Nanowrimo 15

Chapter 12

            Callahan wasted no time getting into the Starbucks once he made and lost eye contact with Luke. He texted Samuel and Froid as he approached it.

            “Hospital Starbucks. Now.”

Lucky for him, Luke was writing Callahan’s death and was too preoccupied in the dialogue and execution to notice him coming in. As Callahan tiptoed around him he breathed a sigh of relief and waited in line. He looked at the enormous notebook and got a venti coffee of the day before walking over to Luke.

“Fancy seeing you here,” he said, hovering his coffee hand over the notebook.

Luke smiled at him. “I thought you didn’t drink coffee,” he said, gesturing to the cup.

“I don't.”

Callahan dropped the cup onto Luke’s notebook.

The black coffee did what it was intended to do. Before long it saturated all the pages with its entropic heat. It dissolved the ink and made the paper brittle. In a matter of seconds the papers were engorged with coffee and the entire book was so brittle that when trying to pick it up it shredded itself like steamed bok choy.

Luke jumped back, frightened, scalded, and furious. Many of the surrounding patrons also stood up in confusion, wondering why a college student would pour coffee all over an adult’s notebook.

“You,” Luke snarled through his teeth.

            Callahan smiled at Luke the way Luke had smiled at him. It was all over. Luke was powerless.

            “Can’t do much now, can you?” taunted Callahan. “Now you know how it feels to be just like everyone else: just in control of yourself, and not even then. Doing things and you don’t know why. Getting screwed over by other people. Being the one manipulated. It’s all part of being a subject, isn’t it?”

            Luke lunged for Callahan, but not before Samuel and Froid came into the Starbucks. Samuel peeled Luke off of Callahan on the floor. The employees and patrons of Starbucks were in a panic trying to figure out who they should help and what they should do.

            “You flatter my physique, Athlete,” said Samuel as he helped Callahan off the floor. Froid brushed off some of the dust from his shoulders.

            “What's the meaning of this?!” cried Luke. “You two should be at the hospital!”

            “Why?” asked Froid.

            “Because you,” he said, pointing at her, “were just there! Both of you! You have been!”

            Samuel laughed. None of them had heard him laugh before. It was creepy. It was a sound that could never be heard again.

            “What is this?” Luke screeched again, as an employee escorted the four of them outside.

            “Please leave the premises. I don’t want to call the police,” she said.

            The four of them walked on the sidewalk surrounding Luke. Luke glared at all of them in a cycle: first Froid for betraying him, Samuel for always hating him, and Callahan for just existing. As they walked they took turns explaining.

            “You know you’re just a character now,” said Froid.

            “And not just any character,” began Callahan. “We’re the protagonists. And you’re against us.”

            “The antagonist,” Froid said with a reproachful glimmer in her eyes. It was the same that Luke had written into his scene of Callahan’s murder.

            “You may fool many, brother,” said Samuel, “But I know what you are to your marrow.”

            As they talked around him, Luke began to panic. When they stopped at the crosswalk, Luke made a run for it and jumped onto the street.

            The oncoming traffic was thick and quick. Luke stood there with his eyes closed and arms stretched, waiting for the moment to happen.

            It never came though. The cars averted him like he was a post in the middle of the street. They swerved to avoid him. They did not even honk. It was as if he was not there. As Luke stood there in shocked disappointment, Samuel held him as the group re-encircled him and walked on their way.

            “Suicide,” mused Samuel. “A final act of free will for a character scavenging the remains of his. We prepared for that. I know what you are. You cling to your power. You will cling to it at any price.”

            Luke was still bewildered. He could not understand how he went from being the narrator to a supporting character, and an antagonistic one at that.

            “Froid!” he cried. “Enlighten me. I trust you.”

            Froid knew he was lying. “No you don’t. But Callahan doesn’t quite know either, so I’ll explain.”           

            One evening when Froid could not sleep she dug through Luke’s things, suspicious at how much attention he was giving her. In his briefcase well-concealed in a hidden compartment, Froid found a notebook. The notebook was an accurate transcription of the entire events that had taken place up to that point all the way back to her departure from Murkvein. It did not take long for Froid to realize what this was, and to conceal her discovery she ran away from the apartment, playing her nightmares in her head to make sure Luke could not find her nor could know what she found.

             Whenever Luke was asleep at night Froid transcribed the narrative in her own secret journal that she had brought for emergency writing. It was so secret that Luke had never seen it, and he never saw her write since she came to Seattle. Before long she had finished the entire narrative up to the point when she had met Samuel and devised their plan.

            At the bridge, before they parted, Froid had placed it in her near-empty book bag. It was empty, except for the journal. Samuel took it back to the hotel and spliced it with their own narrative.

            Luke was shaking as Froid finished her narrative of the narrative.

            “Don’t worry, Luke. Your narrative for the most part has survived. It’s just in my handwriting and in our care. We won’t tinker with it too much.”

            “Well, except for the whole part about you being in this story,” said Callahan.

            They arrived back at Samuel’s hotel room with Luke, restrained by Samuel and Callahan. Froid read out loud the first part of the story that Luke had ever written:

“It was late afternoon by the time Ambrosia Froid finally looked out the window of the bus… I couldn’t understand why she was so keen on staring at the carpeted seat in front of her. I told her that she should look out, acknowledge the voyage, savor the commute. But she wouldn’t. I implored her to at least admire the skeletal trees basking in the stingy clarity of the mid autumn sunshine. It was jarring but completely objective. This is what autumn really looks like. She should take lessons from it.

“You know, this entire passage can make do without you, can’t it?” she said as she revised. As she rewrote the passage, with all mentions of Luke gone, Luke began to disappear.

For the next several hours, Froid took the painstaking task of rewriting the entire narrative without any mention of Luke. As she did he began to fade and weaken, which was a relief to Samuel and Callahan, who began to tire of his intermittent wriggling.

At last the story was rendered thus: Froid on an impulse came to Seattle to avoid seeing her parents. Samuel came for the poetry reading in the hopes of seeing her. Callahan, concerned about her, enlisted the help of the other Froids but found their response lacking and spent his entire savings getting himself there. Froid and Samuel reconciled, and while Callahan was bumbling and got in the way, his good intentions were enough to get him an amiable acquaintance with both.

Luke was a useless character after all.

“Shame that you were in the company of minimalists,” Froid said as Luke disappeared forever. “But we can’t have superfluity. It’s against our morals.”

This was how the narrative ended. Callahan, Froid, and Samuel stood in the hotel room and said nothing. What tied them together seemed to disappear.

But then Samuel walked over to the end of the narrative and took out a pen.

“There is something I still must write.”

“Yeah, you can do that later, Coldridge,” said Callahan. “Let’s go get Chinese to celebrate!”

Froid smiled. Chinese sounded good.

At the restaurant downstairs Callahan ordered pork dumplings for the table, but more for himself. He ate them with such vigor that he did not notice Samuel’s unusual sullenness. Samuel had an emotional range that went from “apathetic” to “annoyed,” but sad was not in his repertoire. Froid had assumed that Samuel was worn out from the activity that day, though she had the most right to. With all of the writing she had to do, she deserved twenty pork dumplings more than anyone.

“Coldridge, uh, your bok choy is getting… cold,” Callahan noticed as he poked Samuel’s full plate. Samuel did not acknowledge Callahan. He seldom had, but this time perturbed Callahan for some reason.

            “Do you miss him?” Callahan asked.

            “Who?”

            “Your brother. I mean, you have known him all your life and-”

            “Of course not,” Samuel snapped. “I have waited twelve years for this day to come.”

            While he was directing his minimal focus at Callahan, Froid stole some of the bok choy off of Samuel’s plate. He noticed that. She winked at him.

            “We must talk,” he told Froid, standing up and grabbing her by the arm.
            “What?”

            Callahan stood up as well.

            “You stay, Grossherz,” said Samuel.

            “Um, you’re welcome for buying you all these goddamn dumplings!” retorted Callahan.

            As the two walked off together Callahan fought the urge to not sock Samuel a couple of times.

            “Nice talking with you too, asshole,” he hissed.

           

            Froid and Samuel did not go far. They were right outside the restaurant, standing on the sidewalk and watching the traffic blur past them.

            “I have something to give you,” he said.

            “What?”

            Froid had every right to be confused. Samuel had never given a present in his life.

            He handed her an envelope. Inside was a Ziploc, and in the Ziploc was a poem.

            “hIre why’sdumb” was the title.           

            Froid gasped. “Is this…”

            “The original manuscript.”

            She cold not bring herself to take the poem out of the bag. She instead looked at it through the plastic, intent on preserving it forever.

            “Please touch it,” said Samuel. “It is yours now.”

            “But, this it your poem! This isn’t like a thank you card or a diamond ring or something. This is a poem!”

            “You must have it.”

            “I… why?”

            “It belongs to you.”

            “No, it belongs to you! You wrote it!” She almost nudged the poem back into his hands.

            Not to be foiled, Samuel put his hands in his pocket. “There. Now you cannot give it back to me.”

            “Why didn’t you give it to me before?”

            “There was no time.”

            Froid understood. He wrote the poem after they broke up and before Seattle they had not seen each other since.

            “Samuel, I, I don’t know what to say. Thank you.”

            Samuel smiled.

            “Goodbye, Ambrosia.”

            Now Froid was surprised. “What? Where? What’s the hurry? We have the whole winter break.”

            He took one hand out of his pocket at put it on her cheek. With his other he pointed at the poem in her hand.

            “As long as you have it,” he said. He walked away from her, closing his eyes.

            “You are beautiful, Ambrosia,” he called back. “I cannot make you beautiful. You just are.”

            Samuel disappeared after a few streetlights. Froid thought about following him. She wanted to with all her heart, but instead ran into the restaurant to get Callahan.

            “He left?!” Callahan exclaimed.

            Froid nodded.

            “I guess we’re not worth two Chinese meals, aren’t we?” he muttered, paying for the dumplings that he ate by himself.

            When they returned up to Samuel’s hotel room, it was empty. None of Samuel’s things were there. All that was left was the narrative on the table. Froid looked over to see it.

            “He… added some more,” she whispered and she began to read.

           

            The English department had insisted that Samuel sit in on the introductory creative writing class. They had promised him more creative freedom, which did not incentivize it any. Samuel would write when and how he wanted. His poetry was important.

            All in all, he humored them and sat in on the freshman class. Samuel could read every student: those who smoked to seem more artistic; the ones who had lost a parent or pet and wrote monolithic verse and prose dedicated to them; the ones who hung out with artists to seem more like artists. The archetypes were clear. Samuel would sit on the class but do nothing more.

            “Samuel!” called Professor Doanday down the hall. “Such an honor to have you join us!” Doanday was sarcastic, but just to Samuel could he be sincere. Samuel would have preferred the sarcasm.

            “Listen, do you have a very busy semester? I know that you’re writing your thesis and all…” Doanday continued. Samuel knew where this was going.

            Against his better judgment, Samuel agreed to be the TA for the class. The expectations were thus: he would attend each class period, he would help grade assignments, and he would be the guest lecturer once. Samuel had no desire to any of these, especially grade the assignments. Samuel hated all writing that was not his. This was perhaps the most human thing about him.

            After a week the first batch of assignments arrived in his box in the department. The stack was thick; there were thirty mindless overachievers in the class. Samuel forwent his stipulation. He did not even pretend to grade them. They were returned to the students blank.

            The next week the students tried harder, hoping to be the one that would get read by Samuel and get a proper grade. Doanday was irritated with Samuel at this point and was entertaining the idea of dropping him as an assistant, much to Samuel’s relief. However, Samuel had given an amazing guest lecture in the middle of the week that so enraptured everyone that Doanday realized he had to give Samuel more of a chance.

            The week after the students strained themselves the most. Samuel’s lecture had both inspired and frightened them, and they wrote their poetry to impress him. Samuel felt marginal pity for them. He would not read their poetry no matter how much effort they had put into it.

            Doanday was collecting the poetry when he made a patronizing observation.

            “Miss Froid, you have failed to turn in an assignment at all for the duration of this class. You know that this will adversely affect your grade.”

            Samuel hated Professor Doanday.

            Froid said nothing. Doanday rolled his eyes and grabbed other students’ assignments. Was she doing it on purpose? Froid looked at Samuel. He recognized her from the English Department party from before school started. She gave him a small but mischievous smile. She was doing it on purpose.

            After class Samuel was walking across the quad back to his apartment. A familiar voice came up behind him.

            “Excuse me? Could you sign this?”

            He turned around. Froid was there, with a piece of charcoal and a copy of y(not)ou. Samuel did not do this, but given that she knew that he would never read the assignments, he felt like rewarding her. He took the book and opened it up to the first page.

            Except there was no first page.

            There was a second page, but it was riddled with holes. Samuel skimmed through the entire book. It was gutted and dilapidated. Entire poems were missing. Words were missing from lines. It was not his poetry anymore. It was just ornamental words on paper. For once in his life, Samuel was terrified.

            He looked over at her, welled up with fear as he snapped the charcoal in his fingers on accident. She, on the other hand, had a pleasant look on her face. She reached into her book bag and pulled out a piece of paper.

            “Looking for this?” she asked.

            And there, on the page, were the words that she had cut out of y(not)ou. They were a poem. Samuel read the title: “still you.”

slight lilts

in a shore of blue

the mania edge

sounds for you

I split the light

as it seeps through air

and darkness

becoming more

for everyone

not a morgue

for you

Samuel stared at the poem for a while. He knew what it was. He saw himself in it. He saw himself in “you” and “shore.” But he also saw her. He saw a lot of her. He saw her in “lilts,” “I,” “becoming,” and “not a morgue.” And there they were, together, harmonious in the poem. If they could coexist in the poem, could they in real life?

He gave her back the poem and looked back at the book. He took the half charcoal that he had shattered in his hands and scribbled something on the inside cover. He felt self-conscious and did not know what to write. He gave the book back to her in haste. She opened it up, thanked him, and read.

“to ambrosia froid, be my lilt. Samuel Tyler Cold-”

Samuel did not give her time to finish. Before either of them knew it, they were locked in each other’s arms, his lips touching another’s for the first time in his life. To his relief she did not push him away or spray mace. She reciprocated. She felt warm. He pulled her closer when people started staring at them.

“Is that… Samuel Coldridge? With a girl? I thought he was asexual!”

“I thought he was gay!”

“Ugh, I hoped he was gay!”

They walked away when Samuel waved them on, keeping his face on Froid’s.

Froid, thought Samuel. I am yours.