The Metaphysicist (Kill Your Darlings) | Featured

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Electing to ignore our minor debate from earlier this morning, Lucien has decided to take me out for dinner as a celebration of our apparent success, though this success is a normal thing for me, but I'm glad that Lucien is so excited about something that isn't even his, because that means less work for me if he chooses to contribute something to my articles or blog.

I'm not saying that I don't appreciate the gesture, just that I don't understand why Lucien is enacting it, because I wrote an article like I do often, yet Lucien is as elated about it as I was when I received my first comment about eleven months ago. Since it's close to the year anniversary of my blog's existence, he should be taking me out for dinner then, not when he's finally learned about my blog and is avid about it for some strange reason. I would be more ecstatic about the dinner date if it were for my blog's year anniversary, not some mundane event that transpires almost every day.

Yes, I'll admit that my most recent article was one that could spark some riots amongst the heavily conservative readers, causing me to lose followers if it was too inflammatory (which it may have been, but that was exactly my goal, so I would be proud if that were the case, and so would Lucien), but those conservative readers don't mean shit to me, because they're actually snagging the easy end of the deal with their ability to leave this fucking cesspool and move on with their bigoted lives, and because of that, this article still isn't worthy of a celebration such as this one.

But I'll of course pretend to be fervid about this idea, because Lucien is usually a very spirited man who never schedules anything for the people he hangs around, especially the people he hangs around, because like any friend from middle school, he'll call them a piece of shit and undeserving of being in his line of sight, which may or may not be a joke, and to reserve a spot at a restaurant, a fancy one as well, is unprecedented and, I'll confess, quite honorable. To even observe Lucien is a treat, but spending a night with him at a dinner that he planned is an amazing thing to caress my fluttering ego.

This is when the nervousness rolls in like one of the many storms of the Dust Bowl, blanketing my perception in the black particles of dust whose only ambition is to kill me, to suffocate me by infesting my throat and pushing and contracting like an accordion with my teeth as the corporal keys. I shouldn't be scared of doing something as elementary as eating dinner with one of my closest friends who will not judge me no matter what wild thing I force myself into, as he'll just shrug and claim that it's the natural order of life and that writers thrive when they are erratic and misinterpreted, so at least he won't give a shit, but that was only about twenty five percent of the problem, as Lucien has taught me that I should value myself more than I value others, so the majority of seventy five percent is erupting in disarray with no aim to seek help from a man who will only belittle my terror for a display of art.

However, there's something peculiar about the expressions Lucien blindfolds me with so that I see only his veneer that calms me down like no one else can, and though I have not told him of my anxiety, he somehow knows through the inferences of his knack for psychology, and he offers a reassuring pat on the back before we step into the restaurant.

A hostess greets us at the front of the facility, lids licked by precise wings of ebony and lips shining with a popping crimson which is severed by her pearly smile. She leads us to a table after Lucien reviews the information for his reservation that he apparently scheduled an hour after we argued about the success of my blog (a pretty stupid topic about which to argue, if you ask me), and she places us at the back of the room, a booth private enough for the cozy preferences of both of us.

Lucien is almost as frightened as I am, like the common jitters of a teenage boy at the home of his prom date as he silently endeavors to survive the tacit wrath of the girl's vindictive parents who purposely placed the uber American shotgun in close proximity to the boy while they're waiting for the girl to prepare herself for the dance. This is so different from the courageous Lucien I know, but I'm not happy that he's finally experiencing the hell that is nervousness, rather impressed that he admires this wreck of a writer enough to be nervous about eating dinner with me, but as I say, a writer is only an unbloomed organism groping the air for security as they burn in the underworld they elected to see with the artistic lens they've invented to document this pit, and if you're ignorant about the world after residing in hell for as long as you can remember, then you're not so handy in the reality of other humans, but Lucien escaped that hell a while ago and is only reaching back down briefly for some tendrils of steamy inspiration, so he's had lots of time to adapt to the world, which means that there's barely a reason for his apprehension. I'm just a fucking hermit, after all. There's nothing intimidating about me from what I can decipher.