Author Games Compilation [Cycle 1]

Task 4 - Nadomi Pasta (RC & NN)

Say what you mean
and not what you desire.

Care more than you hurt
and stack sticks of the pyre.

Now, it is time,
now we can't wait.

Now, we can kill.
Remorse is our fate.

In response to the day; in response to the night,
Unfiltered, we say....
'Cuz coffee needs filters, right?

Naomi, this is my coping mechanism. Get out of my poem.

Radley, oh Radley, you are more grand than thy Canyon.

K, sweetie, at least I'm not named after a Christmas song.

K, sweetie, at least I'm not named after a sanitarium from a TV show about lying.

......what?

Nevermind. Carry on.

No, the moment's gone.

What? You were just getting somewhere!

Yeah, then you took the pen out of my hand.

.............sorry.

"Whatever," Radley muttered. His hand flew over the sheet of paper before Naomi could protest, and then it was in two pieces, the tear of it filling the gap of silence in the room. The two became four, four became six, and so on and so forth until the poem was degraded to mere bits of confetti sitting in his palm. He sprinkled them over a desk before leaning back in a chair that was too small for him. The desk used to belong to a student. And the odds of it belonging to one of the few students still running around- still alive- were slim. A kid had sat there that morning, and now that kid was dead, and Radley sitting there meant that kid was being replaced.

He felt guilty.

Naomi, she felt guilty, too, but for reasons kept only to herself. She never opened her door when she heard the cries for help; she stole from her own classroom, a knife which probably belonged to one of her students for defense, and now this. She ruined Radley's poem, and now she felt like complete and utter shit. "You didn't have to do that," she said. An awkward shuffling of feet ensued when he remained silent. "It was a beautiful poem."

"Whatever," Radley repeated, "It doesn't matter."

"As a psychology teacher, I have full right to go all psychological on you. That poem, sir, was your coping mechanism, like you said. I had no right to interrupt, so I'm sorry, Mister Canyon." Somewhat satisfied, Naomi crossed her arms.

"You bitch," Radley hissed at the woman, hardly suppressing the inevitable half-smile. Another silence filled the room, less tense than before, but still excruciating.

What Naomi said didn't have the intended effect, but it was still something- as opposed to the blank expression that had been covering Radley's face since they had found one another. Neither of them wanted to think back to that moment, when the realization hit, when the kids had been running all over the place, when their school had gone from bells and lessons, to screams and gunshots. So they didn't. And that's why the silence was so tense - as concluded by Naomi - there were things they didn't want to talk about.

Leave him alone, Naomi thought to herself. For now...

"How many do you think they kept alive?" Radley asked quietly, as if the question made him guilty of the massacre. He cringed visibly after the words slipped off his tongue, disgusted with himself.

"Not too many, I'd guess..." There was a lot of blood.

Somehow, Naomi answering his saturnine question dignified it to normalcy. Yet, for some reason, their battle against stillness raged on, in their heads. The war ground was verbal, different in both of their minds.