bahuvrihi(s)

 bahuvrihi(s)
A piggybacking dialogue

“The gaul of this weather, so sharp.”

“In the winter, the mind wanders because the body cannot.”

“What's your point in saying this? Are you trying to rub it in?”

“I am deleting enticements to travel from my email.”

“Yes, stay, says the email server, stay here, with us.”

“Not what I meant.”

“I know. I tease. Winter is this dizzying tear-sparkled vortex of grief, for me, as you know.”

“You speak vaguely, I'd applaud but the sound would be muted by all of this snow.”

“Life is so short.”

“There's a sacredness to life's shortness. There's a kind of ruefully byzantine meaninglessness that comes from thinking about how I've spent my time so far. I don't have a good enough narrative to encapsulate, and instead of inventing one, all I want to do is travel, get away, I know that story well enough already, it practically tells itself. You look out the window, feeling like you are at a standstill, and stuff goes by.”

“We may only be grains of sand in a vast eternal desert but Christ if I'm going to give it all up without first sliding in her DMs.”

"Amelia?"

“She Ameliorates.”

“You should point out your redeeming qualities.”

“Sure, I'm good looking, and funny. Very very thin-skinned, socially vulnerable, and rigorously irresolute.”

“To her. I know you already.”

“She seems happier not knowing I'm interested. Plus, I'm enjoying her locus of langour.”

“Nice little alliteration you've concocted there.”

“Should I write it down?”

“I would, but my afflatus is flacid”

“Sounds like a medical problem. What's the difference between illusive and elusive?”

“One inhabits the margins. Why?”

“I'm looking for a word.”

“What'd you lose it?”

“I never had it.”

“Did you try retracing your steps?”

“I want a word that will stop her in her tracks.”

“Like, break her ankle?”

“Like stop her breath.”

“With a word? In 2022? I'm not sure what type of bite that worn tooth will bear?”

“I think, perhaps your house is full of ghosts.”

“No, that's my roommate coming home. Hold on let me close the door.”

“Is that a metaphor?”

“I don't want him coming in here and trying to show you his gun.”

“Do you ever have that feeling that everything you say feels important and everything anyone else says feels stupid, inconsequential?”

“You might want to bring that one up with your shrink.”

“Because I alternate between that but also when I'm about to speak I'm like frozen in terror that my words won't be liked and so I'm silent, but then I'm afraid I won't be noticed because I'm silent.”

“I made a list of all the stuff I need from the pharmacy. Not really though because I stopped when I filled the page.”

“So you're going out?”

“No, I can't.”

“Why?”

“As Sam Evian said 'in America, we cut our drugs and hope for payday'.”

“All of history is just one long form of desire.”

“Is that like when they say 'our economy is strong' it's just another way of saying 'the rich get richer.,'?”

“Or time is nothing but a wet glissade.”

“History is a rolling barrel over a waterfall.”

“Stargazing is storytelling.”

“Did you see that Cracked video where he points out how the Browncoats from Firefly/Serenity were actually the bad guys?”

“I feel I must expostulate.”

“He had a very convincing argument.”

“Negative Five Star Review, on principal.”

“What'd you do today?”

“I was on campus.”

“Any news?”

“Everyone was looking at their phones.”

“That's what people do now. Which, if you ask me is an improvement over when the whole place smelled like Axe Body Spray and Rohypnol.”

“Amelia wore her hair in a bun, and that white frilly jacket.”

“I remember the one.”

“Regret is a slope.”

“That's why I reneg on all my commitments.”

“What was it that the Trojans saw in Helen, some kind of allure?”

“The birds sang when she walked by, like in a Disney movie.”

“The hero's journey takes sacrifice, right? Concessions?”

“The only equation worth any salt is dissolution.”

“How do you do it?”

“I have an inflated sense of personal destiny”

“Well, I'm going to message her. Wish me luck.”

“Be prepared for rejection. Be careful what you wish for. I was starving once, too, but mine hungers expand now that I am fed. And wear protection. Every accident can lead to parturition.”

“I almost wish you hadn't said anything.”

“Then forget I said anything.”