Rhombus [h.s]

5

5

The next day, Murdock wanted to meet on campus at the West Library, the closest one to my dorm. SLS had two libraries, the East at the other part of the campus: where Murdock was indefinitely banned from visiting, and the West Library: where he wasn't banned from visiting. Yet.

Emily looked suspicious when I started packing up The Voyage to the Mind and a notebook after dinner.

"You're leaving the dorm after dark? Do you have a date?" She said it like it was a joke.

"I'm meeting someone to study."

"Okay." She smiled, almost knowingly. "Be careful."

...

The West Library had five wide levels aboveground and two narrow levels below. It was absolutely huge, and Victorian in interior design. The thing I loved the most were the spiral staircases. They looked like long wands for God with giant ribbons twirled around them. The atmosphere was still: the only sound is the soft patter of feet on the carpet, whispers and hushed laughter, and the occasional hum of a copy machine. There was a constant whirring no matter where you were standing, and even though I couldn't see any air vents, parts of the room had their own wind.  

At the table where we were sitting, Murdock had to set a copy of Jane Eyre on his open notebook to keep the pages from riffling.

He wrote in messy block letters, and he used a fountain pen that's too runny, so he smeared black ink across the paper as he went. "Read this. I've started something. Tell me if you don't like it. We can always rewrite."  

When he handed me his purple notebook, I could hardly read, even right side up. "What's this word?" I asked, pointing.

"Propel."

A Journal of Modern Life

by Edward and Howler

Extraordinary minds propel us forward.

It is our duty to write the truest sentences, and to fill these papers with the consequences of vorfreude. If not, the consequences of stupidity. Some phrases and dialogues may be disjoined, but all is simply the product of experimentation. Do not fear the ingestion of change.

"I like it...," I said. "So, this'll be the introduction?" 

"The draft introduction, yeah." He said with a nod. "But I think something's still missing."

"An epigraph. You know how pretentious stories start with pretentious quotations?"

"Do you start your journals with pretentious quotations?"

I hunched over my bag to look for a pen. "All the time."    

It was hard for me to write with Murdock watching like he'd just handed me a hot plate.

"The true alchemists do not change lead into gold; they change the world into words."

- William H. Gass

I turned the notebook around and pushed it back at him. He poked his tongue in his cheek and smiled.

"Genius...," he said. "It fits perfectly."

"It does, doesn't it?"

He nodded his head a few more times.

"Murdock?"

"Yeah."

"Why'd you only write when you're high?"

His head snapped up. I looked down. I shouldn't have said that.  

"I already told you, Howler."

I looked up at him slowly. His eyes were gleaming with amusement, and weed, and anger, but mostly weed.  

"What does it really feel like? To write through the...you know. The high." I whispered the last part, because I was a coward.

"Well," he leaned back in his chair. "I need to pour out my thoughts on a steady basis, and the pot helps me to color outside the lines. It can certainly make a man boldly go where he's never gone before. And the words, whizzing out of you so fast you feel like breaking and flying at the same time. It's a beautiful thing."

I nodded and he gave me a sly undersmile, as if wanting to send me a subliminal message.

"Alrighty then. I'll start." He picked up his pen and pulled the cap off with his teeth. And I noticed the side of his palm was smeared with ink.

"So...what do you want me to do?" I asked.

He looked up and smiled. "You can read while I'm writing. I just want your company, really. And your pretentious quotations."

I could feel myself blushing and tried to stop. Stay cool, Rue.

"I brought The Voyage to the Mind with me."

Murdock nodded but didn't say anything. He wrote in a scrawling half block-half cursive, sometimes both in one sentence. I tried to read his handwriting upside down from across the table, but all I could get were the "you's" and "I's". After a few attempts of deciphering his writing, I found myself staring at his face. Up close, his eyes were greener, and his eyebrows were practically sentient. He licked his lips when he wrote, tapping his tongue on his front teeth.

"Take a picture, it'll last longer."

I looked down and pretended to laugh. It was really pathetic.

After a few hours, I was yawning, and Murdock had written four messy pages already.

"We should go," he said, reaching for his denim jacket. "It's midnight."

I inserted a bookmark on page 195 of The Voyage to the Mind and tucked it into my bag. He stood up and I followed him down the winding staircase. Murdock walked right next to me on the stairs, and we talked, but not very much. We didn't need to.

When we got outside, we stopped at the sidewalk. The library lights switched off behind us.

"All right," Murdock smiled—but he was already smiling, so that just meant that he smiled more. "You take care now."

"Okay," I said. "You too." I placed my arms through my backpack and walked to the opposite side.

"Howler."

I turn to face him. "Yeah?"

"Good night."

"Good night." And I watched him take the path that led off campus, all scruffy hair and black smudges and the stupid hipster cigarette in the moonlight.

When I got back up to my dorm, I did some reading for class. Then I stayed up reading some more The Voyage to the Mind until my eyes burned and I knew I'd fall asleep as soon as I climbed into bed.