verbas (n.)
Latin
[Plural] Words.
______________________
In every worthwhile relationship, of every context and kind and varying participating parties, there has to be three incidents: The Unspoken, the Unheard, and the Undoable. If you find yourself without them, don't worry, they'll come up, or the relationship will end before they need to.
Between Ari and Max, they had their three. Arguably, a bit early. But their timing was never right anyway.
I can't tell you them all at once, that'd be cruel to a number of the involved population. So we'll go chronologically, like proper mankind.
The Unspoken:
The apartment was too cramped for the Molloy Deep.
Ari stared at the sentence. The Molloy Deep. 5,550 meters deep. Six hundred square meters in floor area. Between the Molloy Fracture Zone and the Spitsbergen Fracture Zone. Reached only ever by Victor Vescovo. Norwegian-Greenland Sea, Arctic Ocean. Full of clay and sea pigs.
The apartment was too cramped for the Molloy Deep.
Yeah. No shit.
Ari closed his eyes. What he really meant was the apartment was too cramped for him. Writing was refined thinking. Stephen King said so himself. But Ari couldn't even think and what was there to refine about that?
The apartment was too cramped for the Molloy Deep.
What he also meant was the apartment was too cramped for his thinking, and maybe that's why his mind wouldn't think at all. It feared being squished and getting all its words pushed together to say something he didn't mean. Ari couldn't even talk how he meant. If he wrote like it, too...
The apartment was too cramped for the Molloy Deep.
His chest ached. His stomach burned. He wouldn't mind the Molloy Deep. What was the apartment complaining about?
The apartment was too cramped for the Molloy Deep.
He slammed the laptop shut. "Then go to fucking Mariana," he muttered.
"What's in Mariana?"
Ari. Thoughts. Molloy. Max. The apartment would explode at the seams.
He turned around. "Nothing useful." Ari pushed the computer away on his bed/desk. "What are you doing here?" he asked, because he as a college senior had a right to reclusively angst over general life, but Max was graduated and therefore had more important things to do.
His grin was half-hearted and empathetic. He headed over to sit at Ari's feet, smile fading into something knowing. The walls of the apartment swelled and strained.
"Are you okay?" he asked.
Ari drew his knees up to his chest. He hugged his legs to his body and imagined sinking.
"It's not working," he whispered.
Max paused. "The words?"
Ari didn't answer, because yes, but also because no. But no would need more explaining, and there was no room for Ari's tears.
Max said, "The chemo."
The world looked too left-aligned. Ari said, "It was. They updated us today. She's too tired so they're stopping." He squeezed his eyes shut tighter, watching the blackness fizzle. "So it's over."
YOU ARE READING
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