The Metaphysicist (Kill Your Darlings) | Featured

why all these damn dishes in the sink

Certainly kissing the most brilliant person I've ever met on the apex of the Ferris wheel is overcoming some sort of fear, and whether that's the fear of the ride or the fear of becoming intimate with him, I have no idea, but I at least know that it was truly magnificent, and I wish I could relive it, but unfortunately we're back in the apartment that looks even dingier now that we've returned from something so beautiful at the carnival from last night, and Lucien has already left for yet another boring day of work at the library, where he doesn't want to be but needs to be in order to sustain our residence at this house, however cluttered it may be.

His absence is a motive to think about him even more than usual, how the lights flickering in the background of the carnival also flickered in his ocean eyes, how having him here with me transformed the circus from something harrowing to something pleasurable, how he allowed me to overcome two fears of mine by replacing them with jovial memories of just him and his everlasting grace, and ever since then, I cannot remove him from my mind.

On the contrary, maybe the visit of someone else will occupy my thoughts instead of Lucien Carr. Edie had texted me earlier this morning to say that she would be dropping by the apartment to chat with me and catch up on all that we've been doing, which is a lot in my case and probably not much in hers, unless Jack has done something wild again that landed her in some sort of emergency that has now been subdued enough for her to be telling me about it on her visit. I have no desire to clean up the place, as I'm both lazy and unsure that it will stay in its state of cleanliness for very long, primarily when Lucien arrives at the house after a prolonged work period of cataloguing things uselessly at the Paterson library, and although Edie is a very tidy person who will probably straighten things up during her minor vacation here, I'm not going to assist her, as she'll clear enough things up in a matter of minutes while she pretends to be listening and not silently judging me for being so sordid.

So now we wait for Edie to knock on the door without daring to ever press the doorbell that she hates for some reason unknown to me, which is becoming increasingly strenuous when Lucien has warped me into a person of action who cannot wait for other people to propel their lives forward, more so than I was before, so it's a blessing when I detect the rumbling noise of a fist upon the wooden aperture, signaling my motherly friend's arrival.

Leaping from the chair in which I always sit since moving into the apartment, I make my way downstairs towards the door, then swinging it open widely to reveal the smiling face of Edie Parker, a wicker basket of fruit under a red checkered cloth and a bottle of sparkling lemonade in her hands, which she extends to me with the faith that I'll be able to recognize what to do with them, but I soon understand faster than I would've thought, and I accept them and carry them upstairs as she follows me.

"Sorry about the mess," I apologize, though I'm not really going to do anything about it, but there's no doubt that she will.

"Oh, it's fine," Edie assures me, glancing all around the haggard apartment and trying to hide her disgust with my living style, even if most of this was imposed by Lucien, who is at the library right now and can't absorb the blame, but being the kind person that she is, she redirects the blame to herself. "I suppose it was a bit of a short notice."

I realize that her permission to be so sloppy is born out of fallacy to fabricate the politeness that she claims we all need in our lives, and I'm not going to argue it, but even if she gave me a week heads up about her visit, I still wouldn't clean up, though I don't tell her that, because she'd either apologize again for no logical reason besides civil obedience, or she would be internally annoyed that I must contradict everything with my socially inept behavior, but that's just how I am, and he is aware of that, but she's nevertheless critical of it, as if I can help being so fucking weird.