nanowrimo 9

Chapter 4

            Froid sat up as soon as she heard Luke lock the door. She stood at the window, waiting for him and Callahan to walk out of the entrance and down the street. She did not know where they were going, or when they were coming back, but she knew she was meeting Samuel.

            Tap, tap-tap-tap. “First, go to sleep.” This was one of their stock messages. It was the one Samuel used the most with her, even though neither of them were ever inclined to sleep. They stretched the semantics of each word to such lengths that anything could symbolize “first,” “go,” or “sleep.”

            She assumed that the first meant “First Street.” She walked over to the street and saw a Bath and Body Works on the corner. She entered it and made her way to the aromatherapy section.

            Samuel was there, smelling one of the lotions that was advertised to calm the mind. He sniffed it, not expecting anything. He looked up to see Froid.

            The two of them stood and said nothing for a while, but Samuel patted his hands together, distributing the scent, and walked out of the store again. Froid followed him. He led her to a teahouse and they went inside and sat at a table in the back. Samuel ordered a pot of a chamomile herbal blend. Froid looked at her watch, wondering when Luke and Callahan would return.

            Samuel covered her watch with his hand.

            “You know what he is.”

            Froid was confused. She showed it on her face.

            “I…. don’t understand.”

            Samuel lifted up a pamphlet he got from the art gallery and stared at the picture. He forced himself to smile, and almost moved himself to tears.

            The vision was transmitted to Luke, who was sitting with Callahan over a bowl of limoncello gelato. He smiled at Samuel’s point of view. Callahan caught the smile but said nothing of it.

            Samuel stopped smiling and set down the pamphlet.

            “As I suspected,” he muttered.

            “What?”

            “First person narration. Omniscience, omnipotence.”

            “Luke?”

            “Yes. I have found his limits though. He cannot manipulate without emotion.”

            “Only humans?”

            Samuel cringed at the adverb but continued. “No, he can do the same to cognizant animals.”

            “How do you know this? I mean, your brother is manipulative but how could he…”

            “He thinks himself God. And he is not.”

            “But just because he thinks he’s God doesn’t mean-”

            “He is the narrator though. He can think and write and do whatever he wants.”

            “The… narrator?”

            “He knew you had come to see me.”

            Froid nodded.

            “He knew when you would arrive in Seattle.”

            She nodded again.

            “After you met me, you have noticed a change in his behavior.”

            She stopped nodding. It was tiring.

            “He brought Callahan here as soon as we met.”

            “But how do you know all of this?”

            “Because I know his presence. And when I wept in front of you the other day I felt him.”

            “And it wasn’t you just feeling…”

            “I never have felt him in my mind like that.”

            Froid still needed convincing.

            “I’m afraid that I still don’t believe you. Why would you tell me this?”

            “Why would I tell you this?”

            It was then that Froid realized that Samuel had no incentive to lie to her. He had no incentive to tell the truth either, but if the issue concerned him as well he would not harm himself just so he could validate a lie.

            Froid folded her hands in her lap.

            “You already knew that he could get in your head,” Samuel said.

            Froid nodded. That was why she had broadcast her nightmares in her thoughts when she had run away. Luke had been too sensitive to them. He thought he had appeared soothing. He had aroused suspicion in the back of Froid’s mind.

            Samuel stroked his ring finger across the table. The smooth surfaced seemed to ripple under his touch.

            “Do you have a plan?” Froid asked.

            Samuel nodded.

            “Can you tell me it?”

            “Not yet. I have something for you.”

            He reached into his pocket and pulled out the letter to her, folded in quarters, and unraveled it. He showed it to her for a moment before crumbling it back in his pocket. It was too quick for her to read any of it.

            “This is a letter I wrote to you. My brother thinks you have read it and destroyed it. He knows what it says. You do not.”

            “What was the point of that?”

            “Say when you get home you saw me and I gave you the letter. He will comfort you right away. It will be suspicious.”

            Froid nodded. Samuel was giving her definitive proof.

            “You’re only helping me because this affects you, right?”

            Samuel did not respond. He did not hear Froid. He was thinking of how they met.

            The reception was mandatory for Samuel to attend. It was the publication of the first volume of y(not)ou, and while he had not partaken in any of the process, he was the poet. Quentin the publisher had to push him out of his apartment and to the Murkvein English Department. The professors relished in the early critical acclaim the work had produced, and Samuel had already been nominated for three young poet awards. He would go on to win all of them.

            A photographer made his away around the room, capturing jovial scenes of professors gushing over Brie and champagne; students exalting the opening poem, “man.I.a.trieval;” and even furtive outlines of Samuel walking around in an attempt to have the trailing Quentin the publisher lose sight of him. He led Quentin the publisher around the chair of the department, the chair of the publication company, a wall of velvet-lined chairs filled with poets from the area. Quentin would eventually succumb to his own idea of prestige and leave Samuel on his own.   

            Schmoozing bogged down Quentin the publisher with immediate effect. Samuel walked towards the exit.

            She was wearing blue. Her blonde hair lay unadorned on her shoulders. The world was in her green eyes.

            She approached Samuel. Samuel walked in the other direction.

            “I hate these sort of things,” she said.

            Samuel turned around. Her look dissociated herself from her speech. She wanted to be here. Samuel kept walking as if he hadn’t heard her.

            When he left the room he looked back. She was standing right behind him.

            “I’ll occupy Quentin the publisher,” she said. “You owe him nothing. You shouldn’t have even come.”

            Samuel hurried his pace. She did not cross his mind for the rest of the night.

            “Samuel, I should get going,” Froid said, standing up from the table. “I don’t want Luke to go out and start looking for me.

            “You owe him nothing. You should not have even come.”

            Any other would be offended at these words with no context. But Froid remembered them well. She smiled with ease.

            “I hate these sort of things,” she echoed as she left the store.

            As she walked home she remembered the day Samuel started as the TA in her writing class. She hugged her arms, remembering the poem she had written then.

           

           

Chapter 5

            Callahan is about as engrossing as a dead frog.

            We keep restarting the conversation with each other over our cups of gelato. I ordered limoncello, Callahan ordered something he couldn’t pronounce, though I could. “Formaggio di Capra.” I know he did it to impress me, but all he’s doing is wasting my money because he’s discovered the hard way that he does not like goat cheese. He keeps trying to eat it, but I know eventually the overwhelming urge to give him diarrhea will be too much. I decide to wait until after he says something interesting.

            That time doesn’t come, though. We talk about his creative process in writing. His creative process is so mundane it’s not even creative. No wonder his poetry is so awful. He plans them out in a literal brainstorm, strings some phrases he likes together, and calls it a poem. I try to be supportive. All I do is give him the overwhelming urge to use the bathroom.

            His face turns red and he breaks into a sweat as he excuses himself. He rushes out without looking back at me, and I look outside at the people. One of them looks familiar and I rush outside.

            “What are you doing outside, Ambrosia?” I ask, tugging her into the gelato shop.

            Her eyes are wide, her walking truncated by a shock that I didn’t know about.

            “A letter,” she releases from her mouth.

            I have her sit down at our table and put my jacket around her. She engulfs herself in it and all I can see is her face. Callahan is still in the bathroom. I put my arms around her.

            “A letter, you say?” I remember what I saw in Samuel’s mind.

            She nods from underneath my coat, flopping the sleeves with hands like broken wings.

            I can’t see what she’s thinking, but it’s reflected clearly on her face.

            “He’s leaving for Murkvein tonight, isn’t he?”

            She nods.

            “He told you he’s not going to see you again.”

            She nods again.

            “He says it’s for the best.”

            She nods one final time.

            I smile encouragingly. “You can be free of him now. You can be Ambrosia, do what you want, be happy, sleep, laugh, love.”

            She stares at me. I can’t read her eyes. They’re empty.

            Callahan returns from the bathroom and looks at Froid.

            “When did you get here?” he asks.

            “Like ten minutes ago,” I reply for her. He’s embarrassed for being gone so long.

             Froid covers her face with my jacket. It looks like I’m hugging a leather rock. In terms of showing emotion, I might as well be.

            The three of us walk back to the apartment together, saying nothing. I have to drag Froid along by the sleeves of my jacket. Callahan keeps trying to talk but I hold his tongue. I don't want to hear him talk anymore. I want him to go away, but he has nowhere to go. I indignantly have him sleep on my couch, though I offer him to put him in a hotel. He refuses. He wants to be by Froid, no matter how hopeless that may be. Either way would be fine with me. If he’s at my apartment I can have him watch Froid at all times without any oddity. If he’s at a hotel I’m free from his insatiable awkwardness.

            Callahan thanks me excessively for my hospitality, and I’m a mind slip away for thanking him for having such a hospitable mind.

            With Callahan around I decide that I can forgo superstition; I have the luxury not to with my hidden asset. I pick Froid’s demolished phone off of the tile, sweeping it away into the trash. Callahan will always be around her, and therefore I will. She won’t need a phone. That phone was only a symbol of my protection anyway. Callahan is a much subtler and maybe even appealing token.

            When I decide to go to sleep I see that Froid is still awake. She stares at the ceiling. I thought she would have gone right to sleep, but her fear of Samuel has superseded any necessity of sleeping. She hardly moves when I plop into bed. She just keeps looking up.

            “Ambrosia,” I murmur to her. “Try to get some sleep. You’ve had a long day.”

            She doesn’t respond, doesn’t acknowledge in any way.

            “Froid.” I call her in a different way.

            “I am,” she says, clutching the covers in her fingers.

            “But you don’t have to be. You can be Ambrosia.”

            She shakes her head. “I am Froid. It is inherent. I’m nothing like Ambrosia.”

            “Ambrosia Froid.”

            She tenses now, her teeth chattering. She’s dreaming with her eyes open.            

            “Is this a nightmare to you?” I ask.

            Now she turns and looks at me. “Who is it you think I’m afraid of?”