“Sometimes,” she said, “There’s just so much—shit in this world.” She drew on her cigarette again. “Like—I just don’t get it. And all stemming from fricken ignorance. You know?”
Brian smiled apathetically through the cloud of smoke. “I know,” he said, staring at the cold condensation dripping down his bottle. “Sometimes…don’t you ever want to just give up?”
“Give up?” Abigail asked. “Give up.” She tapped the ash off her cigarette and stared into the starry sky. Fireflies lit the distant bushes and crickets composed a symphony of melancholic noise. “Sometimes, yeah, I want to give up. But would I ever?” She paused to smoke, exhale, tapped the cigarette again. “I couldn’t. As much as I want to just get away from all of this, I couldn’t ever stop. Just think. Could you do nothingness? I’d rather have something than not exist at all.”
Brian stared across the darkness.
“If it comes to it, living or dying, I mean, I’ll stay. Even if I’m being dragged away, I’ll hold on until my fingernails rip out, craving every last breath.” She chuckled soft. “Because if I don’t, I’m nothing. This is nothing. Fuck.” She took one last drag and extinguished her cigarette on the white wicker chair.
Brian swallowed the last of his beer and rose. Abigail followed. The bed was too far, so they went to the living room and lay on the old green sofa and he held her until they fell asleep. The stale smell of cigarettes and beer followed them into the house, but that was the smell of life and night and love. And when the sun rose, bringing the heat of summer’s day back onto the porch, he sighed and kissed her forehead, and the two slept until noon.
I really like this vignette. I like Brian and Abigail and their cravings.
ReplyDeleteA cut in the second paragraph would strengthen the tone, I think. Could that comment be:
'It all stems from frickin ignorance. You know?'
The what I would call the 'preamble' of the other two and a half sentences don't add enough to the forward motion of the narrative, and distract me with specific ideas that I expect to be expounded on ('hatred' and 'injustice', but aren't). Maybe instead of totally cutting them they could be trimmed to still include a thought on 'ugly', which works with the addictions, but the rest is left behind when you go forward with the existential thoughts.
Because of the setting I want Abigail to say 'Sometimes, yeah, I want to give up', rather than 'yes.' Using the formal written assent, rather than something colloquial and comfortable, doesn't mesh with musing and smoking on the porch with your partner. The same for 'embrace', but less so. It makes more sense because of the idea that Abigail is attempting to express, but it would still move just a bit better with something like 'Could you do nothingness?'
Finally, 'he holding her' is a bit wooden. Maybe instead of a comma there it could be 'sofa and he held her until', but overall the last two paragraphs, I love. Great finish. Way to wrap the scene.
Good forward movement. Good push. Natural flow of conversation. Nice resonance with the title.
Thanks for the comments, friend! They were really helpful!
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