The Metaphysicist (Kill Your Darlings) | Featured

bullshit in a china shop

It is evident from the way that Lucien has been acting since he returned home from a night of doing who knows what that he is somewhat scared of me for some reason, like I'm a dog owner who would lash out at him for something as mundane as sniffing at the food on the table. He's timid around me now, always minding where he steps and what he says and what he does, things that had never been imperative to him before with his spontaneous personality, and it's just leaving me to wonder what the hell happened last night and how he found himself in that mess in the first place, but he hasn't told me anything yet, and it is my guess that he never will, so all I can do is wonder.

And because I have no evidence to hold against my companion, I won't be justified when I stick around the house all day and follow him around everywhere. Lucien obviously knows why I would do that, but he would pretend as though he doesn't, as though he's the victim when I only want to protect him from his own reckless nature, and he's already suspicious of my hovering presence here, primarily because I haven't been able to wrestle down any coffee this morning, which is the drink I prioritize before anything else, and Lucien is an observant man who would not disregard that lightly.

With that in mind, I have left him to his own quite troubling devices while I run and errand to the supermarket to replenish his refrigerator with something other than the molding fruits and the inedible shit that he's placed inside for fun or an experiment, and though I'm worried out of my mind about what he'll do, I have learned from experience that guarding someone closely is no remedy for their ailment and will worsen their symptoms, inviting paranoia into the house until the end.

So, having been granted permission to do as he pleases (though that may not have been the exact wording I expelled but is certainly the wording that Lucien will follow), my companion takes to wandering around the house in only a halfway buttoned dress shirt and boardshorts of all things, drinking up his newfound liberty.

He glides his fingers across the walls threatened by peeling lavender wallpaper, across the papers scattered around the floor like bullet shells in a battle zone, across the objects he could never relinquish to someone who knows nothing about them and only enjoys them for their aesthetic purposes when that is only the superficial level, the baseline of beauty. He's enjoying himself for the first time in a while, alone and without me to pester him about his health, but maybe being thrown to the bliss of freedom is what's best for his health, not careful regulations of what he eats and what he does, how he chooses to live his life in order to expand it.

Everything seems like it will be grand for about an hour (or however long I spend at the supermarket trying to feed the both of us while Lucien abandons his ability to take care of himself), except a knocking at the door jolts my friend away from his serenity and plants thoughts in his head about who it could be and why they're here, why they've interrupted his session of liberation to imbue him with useless information that he could do without.

Reluctantly, Lucien trudges to the door, skipping two steps at a time like the king of second grade transportation through the halls, and he then discovers that opening the door isn't as easy as it used to be. It's a frustrating fact, prominent in his mind for only a moment before he divides the frame into a slab and a shell and then it seats itself at the back of his head, because now there's something worse to think about, something that has been plaguing him for a few days, something he wished since his teenage years that he could ever see again: David Kammerer.

"Lu," David whispers, shaving his eyes into slits as if he can't believe that Lucien is real, as if he didn't fucking show up at his apartment without a warrant before he arrests him in belt scars and the handcuffs of misconstrued nostalgia, as if he didn't just ruin everything Lucien spent years rebuilding.