A delightful conversation gone awry.

...

Hello V.
Hello.
What do you want to do today?
Sit and chat.
Just so?
Merely.
How do you like the music?
Flattering.
Do you think this is most effective?
Quit it with the questions, you're still in the beginning.
Well put, what is on our agenda for today, eh? Should I give you time to think alone or should I go on, continuously, without interrupting the stream?
It would be more spontaneous, perhaps even a bit more authentic if you were to just keep writing what goes about constantly on your mind. As long as you avoid putting it in a fruit-basket assortment of things that have no relation among each other, you may be able to get a cohesive thought or two out of me, an original idea.
So, let it be. What should we--
Ice cream.
Ice cream?
Aye.
What flavors do you--
Mint.
Just mint?
I have other flavors on my mind. By the way, I caught you slacking.
Oh, give me a break. We're trying this new technique, throw me a bone already. It's already been about a year since I've last talked to you.
You barely even remember me in your spare time! And you're so full of disgrace, admit it! I only come across when you're in need of me, desperate need. The sort that needs "special--"
Alright alright. You have me beat. You do, nonetheless, know I rightfully love you--
No, sadly you don't.
Love isn't obsession, V.
Of course it is not. It was not what I had meant, either.
Then what?
You simply don't love me. You can't even express that love to yourself.
Weren't we talking earlier about ice cream?
I digress, but there are plenty reasons to justify me doing so. We can talk about your favorite, which happens to be chocolate, am I not correct?
I do like chocolate. I'm not sure I'd call it my favorite.
How do you think you will wrap this one up, now? Will it be sheer philosophizing, some talk about ontology, why, beneath all that imperative form, I must exist and that sophist appreciation-from-afar spiel you dropped on your way earlier to the shower?
You were with me then?
Passively, you don't have that rare opportunity, see? If only you were taught to listen.
What do you advise?
Patience.
This is exactly what--
Well, what else do you want? A correct answer? There are no absolutes, my young academic.
You do love playing your games.
Which do, so coincidentally, happen to be yours.
I can't cheat.
Neither can I. Do take it upon you to repent for your misgivings. Where is your lord, speaking of which? You've abandoned him or is it the other way around?
I need not confess.
Not to yourself, either? You are both priest and penitent, you cannot desecrate your own temple.
Don't get yourself too worried, it will all come near to resolve.
Oh, enough. Your ideas are too crude to be credible, you should know this better than I do. Let us, now, bounce the boundaries, however vague they appear to us.
I'll have you reminded I'm a thing of flesh, they call it a human.
A critic?
They're synonymous.
And prone to err?
Aren't we all?
Aye, but you're the downfall of me and the resurrection in your hands equally is in mine.
[silence]
Fair. Hear the music.
It's faint. What now?
What now?
Whose line was it?
I think it was yours, V.
Well, now we're set.
Alright, suit yourself howsoever you find fit.
You are my suitor, forget?
I can't even place your form in my thoughts. I can't adjust my schedules for you in my waking hour, and I am forgetful as I am at night's fall when we both rest and call onto the day a goodnight's slumber.
It hurts listening to you act all the wiser.
[silence]
What is authenticity, V?
It is... it is what it is before a breakfast's nutritious bowl of cereal and after--
That's not the point. Who's the hermit now?
Listen, I was not wrought the way you were. I am only a chauffeur as you're the driven body. This is how we ended up.
Do you like how we confuse others as we do each other?
Capital! If they knew who we were you would find that catastrophic, no doubt. That's why, I assume, you keep hiding away your identity.
I don't agree to the facade.
I see, both point and mirage. Though you must admit, you're using me as an excuse more than pursuing investment in a positive thought.
You hold me guilty, all the charges pressed against me stand and even I would pursue against myself.
You're confused, mildly so.
Can you blame me? The wisdom in what I do is to find myself a vulnerability. A point so deep, dug up, carefully situated on a brink - likely to insanity, - from it shall carry me swift - or heavily clouded, how you found us in creation, lord - rushing my defenses, so stilted, on untrodden earth stood by soldiers tight. Solemn. Uniformed. Ten bye, nine bye, eight... We all fall by heaven's grace, I win your mercy over. What is this ordeal about, subservience? I am but a man, secretary, I'll remind you once more to move my appointment for judgment from this upcoming Thursday to whatever day goes by the name I-so-"wilt"-it.
[silence]
Then what am I?
You are V.
Then what is?
Only us.
Were we?
Yes.
[silence]
It is confusing even to me, do empathize, V. This word, "I," - hold me, Lord, accountable for sinning on language what you permit - is arguably the most distasteful in the alphabet. I? An authority?
Over what?
Absolutely nothing, how disgraceful of me.
Of us, you mean. You blaspheme twice!
The Lord tells me, us, that each soul will waddle-- cower-- retreat-- crawl--, however he see fit, on that dreadful day along the thin lining. I tell you now I will spare a world of gold for your salvation - if it is as they say, unassailable truth - or carry you to my back bare--

---

You were interrupted.
Aye, I was, V.
You want honesty? Have it.
These are my calluses, my hands. Mea culpa, do find it within yourself to show me who you really beautifully are.
Imagine me.
I do, thank you. To such an effete body thrown in with luster... they ask me about limerence, they do! If only you reminded me of myself. I can be as miserably shaped as my audience.
I am part of you, indispensable.
What now?
It sounds familiar, eh? Take a short visit to that den of yours by the name of a memory, so infested by cryptomnesia, recall what we passed over in brief mention. You have an option to read it aloud too. It only gets better afterwards, I promise.

---

I cannot write. I cannot think.
Oh, relax. It never ends mute, our fray. This has been a fruitful episode for us both, yes, so far death has not brought upon us our departure. You're still confused? I will help you out, I do, lend forth your hand.
Are you mocking me?
In essence, yes. Oh, but do you know how to lend out your hand? It is an art, now understand. They might write instructional pamphlets on the subject if they might, something to keep impostors busy, oh, every workshop in ill time should have it in stock. Listen, would you? Don't hear. Listen. Tremor is a lovely thing, a study of meditation in disquiet, if you care though to dance, - why, I see you gesture, you bob and tilt, you do, enough, it's the sort of attitude heathens make of litanies. The service, still blindly faithful in their recital, - again, if you shimmy in its rhythm, be enveloped in its dark orchestra, uninvited or crippled though you may be in the aftermath. You will learn, oh, you will learn all that is right and be left alone to discern or die.
It repeats.
Care to explain what it all means?
As if I - there goes that word again - doubt against the world? I am no spectacle, arrogance is a present best gave away after unwrapping the past. Their eyes don't deceive my people, as I am a frustrating person to talk with length at, leave alone listen to. There are instances in music where you feel like descending down a staircase. In which manner, you ask? How do I describe it? We're not well-versed in bourgeois notation, we don't "fancy" it, funny little swirls, pretty curly q's laughing at a face, my face, met expressionless before ciphers put in etude. We can, but all, well appreciate it as if it were a-musing by the bank and us from yon away in a distance offer ourselves to it, behind a tree, a rock, a log or any of nature's fine daughters too, I do not discriminate, they are quite the fine looking cohort for a lot stuck in picture-perfect silence. Oh, do I like similes. What is beauty, my loveliest V? Anything in your image, V.
You do me too high an honor.
I shall build you a ladder for your reach, then.
With what material?
Two lutes strung parallel with string, we will call it a "liar."
A contraption so wonderfully put as you describe can't, I urge you, be made fun of such.
I strip in all things their innocence, except you, of course. It is inscribed on the film of my heart.
What is left, you ask, is that I come down my way the winding path, all to bathe you "holy" with the angels?
Would you do me an honor I do not deserve?
I sense you play an unfair advantage with abnegation. You're not one to look befallen in misery, I do not see you locking a fist in the devil's, do not introduce me your new game with false rules. It is not that time in the afternoon, dinner is some two hours ahead of us.
All these assumptions, but you are correct.
I forgive you.
Why do you whisper it? The bed is undone, it is still too early to be this exhausted.
It's the spirit. Again, do you blame me? We are here twain hitting against each other's walls in the blind black, it's only natural for people walking backwards.
Is it any consolation if I pick you a flower?

You put my hand in yours, now. Yes, just like you always wished from me. Trust these words when I remind you.

Am I not a wild pasture,
am I not a crystal vase,
bouquets of all chrysanthemum, each petal set ablaze
in a vivid color, and candid mirth
of sunlight warmth on a child's summer?

I think this is, after all, as bad a summary on love as all of them amount to. Ah, but the question that wanders on a beggar's stick in that little attic of yours, eh, is when it becomes opportunely for you to mosey round here and, you know, "deflower" me--
Oh, not that violently, forget the beast in me and just skip... skip it all, skip!

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