Kindle Notes & Highlights
by
C.N. Shannon
Read between
July 11 - July 13, 2017
I grimaced-- or smiled-- or tried to smile. I grimaced.
“When I said 'do you have a friend who intelligent and interesting and charming?' I didn't think you'd try and hook me up with someone.”
After some silence, roughly 82.6% awkward, she spoke again.
“I think there are traits that make a person 'cool' or 'uncool'. Some people have ways of doing things that are just a bit... inspiring. You know? Like...” I grasped for the words. I reflected on the idea and smiled. The idea was so tangible but somehow remained elusive. Maybe if I knew the term 'manic pixy dream girl' I would compare it to that. Maybe not, considering I know what the term 'manic pixy dream girl' means. Revelation rang out like a bell sounded by hammer-strike, “What gives her appeal in that sort of meta-sexual way?”
Was I so desperate? Or was it something else? Yes, she was beautiful and, yes, I found the idea of a woman who could keep pace with me to be appealing, but it had to be more than just calculus of her worth.
We weren't really brothers, if that's what you were thinking. This wasn't a joyous reunion of actual brothers. We were more like … comrades in arms. Or some other simile that wasn't a tired war metaphor. Har har. Get it? Because-- ah, never mind.
The café we decided to share an evening in was called “Metaphor”. Maybe I should have decided to make a joke about that? Actually, that's stupid. Forget that. So where was I?
“So how's Kate? I haven't seen her in a bit?”
This is a note? I don't know how questions work?
“Hey, I should warn you,” he punctuated his sentence with sips of beer. Not literally, I mean he drank beer right then. Stop being so difficult.
“I haven't met a guy who knew her and didn't try to get her. They almost always fail.” “そうか？Well, you know me, I don't get out of bed for less than impossible.”
With our food also came a side of small talk one might anticipate with such a day. We discussed our families, where we grew up, and various 'favourites', which included me gushing over the works of Chopin and Puccini.
She broke that silence first. She said “Mr. Academic, you are a strange and interesting man.”
I had been dancing the night away, as well as shouting whispers over whatever music was popular this week when the music lent itself well neither to dancing nor the title of 'music.'
It was our date night, and date night should be romantic: ergo candles. We put this day aside when she was free and I was, uh, also free.
Her breath pressed through her back and slowly drummed on my side. The thrum extended in that moment endlessly forward. I couldn't question this moment. For me it always was and would be, but thou know'st 'tis common. All that lives must die, passing through nature to eternity.
For some reason, I had let Harriet convince me to come out to this God-awful corner of the Earth to spend the holiday with her family. If I was being too vague, allow me to clarify the situation: they did not like me. Far as I was concerned the feeling was mutual. What a collective waste of nucleotides. I literally, literally-literally, as in I'm-using-the-word-'literally'-correctly-literally have no idea how someone of such intellect and grace could have come from this house. It's mathematically improbable, certainly. I don't even-- Don't even get me started on the condescension. If anyone
...more
I felt like shit. I had drawn a line in the sand and shot at the only person who cared to cross it. I wanted to stop her, to make it up to her and patch it up with her Neanderthal family, but I didn't.
There was a polite knock at the door. My mind segued inertialessly to reconcile this phenomenon with my model of possibility.
I smiled at her lovely knees.
She paused to consider her next words carefully. “He' worried for me. He's worried for us.” “I know.” “Do you?” “Yes. I'm a genius remember?”
“I'm just happier with my own thoughts than pretending to laugh at jokes that aren't funny and smiling at people I don't find charming.” “What are you thinking about that's so grand?” My gaze was kilometres away. “Death.” The answer was casual and matter-of-fact.
My reply was flippant. “I am sometimes asked if I have Asperger's.” “Ha. That's a good question. Do you?” “What a thing to ask.” “Do you?” “Likely not. I am sorry if I do not always allow human sympathy to act as my universal compass. That would be to allow oneself to be ruled by one's passions and emotions. There things are a tool. They are to be used to enrich one's life. If they aren't in service of a good life, what good are they? Give me that man that is not passion’s slave, and I will wear him in my heart’s core, ay, in my heart of heart, as I do thee.”
I turned off the water and let the feeling of the knob sink into my soft, wrinkled hand. The air was, as one might expect, thick and heavy. Despite this, I filled my lungs with this nigh-unbreathable water vapor-nitrogen-oxygen mix. I remained unsatisfied.
She and her sister had taken a snap decision to go to a tropical island for a short holiday to a tropical island for a short holiday.
Monuments didn't impress me so much. If they stood for thousands of years, it was impressive, but they got aeons to catch up on the youngest rock. We use the term “geological time scale” for a reason. If I were to be impressed solely by age, then any given pebble has a greater history than a hundred year old tower or a thousand year old pile of rocks.
But I digress; you wish to hear about the evening that followed after the afternoon, as all afternoons must be followed.
Now I was free. Free to destroy Harriet, had I wished. I looked at her. I viewed her not as a familiar person or cherished soul-mate. I viewed her as if she was an insect.
“I dunno, from what I've talked to you, you seem smart.” “Thanks?” I found it hard to take that compliment. Not from her in particular, but I know I'm smart and I know that others know it too. When people say it, it is to me as if they are stating that the sky is blue or sugar sweet. I'm sure if you could tell sugar that it was sweet, it wouldn't take it as much of a complement. It was just so unquestionably true that it left me little where else to go.
