The Metaphysicist (Kill Your Darlings) | Featured

I wake up at 4:30 to suffer

Lucien is awake when I return from the sea of sleep, the sailboat having docked with a crash and jolted me back to life to glimpse the sunny aspects of the apartment, like the curtains wobbling in the incoming wind, like the slight clawing of tree branches at the frame of the building in places that I cannot detect them, like the morning sunlight rolling in from the street outside and illuminating my companion's entire body, golden threads upon his scalp and all, and it is in this light that I notice the contraption held in Lucien's lap as he types away at it furiously, focused solely on his work.

The clicks of his typewriter set the mood for my thoughts, a rhythm to follow while I ponder what he could be writing and why he won't ever show it to me when I would show my writing to him, especially after he said that I was the only one worthy enough to read his work after years of locking it up for the relieving bliss of privacy, though if he were to show me his writing now, the ties of ethereal beauty in this position would be snapped, the ties of gold upon his head as it's accentuated by the sunlight spilling inside of the apartment and onto the hardwood panels from the window, the ties of blackening anchor line upon the border of his ocean eyes, the ties of his white t-shirt bobbing up and down steadily with his breathing, the ties of his fingers guiding the poetry of his mental furnace, the poetry that has entranced me many times before.

I don't wish to disturb him, as he's heavily concentrated on whatever it is that he's writing, and I really don't even know the general gist of what it is, because he's never elucidated what kind of author he is, so that's probably the only reason why I would bother him, but that can wait, for he is truly spectacular in this moment.

My companion doesn't acknowledge me from his work at the typewriter — I don't think he even saw me, either — but that's okay. He's too beautiful to be dulled by the acceptance of my dreary presence beside him, with his face bonded by the glue of diligence and deep rooted passion for his draft. It's alluring to witness Lucien in this state of deliberation, when he's only seen me write and I haven't seen him write, when I'm snagging that opportunity now, and I must admit that it's a wondrous experience.

Lucien cocks back the bar on the typewriter to begin a new line of new words and new ideas and new ways to think about things, and he's instantaneously at the heels of the page with a menacing fire spitting from his extremities. He's on a roll, gushing with sentences and paragraphs and pages of brilliance, of metaphysics, of the candid misery of the soul. The trudging of the inky vestibule upon smoothened parchment is what captures me, how it resembles the trotting of a horse laden with the drug of freedom, how Lucien is so engrossed in it, how adorable he is when he's excited about an activity.

But anyone must agree that a typewriter is too archaic for a man who claims that life is always carrying on, so to use contraptions from so far in the past would be like a crime to him. Yes, he is fascinated by everything in the world, which sometimes includes previous versions of everything in the world, but the typewriter is an object that would immediately repel Lucien if he were to stick to his logic. Lucien says that the old maxims of writing are complete and utter bullshit, which I can't disprove and wouldn't wish to disprove anyway, but a typewriter is where the old maxims of writing occurred, where they were perpetuated so that they linger even today. Is this merely satire, has he forgotten, or does he not give a fuck? I intend to find out.

I rise from the bed on my elbow for support, tilted still on my side, because there's no way in hell I'm departing this mattress when I can barely feel secure after lugging Lucien out of the bathroom stall last night by exasperating him enough, which was much easier than I ever would've predicted, and now that same boy is confusing me immensely with his odd machine, telekinetically roping my brows together in an expression of bewilderment. "Why the fuck are you using a typewriter?"

The corner of Lucien's mouth quirks upward, as if he was praying that I would ask that exact question, just so he can display more accounts of his pretentiousness, and his head swivels towards me with his answer. "I use a typewriter to bring me back to the time when we weren't polluted by the media, when we weren't scared of the emotions our words could evoke."

It's obvious that he abhors the world and all of the disastrous repercussions from the faulty laws it imposes tacitly yet faulty laws that stick with everyone no matter what, as if these laws are an obligatory download to the brain, but this world has existed forever. This isn't a fresh phenomenon sparked only in the twenty-first century. We've always been in hell, and we've always been polluted by the media, and we've always been scared of emotions, scared of being imprisoned for the demagogues of our words, and a typewriter won't fix that.

But like I've gathered many times before, Lucien is obstinate enough to reject that idea if it doesn't suit his ambitions, simultaneously fabricating a philosophical backstory for his decision to walk the road of foolishness, and this is no exception. I am more aware of Lucien's personality than he thinks I am, but he is blinded by his arrogance, and it's my duty to poke the necessary holes in his plan.

I play ignorant so as to spare Lucien's ego, opting for another reason why this archaic contraption is illogical. "Isn't a typewriter tedious, though?"

"Anyone can use it if it's worth something. I find that we writers enjoy utilizing the typewriter so often because each click and flare of ink upon the paper provides us with a sense that our brains are still functional, but what about me?" Lucien stares at me desperately as if I have an answer for him, but I don't, so he elaborates. "I continue to tap away at the typewriter, yet I have no idea where my mind has gone. Are my words simply ghosts devoid of the substance to inspire?"

Is my companion so spontaneous because he doesn't know anything else? Is he incapable of remembering new ideas, a child of anterograde amnesia? How hollow is he inside? How prolonged of a period did he steal to construct a veneer for himself to hide that notion? I don't care if he's hollow, because I could lift him from that somehow. I could find a way, and reminding him that he's important to me is the first step.

"You inspire me every day, Lucien," I soothe him with a linguistic awakening, angling my head as though I'm just now realizing something tragic, which I suppose isn't so far off. "Don't you know that?"

Surely through his vanity he would recognize that he's worth something other than his metaphysical flow, but that is somehow not the case. He's more melancholy than extroverts in the winter, more solitary than introverts in the summer, more glum than I ever would've thought someone like him could be, and I'm just so fucking exasperated and hopeless, because I have no clue why this is transpiring.

"No, I don't, because once I was lonely, Allen, and then all of the sudden depression came along and told me that I could have friends if I simply slipped a gag over my mouth, and what kind of person who has been lost in the sea of their own mind would pass that up? A fool, Allen, and I hate being a fool, so I accepted those terms, placed the gag far enough down my throat that I could feel my insides thrashing, and soon found that the only friend I had received was depression, but it wasn't even a friend, rather a dictator who continues to reelect itself without opposition, because I accepted those terms, Ginsy, and I can't do a single thing about altering them, and if I'm so inspirational to impressionable people like you, then that's fucking terrifying, because I don't know if what I've become will help you or leave you broken, and I don't want to take any chances, especially with you. It's not good to be like me, Ginsy."

I'm silent, not because I don't have anything to say, just because I don't want to say anything that will wreck the foundation we've spent arduous time building throughout the span that we've known each other, which is barely a week yet a week furnished by expansiveness, and that's already decrepit enough, so there's no use in saying anything at all, because each vibration from my voice shakes the scaffolding until it crumbles completely.

Lucien turns to me, finally broaching one topic at least in order to stray from the other, though it's oblique and irrelevant to our prior subject of discussion. "We're going to the carnival tonight, yeah? I need to repent or something."  

~~~~~

A/N: carnivals are lit but lucien's sadness is not

pacifism: an opposition to violence

~Dakotell-my-child-lucien-i'm-sorry