Idiopathy

injured finger, always wondering how far it had really healed, for how long the wound might reasonably be expected to hold, yet also marvelling at how real and fragile every touch now was.
    He was zoning in and out because sometimes he had to check in with himself to see how things were going. He kept palpating his own more sensitive areas, testing for pain. In the time he’d been absent Daniel had begun rolling a joint using Nathan’s tobacco and papers, and Katherine had obviously asked about Daniel’s job because Daniel was now explaining it in a way that suggested he was proud of it yet also used to defending it.
    ‘But what are they researching?’ Katherine was saying. ‘I mean, what do they do?’
    ‘Sustainable food sources, essentially,’ said Daniel, gumming together several Rizlas in a way that reminded Nathan of his father trying to undo his jacket: a man embarrassingly outdone by seemingly basic forces. Briefly, Nathan felt a flare-up of shame at exactly how much of an idiot he wanted Daniel to look.
    ‘Meaning what?’
    Sometimes, and this was one of those times, Katherine looked Nathan’s way when addressing a question or a statement to Daniel, giving a sense of complicity that, like much of what Katherine did, thrilled and discomfited in equal measure.
    ‘Meaning exactly what it says,’ Daniel was saying, mashing the papers together with the edge of his fist, then peeling them gently away from the table, to which they had adhered, and finding that, in all their enthusiasm for the surface of the table, they had in fact failed to adhere to each other. ‘Food that’s sustainable. What papers are these, Nathan?’
    ‘As in what?’ said Katherine.
    ‘Rizla,’ said Nathan, hurriedly and clumsily unpeeling his gaze from the side of Katherine’s face.
    ‘As in it won’t run out,’ said Daniel, appearing not to notice. ‘Must be a bad batch.’
    ‘How can food run out?’ said Katherine.
    ‘Well, by us over-eating and over-farming and over-fishing and blah blah blah.’
    ‘Right,’ said Katherine. ‘And?’
    ‘And? What do you mean
and
?’
    ‘I mean and
what
. So what? One day all our food will run out and we’ll … I don’t know, eat something else, no? I mean, won’t we all be living on some sort of powdered food by then anyway? Or, like, capsules of calories or vitamin injections or apples that fucking self-replicate in the fruit bowl?’
    ‘Well, not really, no,’ said Daniel, who had succeeded in joining the rolling papers through sheer force of saliva alone and was now breaking off bits of grass and dropping the crumbs into the crease, an operation somewhat hampered by the stickiness of his fingers. ‘The point is …’
    ‘Do you want me to …?’ said Nathan, pointing towards the mess Daniel was making on the table, his delight in Daniel’s inability to perform the task no doubt both obvious and excessive.
    ‘So everyone would
starve?
Is that what you’re saying?’ said Katherine.
    ‘Er, well, worst-case scenario, yes. But it’s also about developing food sources and farming techniques that don’t harm the ecosystem, and about creating crops that can withstand a period of drought and … You know, etcetera etcetera.’ Daniel pushed his efforts at construction along the table towards Nathan. ‘Lifesaver. No idea what’s up with those papers.’
    Katherine nodded, apparently thinking this over. ‘It’s just all so far off,’ she said. ‘I mean, I
want
to care. I really do, but …’
    She looked away, shrugged slightly.
    ‘But what?’ said Daniel.
    Katherine shot Nathan another look which was difficult to decode. Nathan stole a glance at his own fingers as they began rolling a ruinously strong joint, marvelling at his own capacity for guiltlessness.
    ‘I don’t know,’ said Katherine. ‘Forget it.’
    ‘No,’ said Daniel. ‘What stops you?’
    Neither of them was looking at Nathan at this point, although Nathan, out of a combination of politeness and discomfort, was looking at them. He’d also finished rolling the joint, which Daniel took back and lit.
    ‘I stop me,’ said Katherine. She shook her head. ‘How did we get on to this? It’s totally tedious.’
    ‘Well sorry if my job
bores
you, Katherine.’ Daniel hauled deeply on the joint. ‘I … Oh fuck.’
    He paused for a moment to cough. Nathan took a deep breath and didn’t smile, then shaped his face into exactly the simulation of concern he’d seen, he now realised, so many