The Typical Insanity

Y O U J U S T D I D N ' T K N O W M E

I'm sent out the door by Clementine with my coat and then handed a crumpled sheet of paper. She tells me that my apartment is nothing but a ghost's household and that I should buy everything on that list (I assume she's referring to the paper) so that I 'can be happy where I live'. When the door slams shut, I turn and spot Rien waiting by the elevator.

"What is she still doing in there? Wasn't a friend of hers supposed to come over and give her a spare key or something?" he asks.

I shrug nonchalantly. "She said she wanted to repay somehow and decided to help clean up the place."

"And that includes letting her boss you around and making you her little errand boy?"

"Hey, don't say that." I press the down button beside the elevator. "She's a nice person and she means well. And maybe I do need truffle oil, I don't know what it is or what it's for but, I don't know."

There's a ding and we enter the elevator. Rien's silent for a moment before speaking up.

"What do you even see in that little French fry? She's two parts senseless and one part crazy."

"I don't want to talk about it, okay? Let's just get these stupid groceries and be on our way."

He shrugs nonchalantly and we exit the elevator. During the 20 minute walk to the closest grocery store, I kept forgetting to ask myself why we were walking in the first place. Which is why I asked Rien instead.

"Where is my car?"

"I don't understand you're infatuation with that lame blue car. Why do you care about it so much?"

"Aren't you the one who said answering a question with a question is bad? Just tell me where the car is."

"And you assume I know where it is because?"

And here I was on the verge of thinking that he was a cool and mysterious when in reality, he's the exasperating kid you want to put under a bus. You know those moments when the only way you can really answer an annoying question is by threatening them? How do you threaten an idea? I would say reality but it feels like I've lost all sense of that. What do ideas fear besides reality?

"How about you just answer the goddamned question?"

Even with the glittering mask you could swear that he was pouting.

"It's somewhere near Central Park. I thought it'd be easier if we ditched it."

"Your thoughts are unrequired seeing as we should both be following mine. Now, let's ditch the shopping list for now and go get the car, those are my thoughts and I'm going with them whether or not you decide to tag along."

Within the next 15 fifteen minutes, we were on the next subway transit to Central Park and in another five minutes, I'd sent Rien out to search for the car. I would do it myself but it felt like a fitting punishment of sorts. Eventually he came strolling back, without the car might I add.

"So?"

"It's right around the corner and thankfully, no parking tickets yet."

"How wonderful. And you couldn't be bothered to bring it back here? The keys were in the car itself, you know that."

He grumbles something under his breath. The more I look at him, the more I watch his profile, everything becomes warped and distorted. My vision grows vignette and suddenly I can't see Rien anymore, he's not there. My head's throbbing again. God, I hate these migraines.

"What did I tell you about God? There is none and that's truly a blessing for what He might have done with us, it's only better left guessing."

It's his voice, only, it's in my head. I can hear him echo through my mind and the throbbing increases. It's black now.