They’re Just Words

“It’s lacking.”

“…Well, what exactly?” Harold struggles with the dead weight of his dear friend’s words.

“Hard to say. Just is.” Carver thumbs a well worn red pen, tapping it against his veneers “You know, the general sense of the thing…”

“Not exactly.” Harold slumps, wearing his furrowed frustration like he does all things, plainly. “Is it the ending? I wasn’t really sure how to-“

“There’s a sense of closure there sure, but, it’s decidedly without any dramatic weight. The artifice of the final act is laid all too bare, something about it leaves a generally bitter taste. Who knows. I might be too close to it.” He rolls the pen across the table, a childish attempt to distance himself from his distaste. Despite this, Harold appreciates Carver’s thrown attempt at kindness, knowing that it is likely as much as he’ll ever muster. It is precisely that candor that Harold values so deeply, through the barbs and sardonic wit, a resting pearl of supposed betterment. “Your closeness is exactly why I came to you.”

“You mean to say you’re not here for my good looks?” Through an over exaggerated pout Carver cuts a fairly unassuming figure, thinning hair grown out in an approximation of youth, rotund belly that ensures all his jackets never quite fit. He does, however, possess sharp eyes. Their brightness is a particular obsession of Harold’s, and he often looks at the faculty portraits before bed. “Not exclusively.” He hopes that cloying coyness is endearing, but, as is typical, doubts it will be received as such.

“I hope I haven’t offended you.”

“Not in anyway that really matters.” Harold collects his papers. Hastily scratched corrections mark most of the pages, a thousand wounds across their thin bodies.

“Don’t. This matters. This manuscript. It’s yours. You’ll stay a while?”

“I really should head back.”

“Come on, we’ve got a bottle to finish.” Carver sloshes his glass, in faux enticement, as if Harold were a dog and wine the treat.

“You never needed an excuse before.” Harold wonders if that was a step too far, the final slight the friendship is unable to withstand.

“Listen, the ending- I shouldn’t have said anything, it’s fine-“

“Fine?”

“Better than fine. We can work out the kinks, together. Burn the proverbial midnight oil.”

“You don’t want to be alone that badly huh?”

“Does anyone? Here. Let me.” His pour is erratic, with the irregularity of a damaged artery. Pump red. Suddenly Harold isn’t that eager to drink, and along with his folder, places his glass on the table to his side.

“Remind me to never let you become a bartender.”

“We’ll see how that memory of yours is after a gallon of absinthe.” Carver rises from the table and heads to a walnut cabinet, sitting crooked in the corner of the room.

“I’d wager that much would melt my skull…”

“And that doesn’t sound like a good time? You’re as set in stone as your tenure.”

“Academic obsession is hardly the pursuit of diehards and burnouts. We may as well be in a monastery.”

“Dare I say we’d have better hooch! Did you see the documentary last week about the monks, and their brewery? Said the distillation process mirrored the sacrament of purification, that the whole thing brought them closer to God? Isn’t that wild? Almost made the cloth sound good, or at least bearable you know? Harold? Are you-“

Before he can turn, Harold jams the crimson pen into Carver’s expectant throat. He crumples, dead eyes looking up at his friend, fishbowl reflection of an author vindicated. “You’re right Carver, it is lacking.”

“Harold? Here.” Carver hands him a shot glass, brimming neon lime. “Lost you for a second there buddy. “So, the ending? The murder seems a bit abrupt, tonally jarring. Any way we can foreshadow the death earlier? Restructure the body to better to serve the climax. Harold? Oh wait… Where’s my manners? Cheers!”

“…Cheers.”

Harold obliges with a soft clink, swallowing the bitter fire, its thin vestiges swirling in the bottom of the glass, laced with blood from his bit tongue.

“…Have you, er, seen my pen?”