The Metaphysicist (Kill Your Darlings) | Featured

pack for hell

The house is empty when I stumble into it with new ambitions, Edie and Jack gone somewhere to rekindle the old flame that I've witnessed burn out solely from the limited experiences of sneaking out of the house to do some "research" at the library, and I suppose I'm glad for them, because their absence leaves me alone to pack my bag to later pour out in my new home of Lucien's lonely apartment.

On one hand, I wish they were here so that I could brag about how I made so much of a friend that he's practically begging for me to move in with him after only a few days of knowing him, but on the other hand, I'd rather be free of their questions pounding my brain who doesn't have any answers for them, because I honestly don't know what the hell I'm doing myself, but humans enjoy impulsivity because it feels nice in the moment, and even if I will crumble by the time I come to my senses, right now it seems like a pretty amazing idea, and Lucien is rushing me too expeditiously for an effective protest.

Lucien, while whirring his hands in strange movements to propose that I should move faster, is simultaneously imbibing his surroundings, the old fashioned layout of it all, with the creaking wicker chairs and light blue fabrics clawing at the walls and at the windows to embrace portions of the sunlight to protect the house from it, and I must admit that it is a very beautiful space that Edie has constructed through hours of shopping and an exhausted Jack by her side, but Lucien doesn't utter a single word about it, though he's nevertheless impressed by it in the slightest of fashions and without speech, as the rest of his cognition is being consumed by ordering me to hurry the hell up or else Edie will crash our party and ask why there's a strange man in their house planning the ostensible kidnapping of her roommate.

Part of me is devouring as much time as I can just to annoy the frantic Lucien Carr who won't stop chattering about how Edie won't like him and how Jack will probably beat him up for whatever deranged reason saturated by the common paranoia of a writer deluded enough to draft ballads of tragedy as Lucien most definitely does, and he may see through my plan, now or down the road, but if he hasn't acted upon it, then my antics can't be that disastrous, and I can continue to harvest the time I need to pack my entire life into one bag.

But Lucien loves to play people with the psychological secrets he's earned from his writing and his research to write something better than before, as a writer is never content with what words they are offered, so I might as well snag the opportunity to play him, too. I can pretend, just as he pretended to be interested in me, though that may simply be my writer's paranoia.

"I apologize for taking so long, Lucien. It's not like I have to move my whole life to an unfamiliar place with an unfamiliar man."

I'm not so concerned with whether Lucien is a serial killer or not, considering I first worried if he would think that about me, but he's not the one moving into my dingy basement, rather the one defacing and criticizing it, so I can claim higher advantages to guilt trip him into imitating meticulous steps to ensure that I feel safe in his apartment, because it's obvious that beneath that layer of sarcasm and phlegmaticness he actually cares a lot, and from that generosity, I can play him like he played me, and I opt for the sardonic route of latent fear.

"What, are you packing a hotline to the police, too?" Lucien tosses a stray superhero t-shirt to the side, attempting to organize something to speed up the process. "And you live in a fucking basement of all places. What do you have to pack? The nonexistent remnant of your soul?"

Affecting much more than a tousle of his hair with my grand slap to his head, I bark, "Haha, very funny."

"But it's true," he mutters, hands bolted to his hips as he spins around with them still attached. He is then attracted to a meager object on my only dresser, whose contents are limited yet depended on, and he shuffles over to inspect it.