A Firefly's Glow

Chapter Sixteen: Part Four

Character B: (gradually approaches) What is insanity?

Character A: Insanity is what you’re currently trying to inflict upon me.

Character B: Are you in insanity?

Character A: (hesitates) Not anymore.

Character B: Why not?

Character A: Because I refuse to forgive you.

 

I felt my head spin as I reread through the words with pursed lips. “Insanity means not refusing to forgive someone?” I squeaked, furrowing my eyebrows in obvious confusion.

I rolled onto my back, relieving my spine as it relaxed against the soft padding of the bed. “I’m in insanity reading over this script! I don’t get any of it! It’s like a box of jigsaw puzzles with half of the pieces missing!”

And I knew that somehow, my comparison with jigsaw puzzles against the bemusing Script 13 was somewhat correct.

The only things I knew about the characters were that one of them kept persistently apologizing, and the other kept refusing. Then there was the random subject of insanity being brought into the plot.

What a peculiar dialogue . . .

I peered at the high canopy ceiling that towered over my head. The dim light that emanated from the tall lamps that stood against the walls just a few feet away from the base of the bed filled the room.

I was well aware that it was far after my bedtime, and that I should be snoozing with my bedroom lights flipped off. The soft covers of the bed should have been sitting up to my chin. My eyes should have been closed. I should have been dazing off into a dream that I wouldn’t be able to wake up from even if a bomb exploded by my head.

But instead, I was sitting up on the surface of my bed with my stomach aching since I was lying on it for the past hour. My eyes were drooping, but they were still open. I was still awake. I wasn’t snoozing beneath the covers of my bed at all.

The only progress I made so far was that the lines of my dialogue were memorized. I had to admit that it really wasn’t too difficult to etch the lines into my mind.

Basically, Character B would apologize, and as Character A, I would repeat the same answer over and over and over at least fifteen times. “No.” “No.” “No.”

“No.” really wasn’t a very hard word to memorize.

But no matter how many times I reread the script, I couldn’t understand the message it was trying to send.

I guessed that the lesson was, “Never give up on apologizing to your girlfriends and annoying the heck out of them until they forgive you,” but I was sure that this wasn’t the theme, even though I knew the theme “Never give up” extremely well.

And Character B certainly never gave up while apologizing to Character A.

As this thought ran through my mind, I immediately remembered another thought and my eyes widened.

“I still haven’t apologized to Keita about spilling that glass of water on him!” I planted my fist into the palm of my free hand. “I can’t believe I forgot!”

I found that a good opportunity to apologize to Keita would have been earlier that evening when Keita allowed me for the second time that day to rest my head against his shoulder. It wouldn’t have been as awkward to say, “I’m sorry” at a time like that. It wouldn’t have been as awkward as the general scene of my head on his shoulder.