dribble drabble - nano 13 being updated

[eden .]

for a contest entry. but I had fun writing this, although I'm pretty sure it makes no sense x.x
I actually do think seeing the world through mathematics and physics would be incredibly beautiful. v.v''
anyways, it's not a very long or a very dramatic piece, but I hope that it's alright.
appx. 931 words

My girlfriend was a physicist. Advanced calculus and physical sciences were nothing to her. But they are as alien to me as Hemmingway and Thoreau are to her. She and I see the world through different lenses—but often I find that I wish I was seeing it through hers. Before I met her, I found talented writers were the only ones capable of putting the world onto paper in black ink and symbols—and only just. Fitzgerald and his abstract physical descriptions fascinated me. Krakauer’s recounting of a man searching to find the base of human nature and existence in the wilderness was structural ingenuity. Victor Hugo’s description of his female character was honest and gave me the impression of such a strong woman that I wondered if the world could be quantified better than these novels. I believed, after a time, that no, the world could not.
My girlfriend, the physicist, proved me wrong. At first, it was only small things. Small, inconsequential things—a passing car, a bouncing ball, music in the background—that I noticed seemed larger to her. More significant. I would watch her, then, and analyze her like I did my novels. And I would see activity. My girlfriend, the physicist, was always humming with energy. Was there ever a moment when her mind was not doing two things or more? I doubted it. Her eyes would flash and her ear would always be a few tables away, even when she locked eyes with me in conversations over dinner. While she gave me her attention, I could see thoughts running through her head—complicated strings of information and calculation that always seemed to willingly present themselves to her. It was a part of her that I could not touch and could not hope to understand, and it was this part that was the key to a world of deeper understanding. A place where the basics reasons of cause and effect deconstructed themselves into a readable, applicable language. Suddenly, the letters and words that I loved so much seemed pathetic and flimsy compared to her variables and symbols.
My girlfriend, the physicist, saw things others could not with that lens of hers. When flowers bloomed in a pot on a windowsill, I would see daises. She would see perfection. When we would pass a musician playing on a sidewalk, I would hear notes. She would hear sheer elegance. When an airplane would flash over our heads, I would see a jet. She would see ingenious efficiency. She would try to explain to me the concept of the universe expanding and growing, and when I would ask how nothing could grow into something—could nothing spill into another nothing?—she would reply with a wide grin on her face that she did not know. She did not know the answer, and that made her gleeful and euphoric.
My girlfriend, the physicist, once showed me the equation for sound. She pointed it out to me with a chalk nub, worn down by her scribbling on the many chalk boards hung around her room. The single line of symbols was circled. She tapped it and told me it was the equation for all sound—for all music. I stared at it, cast a look around the incomprehensible lines of variables that swam in front of my eyes, and asked her if this was truly what “music” was. She said it was. The string of variables fully encapsulated “music”, and the word “music” seemed feeble in comparison. I was not sure what “music” was when I left.
My girlfriend, the physicist, was no writer, and she was not a speaker. She shook when presenting work. Her palms would sweat and her knees would knock against one another. Her face would blush red and her toes would curl and uncurl. It was a tick of hers. This woman who could describe Beethoven perfectly and precisely through equations, and this woman who understood the reasons behind the reasons of cause and effect, and this woman who had little patience for philosophy when a universe awaited her, could not speak for her life. Words did not come naturally to her. Writing speeches and papers were struggles and large endeavors for her. I had occurred to me long ago that perhaps speech and writing were difficult for her because it was as if she was writing in hieroglyphics. The English language was arcane and inaccurate, rife with flaws and brittle. Numbers, I realized, were perfect. Misinterpreting numbers was impossible. My girlfriend, the physicist, spoke a more precise, more efficient language than all of us, and she spoke it with the most tender and elated look on her face.
My girlfriend, the physicist, had the world quantified and deconstructed before her eyes. Everything had a cause. Everything had a reason. There was nothing she could not explain without her numbers. Life for her was brighter and clearer than any life that I could live.
My girlfriend, the physicist, was no lover, and she was no girlfriend. I learned this very quickly. My girlfriend, the physicist, was enamored with numbers. She was smitten with perfection. Regular, mundane things were surely mind-numbing for her. My obtuseness was surely frustrating and trying of her patience. But I sustained our bond for as long as I could. I wanted to snag small glimpses, to seize any sample, to catch any flash of the world she lived in. For as long as I could, I wanted to witness perfection with her as my shining medium.
My girlfriend was a physicist.

[Weeping_Angel }Y{]

Truly ingenious. I love how descriptive you were in the way the world seemed through her eyes. It's amazing.

[eden .]

>> thank you so much ;u;

[eden .]

one: infinite number of parallel universes exist
two: these universes exist alongside all other universes
three: universes are (sometimes) similar but fundamentally different from other universes
four: time does not exist, only universes.

read it here!

[eden .]

- Yellow dress - ripped
- Champagne drunken house
- Sing from the piano
- Cried
- Lover on her mind
- Ocean in the way to him
- Let the morning come
- Turn off all the lights

1. Yellow dress was given to her by him or there was a significance. She later rips it and cries over it
2. Selfishly falls for him after he cannot be hers [now there’s green light in my eyes]
3. And she was about to reach him and she was about to save his soul and she was about to change him for the better but he abandons her and he leaves her and he drops her like a stone or a toy that cannot be shined or fixed anymore
4. Because she is stuck in this house like high walls that she cannot get out of and he was her outlet of inspiration and brightness and he was her morning [let the morning come]. Without him everything is dark and she cannot even anymore
5. He taught her how the play the piano; he hates playing the piano because it reminds him of how he had nothing else to go on for him. She loves it because it’s the one thing that keeps him coming back
6. He tries to make the moves on her a lot in the beginning but she is afraid and frivolous and cannot make a decision to save her life so he’s done waiting and he’s done chasing after her and he’s done catering to her every whim he has done that too much already he has been through that already and she should know that because he has told her he has poured his soul into her and has gotten nothing back and he is going and he is going to leave.
7. She wants so much to reach him. What is this person and this essence and why is he so different from everyone else why is that the case
8. Give me some of your life and give me some of your light. That is what she is thinking. That is what she wants. Because she is a reed that is being bent to the point of breaking.

[eden .]

/casually redoes the classic "disney" tales for fun + get some writing juices flowing
this one is beauty and the beast, in which the beast is sociopathic and I can't tell you about belle yet b/c that would be spoiler =3=
I'm doing my best researching these things, but if I'm misrepresenting something, then please let me now. please please please let me know. not only would that make this story more accurate, but it would help me in the future.
the french was literally pasted from a translator, so it's probably messed up. tell me the right way to do it and I'll correct it. v.v''
this is a boring chapter

“Belle? Belle Delacroux?” A sharp grip wrenched her back into reality, making her gasp. Belle’s eyes flew open, wide and panicking and rolling all over to find the danger.
“Ms. Delacroux,” someone shook her roughly by the shoulders, rattling her. Finally, the woman dressed in the toothpaste blue outfit came into view, her somewhat wrinkled eyes narrowed in worry and suspicion. “Are you alright?”
“Yes,” Belle insisted hastily, shaking herself and standing up—and shrugging off the nurse’s iron hold. “Yes I’m fine, thank you.”
The nurse did not seem entirely convinced. Belle gave her no time to think.
“I’m here for the volunteer work?”
“Yes, I know,” said the nurse dubiously, still looking Belle up and down. “A mental facility is not usually the first choice for someone to volunteer.”
Belle only shrugged. She had her reasons.
“Well, this way,” gestured the nurse, and she led Belle through the glass double doors into the institution beyond.
In reality, it was a very nice building. The plumbing, lighting, and all the heating fixtures were up to date and very efficient. The tiling and décor, while bland and uninteresting, were polished and clean. The food wasn’t gourmet, five-star worthy, but it certainly wasn’t something to sneeze at, either. As Belle strode through the halls, some tenants being wheeled about in wheelchairs and others being guided with quiet words from their respective nurses, she was impressed at how normal everything seemed. Media made these places look so…well. Insane.
“Through here, please,” the nurse interrupted Belle’s thoughts. She was holding a door ajar. As Belle went through, she found the other side to be a sitting room of sorts, with tables like you would find in a standard grade-school room and little plastic chairs that were colored red, blue, yellow, green…
There weren’t very many people there, at the moment—most likely because it was still rather early for a weekend morning. There was one rather fat woman in the corner, idly stacking blocks on top of the other, apparently bored. It was hard to tell why she was here. Another man, half balding and half-moon glasses perched on his nose, was easier to diagnose at first glance; he was speaking to the air as Belle might just as comfortably speak to her friends. A third man, somewhat younger than the previous (his late twenties, perhaps? It was hard to tell under the mop of hair on his head), was grouching in the middle table, staring at nothing and his arms crossed. The first two patients were being attended to by nurses. When Belle’s guide noticed this, she frowned.
“You know what, I think we should find you a different job,” said the nurse.
“What? Why?” She cast a glance towards the solitary man at the table.
“Victor has schizoid personality disorder,” she explained, although Belle didn’t have the faintest idea what that meant. Did that mean he saw things that weren’t there?
“He’s hard to handle without some experience,” the nurse continued, not bothering to elaborate. “Maybe we could get you to sort something.”
“Oh,” sighed Belle, brushing a lock of curling brown hair out of her face. “Yes, that…sounds fine.”
“Good,” nodded the nurse. “Then let’s just get going…” She began to lead Belle out of the room when Belle was tapped on the shoulder—lightly and politely. Still, she jumped high into the air, her heart leaping out of her chest and feeling like a trapped rabbit. Belle whirled around.
“Excuse me,” blinked the patient named Victor, who backed away a few steps and held up his hands to show he meant no harm. “I didn’t think I would scare you so much.”
His tangled mass of curled ringlets framing his face seemed to be untamable, although with a bit of a haircut, he would certainly be neater. Although, Belle had to admit that he had very few people to impress in this place. He was rather tall—almost intimidatingly so—and had broad shoulders. While it was hard to see it in his administered uniform, Victor held himself in a way that it was clear he could handle himself in a fight, which only made Belle feel nervous. She couldn’t quite make out his eyes under all his curls, either, but there was certainly some shine as they reflected back light—like an animal. Yet, he didn’t seem to be threatening or particularly dangerous at the moment. Belle paused, internally frowning. He didn’t seem to act like someone who saw hallucinations or was clinically insane.
“What do you need, Victor?” asked the nurse, to which Victor replied, “I just thought I should introduce myself. That’s polite, isn’t it?” He held out one hand towards Belle, who recoiled a little.
“Don’t worry,” he assured her, “I don’t bite.”
“No,” Belle said hurriedly, “it’s not you. I just—I…”
Belle trailed off. Then she swallowed her protests and gripped Victor’s hand, shook it twice, up and down, then let go. After, she realized she had forgotten to introduce herself, and she quickly amended, “I’m Belle Delacroux.”
She saw Victor’s eyebrow rise. “Vous êtes Français? Parlez-vous français? Où est votre famille contre?”
“Uh, no,” Belle shook her head, her eyes wide. “No, I—I don’t speak French.” She smiled sheepishly and pointed to herself. “Like, twentieth generation American.”
“Ah,” Victor nodded, although Belle wasn’t completely sure if he had understood what she had meant.
“Belle? We should get going,” the nurse prompted her, to which Belle replied, “Um, actually, I think I’ll be just fine here.” She glanced uncertainly at Victor. “Right?”
Victor gave a noncommittal grunt, which seemed rather rude all of a sudden, considering their considerably polite exchange previously. Was he really that upset that Belle was not fluent in French?
“Belle…”
“It’s just for an hour, right?” smiled Belle. “I think I’ll survive.”
The nurse frowned, but when it was evident that Belle was adamant, she relented with a heavy sigh. “Fine. Your choice. Take this”—she handed Belle a sheet of paper with some boxes and spaces to write in—“and this”—a short stub of wooden pencil—“and just keep track of what you and Victor do and talk about.”
“That’s all?”
“That’s all.”
“Sounds easy enough.”
“Belle, you should remember you’re in a mental institution,” Victor interrupted the pair of women. Belle swallowed her sudden nervousness.
“Just an hour,” she repeated, trying to reassure herself along with everyone else—that might’ve cared. Victor was already sitting back down at the table.
“I’ll check in in about twenty minutes, okay?” the nurse promised.
“Okay,” Belle nodded, and she watched the nurse exit the room. With a single breath to steady herself, Belle approached the table and sat opposite of Victor, who did not seem to be in the mood to talk, anymore. Deciding that perhaps it would be better to let Victor approach her and not the other way around, Belle glanced down at the sheet. There was a space for her name and her companions, so she carefully marked them in with slow precision. She risked a look upwards, but Victor wasn’t paying her any mind. She refocused on the sheet of paper in front of her and filled in the date, next.
Very nice work, Ms. Delacroux, she thought to herself sardonically. You’ll be running this place if you keep this up.
After another ten minutes of awkward silence, Belle considered looking up—what did the nurse call it?—schizophrenic personality? Maybe a “disorder” somewhere in there? Really, the only thing that Belle picked up was that Victor was schizophrenic.
“So, Belle,” Victor finally broke the tension, “where are you from?”
“Um, just outside of San Francisco,” Belle blinked, surprised Victor had started up a conversation, again.
“And you’re a college student?”
“Grad,” she shrugged. “I started my first year this year.”
“What’s your area of study?”
“Literature.”
“What kind of literature?” Victor pressed, the slightest of smiles playing on his lips. Belle felt her brow furrow, again. He seemed so normal.
“Belle?”
“American literature, mostly. Other books, if I have time.”
“Tell me about one.”
“Um, okay,” she frowned, wondering what to talk about on the spot. “I don’t know what you’ve read and haven’t read.”
“I probably haven’t.”
“Okay, then what about—”
“Why are you in here, Belle?”
“What?”
“Why are you in a mental hospital?”
Belle paused. “I’m not crazy.”
“I never said you were.”
“Okay, good, because I’m not.”
“Do you have a particular aversion to crazy people?”
“Most people have an aversion to crazy people, yeah.” Belle bit her lip, upset that she had taken such a tone, but Victor didn’t seem bothered.
“Then why are you here?”
“I’m volunteering.”
“Blessing us with your sanity, are you?”
“What—no, that’s not it, at all.”
“So why are you inside a house full of people you can’t stand?”
“That’s none of your business. Why’re you in here, then?”
“Did the nurse tell you?”
“She said you were schizophrenic.”
At this, Victor massaged his face for a moment. “I’m not schizophrenic. I have schizoid personality disorder,” he added, speaking over Belle’s half-formed demand.
“What does that mean, then?”
“You know what a sociopath is?”
“Yes.”
“Basically, then, I’m that.”
“What, you just kill people or whatever?”
“God, you don’t know anything, do you? Why are you helping in a place where you don’t even understand the people you’re volunteering for?”
“What’s a sociopath, then?”
“A sociopath doesn’t care about anything.”
“Like…?”
“Like if you were to keel over right now with a painful heart attack, I wouldn’t feel scared, sorry, worried, or anything. I mean,” he added, “I would still call the ambulance, since it’s socially expected of me, so you’d probably live.” Apparently, he found this new information reassuring.
“If you don’t care about me, then why are we talking?”
“Well, like I said, I do things socially expected of me. I was pretty popular when I wasn’t stuck in here.”
Victor shot her a smile, although it looked awkward, jaunted, and—there was no other word—unpracticed. He hadn’t practiced smiling in a while. Belle could almost see it, Victor just standing in front of a mirror rehearsing facial expressions. Woops, that eyebrow looks a bit out of place. Maybe I should show a little less tooth. Do people really widen their mouth that much?
“Oh, you’re freaked out, now,” Victor observed flatly, his smile gone. He leaned forward and rested his chin on his arms. “Well, don’t worry. You only have—what, forty five minutes left?” He considered her from underneath his mass of curls. “Or you can ask the nurse to just take you away when she comes in.”
“No,” Belle straightened her back, “I think I’m fine right here.”
“Your choice,” Victor shrugged, completely unconcerned about her sudden spurt of bravery.
In the end, Belle didn’t do much besides sitting in her plastic seat, watching the room fill and empty again as patrons searched for something to do. By the end of the hour, she was stiff and uncomfortable, and she just wanted to leave. As she was filling out the sheet of paper summating her hour well wasted, Victor finally spoke up. Belle jumped as he did so. She had thought he had been asleep.
“Are you coming back tomorrow?”
“Unfortunately,” she assented woodenly.
“At the same time?”
“I was planning on it.”
“Good,” Victor sighed, settling back onto his arms. “I get stressed when my schedule is thrown off, you know.”
“Well, that’s not my fault.”
“You introduced a new variable in my day, Belle,” Victor said almost impatiently. “Now you’re responsible for keeping it consistent. That’s how my brand of insanity works, you see.”
Belle felt like she was being addressed like a child. She rose out of her chair, seizing the paper and pencil as she did so, and met the nurse as she was entering the room.
“Here you go,” Belle presented the paper, trying to sound as casual and pleasant as possible. Still, as the nurse took the sheet and pencil, she raised a knowing eyebrow.
“You’re not coming back, then?” she asked.
“Oh, no,” Belle smiled tightly, “I’ll be back tomorrow.”
“Oh, alright,” said the nurse, looking surprised. Well, Belle couldn’t really blame her.
“See you tomorrow, then,” the nurse bade her goodbye. Belle threw a wave over her shoulder as she retraced her steps out of the institution.
“Bye!” she called as she flew out the entrance.

[eden .]

multiplicity theory
being the story of:
the selfish aristocrat
the loud mouthed thief
the silent assassin
the AWOL general

read it here!

[eden .]

another contest entry. it's for this one of Lady Luck's.
inspired by Ellie Goulding's "The Writer".

look, more alexander/ra AU pains. wow why do I do this to myself.
It is also 4 in the morning so hopefully I'll be brave enough later to read this over and edit it ;;
I wanted to focus on the scene of alexander leaving rather than focus on what alexandra [who goes unnamed in this piece, but she is the narrator in this case] did to alexander. unfortunately, that might've made the story more confusing? but I think for now, I'll keep it that way.

I can still remember the place clearly: the floor is scuffed and worn with age, the floor-to-ceiling windows on the east side of the loft are warped and provide no privacy for the people in the studio, the faucet splutters and hisses all the time. The tiles in the shower have mildew in between them, the window seat overlooking the alley has both an unappealing view and an unappealing feel, the couch is ripping through its cheap fabric and pokes with its springs. It always smells like oil paints—vaguely chemical like but still rustic and ocher—and the outside street that the apartment looks over is always quiet. In the mornings, birds would always chirp, but I always got up too late to hear them unless Alexander woke me up, himself.



The sun woke me. I felt its warmth on my eyelids and my neck and my cheeks. It was a strange feeling. I had never slept on the floor before, underneath the windows, so I had never felt the sun rise on my face. I kept my eyes closed because I liked how comfortable and homely it felt, even though I had never experienced this, before. I felt protected and safe, and my bones were relaxing and I was sinking into the floorboards, giving them my weight and letting them do their job.
The apartment was quiet—not a creak—but after a moment, I realized that I was hearing chirping birds. Their warbles quivered and shook a little, and it was faint, but I could hear them. I smiled a little to myself. This was the first time I woke up to songbirds without Alexander’s help.
Alexander.
Alexander. With a sharp, sudden intake of breath, my eyelids flew open. I was welcomed back to the despicable world of the waking with the ugly textured ceiling and a feeling of space around me. I felt around my immediate vicinity with my hands, too afraid to look with my eyes. If he wasn’t there—If he had left already—If I hadn’t stopped him—
My fingers brushed against Alexander’s thin, bony arm kept close to his side. With a small sigh and a silent prayer of thanks sent up to a God I wasn’t sure I believed in anymore, I turned my head—just my head—to meet Alexander’s steady gray gaze. He took off his glasses at some point in the night, and his hair was awry and unkempt—but clean. There was no paint. There wasn’t any paint on his face, either. I didn’t look at his arms, but I knew that he didn’t have any stains on those. That’s why I didn’t look. I wasn’t sure I knew the man that was lying at my side. It was like he was fading. I wasn’t sure who “Alexander” was, anymore. He was slipping right through my fingers. It was like trying to hold water.
It was the first time I had ever slept on the floor when he had been (which was most of the time). I just wanted to lie there with him. Have a bubble with just the two of us in it for even a moment. There didn’t need to be any talking or crying or laughing or yelling. We just had to stare at the ceiling or at the floor or at each other, and that would be enough. The silence would be enough. Living would be enough.
I wasn’t sure how long he’d been watching me, but I had the feeling that he had been doing so for a very long time. I didn’t find it disturbing, really, because I knew that he was thinking of something else when he saw me. He didn’t even see me anymore.
“Good morning,” he murmured to me, blinking back to reality.
“Did you sleep at all?” I asked quietly. We were both unwilling to shatter the serenity that was bathing us.
“No,” he replied. At least he was being honest. We considered each other in silence for a moment, not really thinking about anything in particular. Just…looking. Existing.
“Today’s the day, huh?” I said hoarsely.
“Today’s the day,” Alexander agreed. His tone was impassive, giving nothing away. That was the kind of person Alexander was. He never gave himself away. It was always his head before his heart. And hearing him say that—hearing him giving the final decision on the day of, eliminating any chance of him changing his mind—was crippling. The small crack in me finally gave away into a completely ragged break. I wanted to scream at him. I wanted to demand that he stayed here. I wanted to accuse him, yell at him, argue with him, cry to him, beg to him. There were thousands of things that I wanted to say and I didn’t know a single one. I just wanted to grip the front of his shirt and pin him here. Don’t leave me.
I did not do any of those things, however. All I did was blink.
My fault.
Impulsively, I moved my hand to run a thumb along Alexander’s nose. He didn’t try and stop me. Slowly, I turned on my side and took my other hand along his cheek and then one of his eyelids. He closed his eyes at my touch.
I could feel myself about to shatter, and I could feel myself about to lose it in front of him. I was not going to. That was not an option. Alexander only saw me as the poison that ruined the fragile life he had built up for himself. I was not going to cry in front of him. I was not going to lose control in front of him. I was not going to let him comfort me. I was not such a pathetic woman. I gritted my teeth and set my jaw and swallowed back my tears while Alexander’s eyes were closed. I traced along his eyes and his nose and his mouth and his ears because this was the last time I was ever going to see them, again. I had to memorize them. I had to keep them with me at all times. I wished I had Alexander’s memory. I wished I could imprint a particular moment in time in my mind, like a photo, to look back on whenever I wanted to. I wish I had an artist’s mind.
Alexander opened his eyes again, his look unfathomable—Alexander was unfathomable. An enigma. To me. What had happened to us (P.S.: I happened to us)?—as I held his face in my hands. It was bony, breakable. It was delicate and didn’t feel like it could last a day on its own, even though Alexander had lived by himself with a serious addiction, put himself through rehab, started paying his own bills, and fended for himself before I came into his life. It was self-centered and childish of me to imagine the start of Alexander’s existence at when I came into it. But that’s how I thought of it. That’s the only way I could think about it. Because Alexander was this flare, this bright spot in my life. Almost blinding, really, after what I had been starting this year with. He was helping me be myself again and believing it.
Will you remember me? I cried out to him silently—or rather to “Alexander”, not this empty corpse in front of me. Will you remember that I hate chicken? Will you remember that Bach is my most hated composer to play and one of my most favorite composers to listen to? Will you remember that you painted me but never showed me the picture? Or will you just remember that I murdered you?
“Your hands are small,” Alexander observed, taking one of them off his face with his own and inspecting it under the sunlight. “How do you play the viola with those hands?”
“My left hand’s fingers are longer than my right’s,” I told him. “I stretched them out from playing.”
“Oh, really?” Alexander said, sounding a little surprised. I felt hurt because he seemed so genuinely taken aback and we had been sharing the rent for nine months, but it wasn’t his fault, really. He never had the chance to inspect my hands closely enough to tell. It wasn’t his fault. Not his fault..
My fault.
“It’s not by much,” I said, scooting closer to him because I didn’t feel like sitting up. I lifted both my hands in the sunlight and put the palms together as if in prayer.
“See? The left fingers are a little bit longer than the right. But not by much. It’s hardly noticeable.”
“Hm” was all he supplied. He reached up and flipped my two hands over and under, inspecting them and their shadows. “That’s interesting.”
“Yeah,” I echoed tonelessly, withdrawing my hands and placing them on my stomach, “interesting.”
I had never given Alexander a hug. I realized that, all of a sudden. It seemed like a big deal, since I wasn’t going to see him, again. Or rather, he was going to leave me behind. He was going to abandon me. I was going to become nothing again. I was going to become a shell. Well, what did I expect? I was a terrible, disgusting personality that didn’t deserve to laugh with friends or make jokes. I was a parasite, really. Made trouble for everyone and made everyone else’s lives harder. Things would be easier if I wasn’t around. If I wasn’t born. Why, if I hadn’t been born, then Alexander would’ve been perfectly—
Alexander sat up abruptly, moving towards the door. I didn’t follow him, only closed my eyes and held back my tears for a little bit longer behind my eyelids. I just had to hold on a little longer. To distract myself, I focused on his footfalls vibrating through the floorboards and into my ear. Even his footsteps were light.
There were sounds of boxes being moved and bags being shuffled. There were no snaps of canvases being shut or the sounds of paintbrushes clattering against each other in plastic baggies. There were sounds of garbage bags being stuffed with clothes but there were no sounds of cheap, greening plastic cups being stacked and stowed away. Wrong. It was all wrong.
Suddenly, I heard the door snap open and close in two staccato beats. One and two. I scramble into a seated position, see that all of his boxes, all of his bags, were still sitting there. But I knew that he was gone. I could hear him going down the stairwell. That stairwell always echoed. And the elevator was a deathtrap. No one used the elevator. So everyone used the stairs, and it always echoed, so it was easy to hear people going up and down…
He was going to pick them up when I was at school, probably. I considered staying, skipping school tomorrow, to catch him. He didn’t say goodbye. Didn’t even say a word.
I rose to my feet and approached the pile of junk that Alexander had left. I numbly placed a hand on the boxes and the garbage bags. All of this was Alexander’s, yet I couldn’t recognize any of it. He was already a stranger to me.
With a strangled sort of garbled yelp, I tore open one of the garbage bags and looked through the clothes, recognizing the shirts and the pants and the ugly khakis that he wore once to a job interview (“You didn’t get the job because you wore those pants, Alexander”). I ripped open a box and found a pile of pots and pans organized haphazardly inside. Alexander was the one that cooked everything. There was the pan that I threw into the floor in the kitchen when I was frustrated. I left a dent in the floor and a nick in the pan’s edge. I stared into this box. I knew this. I knew the stories behind each and every item and thing inside these containers. But where was Alexander? Where was he in all of this?
Slipping, I thought to myself, moving on to the next box. CDs—maybe three—and books that I recommended to Alexander.
You’re slipping, I thought, but I wasn’t sure if it was to myself or to him.
Another bag of clothes.
A box of his personal dishes and silverware.
Shoes.
All of these things appeared before me willingly, and I knew all of them, but I didn’t want them. They weren’t the ones that I wanted. Which one did I want? What did I want (the painting supplies that Alexander threw away)?
I paused in the middle of tearing the third to last garbage bag. I stared for a moment in disbelief. I couldn’t believe what I was seeing.
A canvas corner.
The corner of a canvas. One of his canvases. I scrambled to remove the black plastic. It stuck to my palms and refused to rip. I nearly cried out of frustration. I was already sobbing. I didn’t even realize I had been crying. I had been crying. Big, fat tears. Just falling down my cheeks. I didn’t even feel them there.
At last, I removed the canvas from the bag—and promptly dropped it onto the floor.
It was me. I felt my knees give out as I collapsed. I couldn’t stand anymore. I couldn’t do it.
The canvas was half painted on with the first few layers of paint. There was little shading and few colors and texture, but the general shapes were pretty obvious, and there was one section that Alexander had already basically finished: my face. The other half of the canvas that hadn’t been painted on still had pencil lines on it. Vague shapes of me—the image he had of me—and all I could see was my damn disgusting and pitiful face.
Alexander never left a project unfinished, though. And he didn’t sign it. There was no signature or a date. He wasn’t finished with this painting. My heart leaped for a moment. It had been with his things. He hadn’t finished it. Maybe…maybe…
I saw the shapes, though, and the expressive face of the glorified and bright image Alexander had of me mocking me. Revulsion. I flipped the canvas over so I wouldn’t have to stare, anymore
A note. A note on the back of the canvas, written straight onto the back of it. In his handwriting.
Take it.
He had intended to leave it behind when he picked up his stuff. I stared at those two words as if there was some sort of secret code hidden beneath them. I watched them as if expecting them to rearrange themselves into something more substantial. More…more. Something more.
I fell onto my back, then, and stared at the ugly ceiling, tears still leaking out of the sides of my eyes. I breathed for a moment, listening to my own inhales and exhales and marveling in how small I was.
And that’s when I really wailed. I let it rip through my throat. I gripped my chest and rolled onto my side and screamed into the floor. I kicked away the half-painting of not-me.
Because Alexander had said his goodbye.
That had been his goodbye.

[eden .]

PSA TIME GUYS

lately I've been itching to write but been at a loss of what to write about ;;
so I thought "hey, why not ask the wonderfully inspired beings that are my audience [whoever you are!]?"
if you feel that my writing has any merit and you have anything you'd like to see, please let me know! I'm always up for a challenge c:<

[eden .]

I THINK I GOT IT NOW

It wasn’t really the fact that the University wouldn’t give me a dorm – Columbia was always particular in making sure all its students had a place to stay – but it was more that I wouldn’t take a dorm. Not that year. Being in a dorm … meant people. Too many people. Too many people asking too many annoying questions and suffocating me. Crowding me. Boxing me in. I didn’t want to deal with it that year. Or rather, I couldn’t.
But getting an affordable place in New York City – or anywhere near it – that’s even remotely livable in and on a student paycheck was about as likely as coyote finally catching up to the road runner (so, basically never ever). And I was unwilling – completely against – asking my dad for any money, either. He already had too much to deal with. The business was failing and his wife had just died a few months ago, making him a widow with a kid in college and a rent to pay and a store to keep by himself – not to mention the fact that when he came home, the only things waiting for him were piles of dishes and microwave meals. There was no way I, a stupid, immature, over dramatic, inconsiderate nineteen year old that wasn’t even an adult herself yet was going to go to her father and ask for more money to pay for a loft in NYC. I had already asked for money before from when both of my parents were living. I had promised myself over and over that it would be the last time I inconvenienced them. I was determined that I would keep the promise this time around.
Which meant that I would have to probably split rent with someone to afford a place, which didn’t sit very well with me. I wasn’t much one for sharing, you see. It’s one of my vices. A hubris. I mean, not the hubris, but a hubris. In any case, from the day people started stealing my tater tots at lunch and using my Agatha Christie books as coasters, I was pretty much done with letting other people near my stuff.
But. Desperate times.
My salvation came in the form of a flyer that my friend Eun presented to me on a Saturday afternoon under a café table umbrella. I was having my first meal of the day (on Eun’s dime, much to my chagrin), which meant that I was stuffing my face while Eun was telling me all about the new place she had found – again.
Eun was a good friend, really, and the closest one I had on campus. Like me, she was very intelligent but didn’t necessarily have the stellar grades to back it up. We both didn’t study very much because we could get solid B+’s and A-‘s without it, which we thought was pretty good – even if we both knew that we could be getting streaks of A’s if we really wanted to. Other peers around us studied like mad and stayed up past midnight doing homework and extra flashcards while we were staying up playing video games and reading random books from the library shelves. I mean, those people got A+’s in the end, but Eun and I were satisfied with what we were doing. I was glad that I found someone like her, because I felt out of place when people around me studied so much. I didn’t have that sort of motivation except for special cases – which were few and far between.
And Eun was like that too, and recently, her newest conquest was finding me a new place to say so I could stop sneaking around the dorm and lying on her floor – because her roommate was getting pretty pissed now, too, and for good reason. I really wasn’t supposed to be there.
“It’s maybe forty minutes from the University,” Eun began her pitch, “but you can always take the subway. It’s got a lot of space, a full kitchen, two bedrooms. Only one bathroom, though.”
“Full?”
“Yeah, it’s got a bathtub and everything. I mean, the shower is just the showerhead in the bathtub, but.”
I shrugged. That was like my house in Cleveland. I was used to sharing that bathroom, too.
“The ventilation, I hear, isn’t that great,” Eun cringed a little, “and it’s not, like, a hi-tech place. But the atmosphere tends to be pretty quiet. No one will bother you – probably.”
I waved a hand around my Danish. The house in Cleveland had sucky ventilation (I was in the room that was either super hot in the summer or way too cold in the winter), and I could always add extra locks if I had to. At this point, I felt like I shouldn’t look a gift horse in the mouth. I took the paper as I set down my meal and glanced over the technicalities.
When I looked at the price, however, I froze a little. Even if I split it, I was really going to have to work my ass off to try and keep up. I glanced up at Eun and accusingly pointed at the number while chewing furiously so I could tell her off without pastry flying out of my mouth.
Eun held up her hands and told me to calm down or a second. “I already found a roommate for you. The real estate agent trying to sell this place is friends with him.”
“‘Him’?” I repeated incredulously around the pastry. I swallowed harshly and coughed for a second. Eun took advantage of this.
“Yeah, it’s a guy,” she said flippantly, as if it wasn’t a big deal, before continuing, “Anyway, he’s already planning to move in anyway, so you’ll—”
“Eun, you’re trying to get me to share a house with another guy? A stranger?” I glared at her, surprised that she would even think of considering this. It was true I didn’t know this guy yet and I should’ve probably given him the benefit of the doubt, but damn it, if I wasn’t comfortable with this, I wasn’t comfortable with this.
“I know, I know,” Eun insisted. She returned my glare with one of her own. “You don’t think I didn’t consider that? But when else are you going to get a deal like this? If it was my choice, I’d let you stay in the dorm without anyone knowing for the rest of the year, but we both know that you hate it there, and Tess is getting really annoyed that she has to step around you in the mornings, too.”
I sat back in my chair and scowled, my hair getting into my face and tickling my nose. I impatiently blew it away and pushed it back before I leaned over the table, again.
“How old is he?”
“Twenties.”
“Student?”
“I’m not sure.”
“Job?”
“I think so.”
“Do you know anything about this guy?”
“Not really.”
I started to glower again when Eun said huffily, “I was going to ask you to meet him first before we did anything! I wasn’t going to ask you to room with a stranger, for God’s sake.”
I shook my hair out frustratedly and threw myself back into the chair again, crossing my arms. I frowned because Eun was right – and I hated it when someone was right and I didn’t want them to be. This was the best deal that had come along to me for a while now, and throwing it away would be stupid at this point. I was already asking a lot at Eun’s expense, including her having to try and talk down her fed up roomie (three’s a crowd, after all). I should’ve been leaping on this chance.
“Fine,” I mumbled. Eun perked up for a moment, but then she settled back down and arched an eyebrow very primly. “I’m sorry, what did you say?”
“Fine,” I said louder. “Fine, I’ll go meet this guy.”
“Yeah?” Eun grinned, looking like a cat that just got the cream. Since I just admitted my defeat, she might as well have gotten cream.
“Yeah,” I agreed haggardly, rising from my seat. “When are we meeting them?”
“They’re looking at the loft right now,” Eun clapped her hands once, shooting up to join me and to hail a cab. “I asked them to wait for us until, like, one.” She glanced at her phone and clicked her tongue. I checked my own watch and said blandly, “Well, shoot.”
“Hey,” Eun pointed a finger at me and my language, and I rolled my eyes. It was one of her things. She didn’t like people to excessively swear, and of course, she didn’t swear, either. I tried not to do it a lot around her, but sometimes I would just slip one in – try and desensitize her. I was surprised she hadn’t been. We lived in New York for God’s sake.
“If he’s high or whatever when we meet him, though,” I advised Eun as a cab finally pulled up, “I am going to kill you.”
“Duly noted,” Eun nodded pleasantly as she climbed in. “Are you coming or what?”
The car ride, of course, was long and took forever, what with traffic and everything. But we got to the address eventually, and when we finally got to the top floor (Top floor, I thought to myself petulantly. More work getting groceries up) by way of the stairs, since the elevator looked like it was going to cave in the moment anyone set foot in it, we hadn’t met another soul. The place seemed and felt empty, even though Eun was sure people lived here. I mean, it wasn’t like we were expecting people to pop their heads out and welcome us in, but we were kind of expecting the place to feel like it’d been lived in, at least. But the plaster was falling apart so it looked like a gray wall with white spots and splatters on it. It had the vague smell of mildew and decay, and the windows that were on all the landings were foggy, scratched, and only let in dim, stringy light. Not really wholesome, you know?
The stairs were brown and had that plastic covering that a lot of public schools put over their stairs, complete with the circle grips on it so no one would slip. The railings were wood that hadn’t been sanded down completely, so while they had been worn down by time and other tenants, it still felt rough and grainy to the touch. Eun was sure she was going to get a splinter, too.
Every landing was rather small and narrow. When Eun and I went to see how wide one was, we stood with our arms apart and we could comfortably grip each other’s forearms while still grazing the opposite walls with our fingertips. So I guess it wasn’t that narrow – but it wasn’t wide, either. The floor was made of scuffed brown and blackening white tiles – or rather, a design of tiles. They weren’t actually tiles.
The entire ascent was loud and clunky, too, which only intensified with all the echoes we made. It was such a hollow and cold place that I wasn’t sure if I would ever feel comfortable going up and down these stairs every morning. It almost felt wrong to make a racket, too, although it wasn’t exactly reverence that kept our voices down. I guess it was vague discomfort.
When we finally made it to the loft (402A), I hesitated at the door for a moment. It was as if I wasn’t sure I really wanted to know what was on the other side of the entrance. My hand hovered over the tarnished bronze knob, considering it with a seriousness that I couldn’t quite explain. Eun glanced between it and me for a little bit, wondering if I was just doing one of my mental preparations before something like a job interview or something, before huffing impatiently at my ridiculousness. She batted my hand away and opened the door herself.
It made a sticking, cracking sound as it popped out of the frame all of a sudden, as if it was jumping out of the mold, and then it swung into the loft. It was a heavy door. I could hear it clunk as it hit the inside wall. I blinked and glanced around at what I could see from my point in the doorway, but all I could see were two doors facing each other built into a wall, so there was a sort of indentation between them, and a space that presumably led to another main room.
“Oh, my God, Alex,” Eun sighed before pushing me in. I stumbled a bit as I clattered inside. Eun followed after.
We glanced at each other uncertainly, then, glancing at the dirty floor and then at our shoes. Well, since it was a sort of open house situation, I think we mutually decided there was no need to take our shoes off. It felt weird, though, walking around a house in shoes.
“Where’re the people that we were supposed to meet?” I asked Eun. She took out her phone and looked at the time in response.
“I hope they didn’t leave already,” she frowned.
“Maybe they—”
I paused as I heard a pair of clicking heels and another pair of heavily footfalls. I turned to my left and saw a pair – a woman and a man – appear from around a corner. They were both blond, the woman’s curls bouncing and boinging all the way down the hall, and the guy’s hair was sticking in every which way, although I don’t think it was a fashion statement. It was more that he was too absentminded or didn’t care enough to take care of it (and it wasn’t one of those “I’m too cool to take care of my hair” sort of things, either). The woman was dressed smartly, with a pencil skirt and patterned blouse, while the guy was only barely put together. I was, frankly, surprised that he hadn’t come wearing pajamas. His white shirt and his washed out jeans were stained with paint splatters. I could tell all the way from the end of the hall. As he approached, I saw that there were flecks of paint on the thick rectangular frames of his glasses, and it was paint that was sticking the ends of his hair together. There were faint stains all over his fingers and hands, too, as if he tried washing them off but gave up halfway through. I was amazed that he could live like that. If I had paint on my hair or on my glasses, I would’ve been going insane, running my hands through my hair and trying to pick off all the flecks off the frames. How did he see, even?
“Hi,” Eun began the introductions, sticking out a hand towards the woman. “I’m Eun. It’s nice to meet you! We spoke on the phone.”
I was always amazed at how adult Eun could sound when the situation demanded it. I always sounded like I was pretending.
“Angela,” the woman took Eun’s hand and shook it once. “I’m the real estate agent for the place.” She glanced over Eun and said, “You’re not the one looking for the place, though, are you?”
“No, I’m not,” Eun confirmed. That was my cue, I approached the woman, also presenting a hand and putting on as best a smile as I could.
“I’m looking at the place,” I said. “Hi there.”
Angela took my hand in a vice grip. Her hands were soft but belonged to someone that was cutthroat and definitely knew what the Hell she was doing. She looked me over, from the blue in my hair to my toes sticking out of my flip flops, before asking, “And you are?”
“Alexandra Keum,” I introduced myself. “Just call me Alex, though.”
At that, the guy that had been left out twitched a little. I glanced towards him.
“I guess you’re looking at the house too, then?” I asked, extracting my hand from Angela’s and opening and closing it at my side to make sure all my fingers were still working.
“I am,” he said. His voice was thin and sounded like it would break. Or rather, his voice wouldn’t crack or anything, but if you took his voice and made it into an object, like glass, it would shatter upon touching it. I held out my hand again to shake his. He took it and shook it – loosely and limply – before letting it drop.
“What’s your name?” I prompted him after a moment. I felt like I didn’t have to reintroduce myself, since I was standing maybe half a foot away from him when I told everyone my name.
“Alexander,” he told me warily. “You can call me Alex, though.”
“Oh,” I said, surprised. “So, we basically have the same name, huh?”
“I guess.”
There’s no guesswork about it, I thought to myself sullenly. I glared at Eun for a moment, and she pretended not to notice. Evidently, however, she was not as confident in her idea as she was before. With good reason. You could probably wave a check for a million dollars in front of this guy’s face and he’d never even notice – or blink – or do anything. I hated absentminded people. No, that was inaccurate. I hated people who couldn’t keep up with me. And that might sound arrogant, elitist, and single-mined (because it is arrogant, elitist, and single-minded), but my preferences were my preferences, and I didn’t want to live with someone who looked dazed and confused twenty four-seven.
“Well,” Angela called us back to reality, “would you all like to look around?”
“Yes, please,” Eun answered for me, and before I knew it, I was being dragged around the apartment like a child. I would’ve much rather looked at everything without Angela telling me all the technicalities of everything. I think she was trying to make it the most boring and dull tour ever. And she was doing a good job of it, too. Eun and Angela looked vaguely disgusted by the black muck and mildew that built up between the shower tiles and the warped, yellowing windows in the main area that had been just off to the side of the two rooms in the wall (they were bedrooms, identical and empty). The kitchen, where Angela and Alex had appeared from when Eun and I entered, was quite nice, I felt. The main area actually led out to a fire escape sort of thing, where the stairs were attached to the side of the building and towards the back. In theory, someone could just walk up and use this entrance instead of the main once that Eun and I went through, but I personally thought that I wouldn’t be using it often. It was one of those stair cases that had the spaces in between the steps, and I was one of those people that always felt like I was going to pitch right through those openings and fall to my death – as ridiculous as that sounded.
Overall, Eun was unimpressed, Angela seemed to be fed up with trying to make this place sound great, I was pretty much willing to take it, and Alex was unreadable.
Eventually, Eun and Angela went off to the side to talk about some more nitty gritty stuff – costs and all of that, which I felt like I should be dong, but if Eun was volunteering I certainly wasn’t going to get in her way. It ended up that I joined Alex looking out of the large windows of the main room into the street outside.
The main area was open and completely empty. There were no walls or anything that broke it up. It was just a space. A space for anything. The stairs to the outside were on the adjacent wall to the tall windows that covered almost the entire wall on their side, which welcomed you when you walked in through the hall. The curtains that usually covered the windows had been pushed to the side, and I could see why. They were colored a terrible mustard yellow, and it looked like they were all musty and full of dust. I would have to replace them.
Already planning on interior décor, huh? I smiled to myself. Alex must’ve noticed, because he glanced at me quizzically.
“Uh, no,” I waved a hand. “I was just thinking about something else.”
Alex didn’t question it. He went back to gazing out the window, watching the cars and the little people go by and about their lives. It was so strange, watching them. I felt like we were apart from them.
“You’re a student?” Alex asked me suddenly. I started and looked at him, trying to tell what he was trying to gain from the conversation, but his face betrayed nothing.
Maybe he’s just genuinely trying to talk, I snapped at myself. Not every guy is a serial killer.
“Yeah, I am,” I confirmed. “Sophomore.”
“Oh. You’re nineteen, then?”
I nodded.
“You’re young,” Alex commented. I blinked and asked him tentatively, “How old are you, then?”
“Twenty five.
Well, that crossed out undergrad. I tried not to look too taken aback. He was older than I expected.
“Are you a grad student?”
“No.”
“Oh.” I glanced at the paint on his clothes and hands. “Do you have a job?”
“Yes.”
Painting doesn’t count. “As what?”
“Hired gun.”
He said it with such confidence and said it so quickly and offhand that it took me a second to realize that he was joking. He didn’t even crack a smile when I started laughing a little.
“No, seriously,” I said, grinning. When he didn’t reply, I assumed that he just didn’t want to tell a giggly nineteen year old girl his occupation – although he would probably have to soon, considering that we would be living together, if I decided to take the deal. And if he decided to take the deal, too. I felt like I was talking about blackmail or drugs or something.
When silence settled between us again, I asked suddenly, “Do you smoke?”
“What?” I felt like Alex heard what I had said perfectly, but he was kind of making sure that I actually meant to say it – as in, “Are you sure you want to ask such a personal question right off the get go?”
“Do you smoke?” I repeated patiently. I wasn’t about to be shut down over this question. I could be very brazen when I had to be. Well, I was brazen all the time.
Alex stared at me for a moment. I wasn’t sure if he was offended or not, but eventually he turned back to the windows and replied, “No.”
Well, I didn’t think he was lying – but I wasn’t sure if he was telling the truth either. I supposed that maybe he had quit or done a joint or something when he was younger. I could deal with that. As long as it wasn’t a thing, right now.
I expected him to ask why I was asking him such a private question, but if he was wondering, he didn’t voice it. I was surprised and thankful that he didn’t, though. A lot of people, myself included, would’ve wanted to know.
Presently, Angela and Eun returned to us, and Angela immediately strode over to me and looked me straight in the eye.
“So?” she asked. “Do you want it or not?”
“Uh,” I blinked, surprised at the directness, but replied, “yeah, I do. I do want it.”
Angela blinked once, but I wasn’t sure what the blink meant. But I felt like it meant something.
Then Angela clapped her hands, making everyone else except Alex jump a foot in the air. “Great! I’ll make sure the paper work is taken care of. I’ll be in touch. When do you want to move in?”
“Oh,” I said. Now that I thought about it, I never really considered when would be a good time to come. “I mean, as soon as possible, I guess.” I turned to Alex. “When were you planning on moving in?”
“Tonight, if I could.”
“Oh, how are you getting all your stuff over here?”
Alex shrugged like it was no big deal. “I don’t have a lot.”
“Oh,” I said for the third time. I frowned and glanced at Eun. “Well, I don’t think I’ll get all my stuff packed by tonight, and Sunday I have a rehearsal and stuff, so I probably won’t get home until late … and then school. So … next week Friday afternoon, maybe?” I cringed, knowing that I’d be leaving Alex to fend for himself for about a week, although that might’ve been preferable to dealing with me.
Alex shrugged again. No big deal.
“Okay, cool,” I nodded, looking between Alex and Eun and Angela and Alex again. “Then I guess I’ll see you in a week.” I waved pleasantly as I dragged Eun to the door.
“See you.”