gas bombs thrown at them and shield themselves from the gas when they don’t defuse them in time. Some people are bleeding. It’s hell, and for all she knows, Nick is there. He’s first aid-trained, and he will stay as long as someone needs him. 

Isa finally puts down her phone, feeling that if she watches another story, knowing that Nick is potentially terribly injured or being arrested, she will start crying and not stop until someone comes for her. A part of her wishes she was out there. She will go tomorrow, if there’s another protest. She washes all the dishes, dries them, and checks her phone for messages or missed calls. Though she expects nothing by now, her stomach still twists at the empty screen. Turning the oven off – luckily, she didn’t miss the timer, and her chicken is spared from burning to a crisp – Isa clears the table and sets out cardboard and paint to make a new sign, pouring her anger and powerlessness into the paper. 

She’s never been a quick or particularly gifted painter, and the sign takes longer than she expected. The afternoon light grows dimmer, and she realises the sun is setting when she has to squint at the cardboard to make out the pencil lines for her next letter and a pang of hunger rumbles through her stomach. Though she can still feel the savoury, garlicky scent from the oven, eating dinner without Nick feels like admitting defeat. It’s almost a reflex when she picks up her phone, even though it would have rung, just in case. She wants to scream, and when she rolls her shoulders to go back to painting, she winces at the pain radiating from her muscles and neck. She no longer cares about Nick apologising, as long as he comes home. 

7:30 p.m. The radio says that the helicopters have gone and the protesters have mostly dispersed. A dull ache throbs behind Isa’s left eyebrow. Still, no texts, messages, or voicemail. Isa paints the last exclamation mark on her sign, the paint glimmering like oil on pavement. By now, the kitchen clock’s ticking has made a permanent home in her ears.

She grabs her biggest pot and spoon and stands at the window, ready for the 8:00 pot-banging. 

It strikes her, as the last of the metallic ringing fades from the street, that these minutes of protest with the block have been the first time all day when she hasn’t felt desperately alone. Tears well up again; she lets them fall freely this time, curled up on the living room floor, sporadically reaching for tissues from her bag to attempt to dry her soaked face. The only thing that stops her crying, her eyes stinging and her nose rough from blowing it, is the sudden peal of her phone on the kitchen table. 

She half-runs to it, answering the call before she registers that it’s her mother, not Nick. 

“Hi,” she croaks, her throat feeling like sandpaper.

“Isa, is this a bad time?” 

Isa wipes her nose on the back of her hand. Disgusting, but she left her tissues in the living room. 

“Sort of. I mean, I’m not busy, but I’m expecting a call from Nick.” She’s stammering a little, and she’s certain that her mother knows her well enough to recognise the signs that she’s been crying.

“Did he go protesting today?” Isa’s mother sounds worried, and though Isa knows she likes Nick, she takes comfort in knowing that her mother’s worry is more for her and her feelings than for Nick. If she wasn’t certain she’d cried out all of the water in her body by now, she would start crying again at this.

“He’s still out there, and I have no idea where he is or if he’s okay.”

“He’ll come home, honey. I’m sure he’s thinking of you.” Isa grows quiet. She can’t let go of the terms she and Nick parted on, even if she’s stopped needing an apology from him.

“We had a fight, mama. I told him not to go, and he went, and we didn’t even-” she can’t say it, but her mother waits on the other end, letting her take her time. “We didn’t even say goodbye,” Isa rasps, not sure if her mother has heard her. She leans on the table, unsure of her ability to hold herself up anymore. 

“He’ll come home. Do you hear me? He will, and he’ll be so glad to see you.”

“How do you know?”

“I’m your mother. I know.”

“Okay. Okay.” Isa pauses. She can’t think of anything to say, and she doesn’t want to talk about Nick, or protests, or the police. “How are you?”

“We’re all right. Don’t you worry about us.”

“What did you cook today?” 

This is routine, at last. Isa tries to take pleasure in the flavours she imagines as her mother describes the pasta she made for lunch and the soup they had tonight. By the time her mother hangs up, they’ve been talking for long enough that Isa feels that if she doesn’t eat she’ll faint. She microwaves her dinner, unable to muster up the energy to put Nick’s portion in the fridge, and chews it mechanically, staring at her phone the whole while. No notifications. 

She should go to bed, but she knows she won’t sleep. She turns on the television, purposefully skipping past the news channels, until she settles on sitcom re-runs which she can follow without paying attention, letting her eyes rest on the television without taking any of the images in. When she falls asleep on the sofa, her phone is still in her hand. 

She wonders if it’s the light of the television that has woken her up, or maybe the laugh track. Blinking sleepily, she sits up, trying to work out the crick in her neck. She tries to turn her phone on, but it’s finally run out of battery. As she gets up to plug it in, she hears it. 

The knocking on the door. 

She drops her phone, stumbling to the entrance of the apartment. She calls out as she leans towards the peephole.

“Nick?”