Short Stories

Snowbaz Just Words

 "I learned a new word today."

"Great, now you know ten."

"Shut up, Baz. I just thought it was cool. Selcouth."

"Sounds ugly."

"It means strange, unfamiliar, and marvellous."

"Well you are not very selcouth, Snow."

"Obviously not. I'm not unfamiliar, you've known me forever. And I'm certainly not marvellous."

"Right. So you're... unselcouth."

"Yeah."

"Rasasvada."

"What the bloody hell did you say?"

"A noun. An Indian philosophy. The taste of bliss in the absence of all thoughts."

"What does bliss taste like?"

"You're a moron and a half, Snow. It's not really about taste, it's about feeling."

"Well it's a philosophy, so in my philosophy bliss tastes like butter."

"So, according to the Simon Snow version, rasasvada is the taste of butter in the absence of all thoughts. That sounds about right."

"Okay, I've got one. It's not Greek or Indian or anything like that. Baz, are you listening?"

"Well go on, then."

"Drapetomania. An overwhelming urge to run away."

"...Do you want to run away?"

"Who doesn't?"

"Why don't you? Let's do it. Fuck this, fuck the war and the fighting. Fuck everything, let's run away."

"Why would I run away with you?"

"I saved one before we left. Snow, look at me, do you want to hear it? It is Greek, and I know you hate that. But-hey, stay with me. Kalon. It's perfect beauty. Simon, Simon, it's you. Ideal perfect beauty in the physical and moral sense. Come on, stay awake just a little longer. I love you. You're a mess of a person, but you're more beautiful than anyone I've ever known. Simon! Listen to me. The world-I was so lost before we got stuck together. I had lost my mother and my soul and I was given you. You beautiful idiot, I love you. Don't, Simon. Don't leave, come on. I was given you and the moment I saw you with that ridiculous hair and your red ball-do you remember that ball?-I knew I was done for. Snow? No, no, not yet. Simon, Simon, you're supposed to be alive. I can't be more alive than you, you would never allow that. Open your eyes. Open your... Come and get me, you piece of shit! You killed Simon, and for that I'm going to have to make you suffer."

Look I knooowww this isn't that good, but bro the world right now is fucked and writing this stupid shit grounds me.