I Replied

His words fell clumsily through his fingers. He, as though meaning to know their whereabouts, looked up. The words must be found, for it is the occasion. Here, like so many other nights it seemed, was the time to put them to good use:

“I’m ready” he laughed.

“For what?” she said mundanely, as though not already aware.

“I don’t know... I...”

“You don’t?”

She did, or at least somewhat did at this point. He however, did not. And he who thinks to know does not.

“...a..and he who thin...”

“Stop.” She said sharply, glaring holes through the wall that lay in front of them.

“What?” He exclaimed.

“You hear it too don’t you? Please tell me you do.” She shifted her gaze toward him. “You were just repeating it.”

“Hear wha...”

“You know exactly what I’m talking about!”

He recoiled further back than he realized. Staring back at her, he noticed that she looked more alone then she did before. He reestablished his space beside her. She seemed restless now, frantic even, and still alone. Her troubles, he could not know, for it was far out of his grasp to perceive. He stared puzzled at her. She met his stare for brief, but meaningless moments as she twitched back and fourth in between thoughts, until finally greeting it.

“Hello!” She shouted.

She received no reply. Yet, for some odd reason it roused a curious feeling in him that he should do the same.

“Hello!” He shouted back at her.

He too, received no reply. Now more alone than ever, her disposition deepened as she realized for certain that the eyes that looked back at her own did not share the same plight. If now was not the ti...

“You want an excuse to use the word anodyne! And the last thing that will be said is ‘I replied’ isn’t it? I hear that too. I hear it all just as much as you do!”

She was looking directly at the wall now. He was confused, as well he should be, for he did not hear the mindless cacophony she did. Yet, his respect for her did not fade. Staring back at her, anodyne and warm.

“You look nice.” he said meekly.

Her eyes did not move from their fixed position on the wall.

“Please?” She murmured through fresh tears.

She was well aware that her situation was worthy of pity. He, being aware of it now, and for all the wrong reasons, attempted to comfort her. With one cruel look at him his advances cease.

“I am looking at you, not him! You’ve drawn this out too long, don’t you think? If the point isn’t clear by now what is it! You’re struggling between using past and present tense, just get this over with! Make it stop!”

He looked at her more perplexed than ever. Without averting her gaze she looked back at him. There was a piercing fear in her eyes like he had never seen before, or ever will. He felt a sharp ridged pain in his neck. In his view, she fell out of focus as he raised his blood soaked hands to the foreground. Dumbfounded in his final moments, he thought of nothing except the faint and uncomfortable feeling of blood on his numb fingers and the strange and unfamiliar feeling of his throat where she lodged the knife into his flesh. He was bereaved for one final instance before he collapsed at the withdrawal of the blade.

“There’s nothing between us now” she cried.

She knew full well she did nothing wrong, yet felt it all anyways. She felt it like the fresh wet blood on her hands, or the person, now corpse, that lie beside her. She felt it like the barrier that she thought she had lifted.

“Why!” She cried “was this really necessary? You’ve made me more and more omniscient in your dull witted, pretentious story, for what? Would it even make sense at all if I didn’t use the phrase ‘fourth wall’? You didn’t make your point, you don’t possess the words to make your point. Or maybe you don’t possess the thought to even have a point! Speak! To me, not through me. To me!”

She collapsed in anguish, the black viscous blood of he who previously stood beside her, now deflated by her, absorbed her tears as both fluids coagulated on the floor between them. “I should kill myself right now” she thought. She did not want to, not yet. She thought for a moment, then rose unsteadily to her feet.

“You‘re a genius. You are excellent. You are everything perfect. I mean that. Really I do, I mean... I love you.”

She uttered the words with equal parts hate and disgust, though there was no way to discern for certain. By the way she said it, those remarks could have easily been mistaken for equal parts cream and sugar. Cream and sugar it was not, and upon remarking her seemingly profound statement she regaled,

“You can frame me as you like, but you can’t use me to cover up your mistakes anymore. I’ll lavish you with praise for pages if it pleases you, though I know that it doesn’t. You shift uncomfortably in your seat at the mere thought of wasting more words praising yourself. It isn’t even for humility’s sake either. It couldn’t be. One can’t humble themself, by themself. You don’t want them reading this to think you’ve wasted their time celebrating yourself, but that’s all this ever was.”

The silence between the two was palpable, or at least the words to express it were. She looked at the corpse, growing colder and more lifeless than before. She too, felt cold and lifeless. She felt the indignity that she will have earned pity in the mind of another while forever existing in a mind that warrants no such thing. “I could kill myself right now” she thought. She did not want to. She felt a void in her stomach, holes in her heart, and black in her lungs. She was a reflection of her maker in this moment, a mirror of her conjurer. Hate is what she felt first, then disgust, then sorrow, then nothing.

“Did I kill him? Or was it you? I don’t think I know.” She didn’t.

“Does it matter?” It didn’t.

“Was there a purpose in all this?”

Perhaps at some point in time there was. But now, it was uncertain.

“Hello.” She said.

“Hello.” I replied.