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Stagnation
Matthew Vita
Idle, Kurt Todd stared at
the tiny lines of glowing text and the single flashing cursor. In the
dark room the monitor provided the only source of light, a pale blue.
He sighed and drew his eyes away from the
screen. Where’s my notebook?
Wren appeared in the doorway. Kurt looked up from the point in space where his eyes had been focused.
“Writing in this light is gonna kill your eyes,” Wren said.
“It doesn’t bother me. And I’m more just staring at my screen, not really writing.”
“Sounds like fun.”
“Loads. Have you seen my notebook?”
“The little black one?”
“No, the pink one with the lock on the side to keep you from reading my innermost secrets.”
“Oh yeah, I was reading that one. Sorry, but you’re not really David’s type.”
“Seriously.”
“You’re
not, sorry.” Wren shook his head as he spoke. Kurt glanced at his
roommate and frowned. “I’ll look.” He sauntered out
of the room and down the hall. The black, pocket-sized reporter’s
notebook lay on the arm of the sofa. He picked it up, returned to
Kurt’s room, and tossed it on the desk.
“It was on the sofa.”
Kurt looked at the notebook. “Thanks.”
“No
problem,” said Wren. He read the handful of sentences over
Kurt’s shoulder. “Maybe you should keep it simple. If I
used ‘undulate’ in the first sentence I’d end up with
writer’s block, too.” Kurt said nothing.
“Okay, I’ll leave.”
He
returned to the living room and lowered himself onto the sofa. He could
hear Kurt down the hall, sporadically tapping at his keyboard. Wren
closed his eyes and let his mind wander. Sophia’s at class.
David’s shopping, or eating? Still early: nothing to do. Time
dragged on, slowed down; Wren became increasingly aware of the many
objects which filled the room. He considered the numerous distractions
available to him.
We
own too many movies. He eyed the DVDs which lined the shelves above the
television, an old Sony. David doesn’t even open some of them.
Why would anyone buy Attack of the Clones
to begin with? Why spend money on a crap movie you’ll never
watch? Wren’s eyes ran over the titles of the movies, the fancy
fonts and colors.
“Have
you ever noticed that we own a lot of violent movies?” he shouted
to Kurt. There was no answer. “Kurt?” Maybe he was writing
now.
“What
about the comedies?” Kurt asked. Wren sat up. Kurt, half in the
hall, leaned against the doorframe holding his notebook, a pen tucked
behind one ear.
“Some of them are violent,” said Wren. “There’s just less blood.”
He
paused, Kurt said nothing. “Did you ever notice how it
doesn’t matter how many people you kill in a movie, only how much
they bleed?”
“No,” said Kurt.
“Look
at James Bond. He runs around for two hours shooting people and earns
nothing higher than a PG-13 rating. I guarantee that if people bled in
any of those movies, they would be rated R.”
“Gore means higher ratings.”
“I
understand that. I agree with that. My point is that we allow our kids
to watch people die but then try to hide the details. Violent deaths
are messy. I don’t know why Hollywood tries to convince us
otherwise.”
“Corn syrup and red food coloring are expensive.”
“Help me pick a movie.”
Keys rattled outside the door. It opened quickly and David entered carrying a plastic bag.
“You’ll never guess what I found,” he said, disappearing into the kitchen.
“I
hope he didn’t completely lose it,” Wren said as he stood
from the couch. The two boys moved towards the kitchen. David stood
over the table cutting away at plastic wrapping. They looked at each
other, Kurt shrugged.
“So. Why the writer’s block?” Wren asked as they watched David’s struggle.
“I don’t know,” Kurt sighed. “I keep finding excuses not to write.”
They returned to the couch and sat down.
“Like losing your notebook?”
“Yeah,” Kurt said.
“You
can run for a long time…” Wren stopped. David stood in
front of them holding two guns, obviously plastic with their bright
orange tips. “Water guns?” Wren asked.
“Nope,”
said David. He aimed at their legs and opened fire. Tiny plastic
pellets began to collect on the floor. Wren jerked his feet back; jeans
offered no protection from the stinging beads.
“Are you done?” he asked.
“Oh come on,” said David. “These are awesome. We can have Airsoft fights.”
“Do you see what I mean?” Wren asked. Kurt nodded, yawned.
“Let
me see one,” he said. David tossed him a pistol. Kurt caught it
and aimed at David. They stood for a few moments, guns leveled at each
other, then opened fire. Wren sighed and retreated back to his room.
* * *
A
tattarrattat at the door drew Kurt from the solace of his room. He
answered and found Sophia holding a stack of books in her arms. She
pushed past him and into the living room where she dropped them on the
coffee table next to the crossed Airsoft guns.
“Wren’s not here,” he said.
“I
know, I just wanted to drop these off,” Sophia said, motioning
toward the books. She lifted one of the guns. “It’s good to
see you three acting your age.”
“David bought them.”
“Wren told me.”
Kurt nodded and glanced over the stack of books, philosophy and a tattered copy of Slaughterhouse-Five.
“Odd combination,” he said.
“Wren lent me Slaughterhouse. I’m returning it and lending him the others,” she said.
“A bit of light reading for when he has too much school work?”
“I think he can handle it.”
“Yeah, but he’ll complain to me, not you.”
“True.
But hey, that’s what friends are for, right?” she smiled.
“So have you finished anything lately? Or did I lose reading
privileges?”
“I’m in a slump.”
“Overwhelmed by the vast amount of reading assigned to English majors?”
“Hardly.
... I don’t know. I try to write, but end up distracting myself.
I turned out a few sentences yesterday. They might make a good
poem.”
“Want me to take a look?”
“Sure.” He turned toward the hallway and waved for her to follow.
Kurt
flicked the light switch on and opened a desk drawer. He produced a
single sheet of paper which Sophia accepted. The handful of sentences
were organized in a neat box through which Kurt had drawn an X in red
crayon.
She read over the lines in silence. “Did you get the idea from Wren?” she asked after finishing.
“Yeah.
He was talking about violent movies. But it’s not just movies.
Lots of art is violent. It’s like we use it to confront death
from a safe distance.” He grew quiet and allowed his eyes to
settle on the floor at
a point midway between himself and Sophia. “It’s like art is an attempt to overcome death.”
“I don’t know if anything helps you overcome death,” Sophia said.
“Why not?”
“Because
it’s impossible. If you overcame death you wouldn’t be
human. It’s the one thing that assures us that we’re
finite. Who knows what we’d be without it. Plus, it’s the
only thing you can’t pay someone else to do for you.” She
paused. “You know what you want to write. Stop looking for
excuses and do it.”
“I’m
trying. I sit down to write and… it’s chaos. I know that
all I have to do is make some sense out of it, but I can’t seem
to do that.”
“Keep trying,” Sophia said. Kurt nodded.
“I
just feel like I’m wasting my time. I came to a school to learn
to write, to learn a craft, and I can’t even figure out how to
write this.”
“You just need to get the fire burning again.”
Kurt nodded.
“And
don’t get so morose. Every living thing will die. What makes you
different is what you do up until that point.”
Silence
settled over them. In the quiet they could hear the apartment door
open, a pause, and then footsteps. Wren appeared in the doorway.
“When am I going to have time to read those?” he asked, holding one of Sophia’s books.
“You
can hold on to them for awhile. Read them over break. Or, if
you’re so lazy, let Kurt read them. He actually has a work
ethic.” Kurt looked from Sophia to Wren; their eyes met. Wren
smiled, then spoke:
“I don’t think Kurt should read them. His vocabulary is smothering him as is.”
The
joke fell flat. Kurt sat looking over the sheet of paper; the red
crayon seemed to draw his eyes down to the array of black letters, an
unavoidable mess that awaited his guidance. Wren waited a moment before
continuing down the hall and into his room. He collapsed onto his bed
and opened Sophia’s book. He read a line at random. Poetically man dwells on this earth.
Maybe Kurt should read this one. He tossed it onto his desk, closed his
eyes, and waited for Sophia to finish her conversation.
* * *
David
decided to spray-paint the Airsoft guns black, even though Wren said it
was illegal. They look real now, though I guess I’ve never seen a
real gun. I grew up in suburbia, raised by middle-class white
Catholics. Guns are an abstract idea we only encounter in movies. The
plastic pistol is the closest thing to a firearm I’ve ever held.
The spray-paint gives it an almost sticky feel, like it’s still
wet.
“I
could probably rob people with them now,” David said.
“Better watch your back, Kurt.” He stands, legs apart,
knees cocked out, spinning one of the guns around his index finger;
occasionally he stops it and brings his free hand down, almost-quickly,
eyes cold, in a Clint Eastwood imitation. Wayne’s eyes were never
cold, except maybe in True Grit, well, one eye at least.
“That’s
why it’s illegal to paint them,” Wren says. Stretched out
on the couch he flips through Sophia’s copy of Ulysses.
“Methimpikehoses… metempsychosis,” he says.
“That’s a big word. And I was worried about
‘undulate.’”
“It means reincarnation,” I say, aiming the gun at an empty Coke can David positioned across the room.
“That’s not much shorter,” Wren says.
“I
guess it’s hard to explain what happens after you die with a
short word,” I say, then squeeze the trigger, repeatedly, until
the can is surrounded by tiny plastic balls and the gun clicks
uselessly. Possibility, metempsychosis, reincarnation, transmigration,
therianthropy, resurrection, salvation, devayana, pitriyana,
enlightenment, judgment, deification, unconsciousness, oblivion.
“What about rot?” Wren asks.
* * *
The
moon’s gelid beams cast more light on the empty street than the
sturdy electric lamps which stand in increments. Intersecting spheres:
yellow light fades into white light, both fade into shadow.
How
does Sophia actually read those books? There’s no way Wren will.
Or me for that matter. Footsteps always sound louder in the dark, one,
two, one…. How did that poem go? And through and through?
Portmanteau. Comes home with its head. Even that gibberish is violent.
What would you do with a Jabberwock’s head anyway? Should write
about drinking’s causing rambling. Tell the rambler that
God’s gonna cut em’ down. Why would I write that though? No
real point to it. Write it down, I’ll think about it tomorrow.
Notebook? Left it home, didn’t want to lose it again. It’s
one thing to leave it on the couch, another to lose it entirely.
Can’t rightfully have Wren off looking for it in bars.
Don’t have a pen anyway. Doesn’t matter, it’s a
stupid idea anyway. Why do I try? I haven’t written a single page
in weeks. A thinning corpse. Wait, no. Corpus. And not thinning…
just… not growing.
He
fumbled through his pockets as he approached the campus. The sound of
footsteps didn’t register at first. Only when they grew closer
did he stop. He turned and felt his stomach turn before his eyes
registered the scene: the barrel of a gun pointed in the general
direction of his gut and
groin.
“Wallet,”
the gunslinger said. He wore a black ski mask. The blood rushed from
Kurt’s face. His hands shook as he produced the folded pockets of
leather from his jeans. He looked over the gun. Black, like their toy,
but it glistened, catching the yellow glow off the nearest streetlight. The
hand holding the gun remained aimed at Kurt as the other thumbed pen
the wallet. “There’s nothing in here.”
Kurt
nodded, “Came from the bar.” He stood with his hands up,
palms out, careful not to move. But there are a few bucks on my student
ID, laundry money. Shouldn’t make jokes. Stupid people
don’t have senses of humor.
The
gunslinger tossed the wallet back at Kurt. He caught it and, lifting
his head, found the gun now at eye-level. He could hear Sophia’s
voice speaking of impossibilities and Wren’s speaking Greek. The
air grew cold, as if the heat had fled from the surrounding area. He
looked the gunslinger in the eyes, cold eyes, and said nothing. Waited.
Time slowed down, no longer flowed, as though moments were no longer
connected, but stagnant instead. Kurt closed his eyes; fear overcame
him. Fear of the gun, of the bullets, of the man wielding the weapon.
Then
the gunslinger lowered the gun. With his free hand he removed the ski
mask. David smiled awkwardly, his teeth yellowed by the lamp-light.
“Gotcha,” he said. “I told you these looked real. Did you piss yourself?”
Kurt stepped around David and made his way to the apartment. He said nothing and did his best to keep his body from shaking.
* * *
Inside,
Kurt found his notebook next to his computer. He flipped through it,
while walking about his room. He could hear Wren talking with Sophia.
Music drifted down the hall. Kurt recognized the lyrics of a Johnny
Cash song:
Everyone I know goes away in the end.
“Fucking
idiot,” he said to himself. He continued to pace in the small
room. He threw the notebook onto the bed and punched his dresser.
“What’s
wrong?” Wren asked. Kurt turned, Wren stood in the doorway,
Sophia just behind him in the hall. “You okay?”
“David just held me up with his fucking Airsoft gun,” Kurt said.
“He had a fucking ski mask on and everything. He’s a fucking idiot. He’s gonna get arrested.”
“God damn it,” Wren muttered.
“Spray-painting those guns was a bad idea,” Sophia said.
“That’s why it’s illegal,” said Wren. He disappeared into the hall.
“Are you going to be okay?” Sophia said. “You don’t look so good.”
“I just need to calm down. I’ll be fine.”
Sophia
nodded before leaving. She found Wren in the kitchen throwing the
remaining plastic ammunition into the trash. He held the second gun.
“I always knew David was stupid but this is really too much,” she said.
“He’s got a sick sense of humor, that’s for sure.”
“What are you going to do with that?” she asked, motioning toward the gun.
They
heard the door of the apartment open. Without answering, Wren brushed
past Sophia and into the living room. Seeing Wren, David turned. Wren
moved quickly, grabbed him by the collar and lifted the
Airsoft gun to strike.
They
stood looking each other in the eyes, neither moving. Wren brought the
gun down, hard, into the wall behind David’s head. The plastic
connected with cinderblock creating a loud cracking sound. Wren brought
the gun down again, and again, and again. David collapsed. Bits of
plastic and metal rained over him as Wren continued his onslaught.
“If
you ever pull anything that fucking stupid again,” Wren shouted.
David stared up at him, mouth moving though no words came to him.
“You fucking twisted idiot. It’s time to grow up.
Where’s the other one?”
Slowly, David stood up and brushed off the small pieces of toy gun that clung to his clothing.
“I
threw it out.” He turned and walked down the hallway, stopping at
Kurt’s door. He looked in for a moment. Lips pursed, quivered. He
said nothing and retreated into his room.
* * *
The lights
off, Wren lay quietly next to Sophia tracing the form of a circle
around her navel. Music continued to play from his computer:
You can run on for a long time
Run on for a long time
Run on for a long time
Kurt lay in
his bed and imagined the crayon X which he had drawn across his notes,
across words that once built easily upon each other yet had ceased to
flow. He could not sleep. Again time slowed, slipped by in inconsistent
increments. He stared up at the empty ceiling which loomed over him and
thought of the blank, indefinite horrors and unknowns which crept
closer with each passing second. There was nothing to cause fear, no
gun, no person, only the ineffable wanderings of his protean mind which
longed for solutions to questions with no answers.
Sunlight began to slip past the blinds as he finally drifted to sleep.
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