Page 31 of Rhymes with Metaphor
Joel sat on Reg’s settee, or rather, on the papers scattered on Reg’s settee, which Joel seemingly didn’t have the energy or the inclination to move out of the way.
“You’re not planning to sleep here again, are you?”said Reg.
“No.”
“Whatever you came here for, out with it.My bath is getting cold and so is my dinner.”
“The MCAT results are released today.”Joel stared at his giant watch, like a condemned prisoner waiting for a call from the governor.“In thirteen minutes.”
Reg sighed.“Well, I’m going to eat—if that’s all right with you.”
Reg’s sarcasm was lost on Joel.At least, he didn’t stop staring at his watch.It was so enormous, and he was so weak with illness, he had to use his other hand to support his watch hand while he stared at the dial.
Reg doled out his food and, as an afterthought, he put rice on a separate plate and covered it with chicken korma.He brought it back into the living room and set it on one of the flatter piles of paper on the coffee table before sitting beside Joel on the settee.Joel stared at the plate.
“It’s not spicy,” said Reg.“It won’t blow the top of your head off.”Reg commenced eating.“Why are you here, Joel?”
“I don’t want to be alone,” said Joel quietly.
“Is that how QDOGs work?You need a witness?Why not ask Juliet?Or is this like signing a will, where you can’t ask the beneficiary?”
“Five,” said Joel.He took out his phone.
Reg peered over his shoulder as Joel entered a login and password on an official-looking website.
Joel was, in general, a quiet person, not prone to making superfluous or distracted movements.But when Joel looked at his phone now, he went unnervinglystill.
As Joel was making no attempt to conceal it, Reg peered at Joel’s phone screen.
“Five hundred and twenty-six,” said Reg.“What does that mean?”
Joel looked like he’d been hit by a bus.A sob burst out of him, so violent it startled Reg.Then, Joel covered his face with his hands and started shaking.Reg put a solicitous hand on Joel’s back, and Joel threw his arms around Reg’s neck and hugged him.Feeling Joel pressed against him, Reg felt alive, in a way he hadn’t for several months.It wasn’t just the sensual aspect; it was the unaccustomed experience of being acknowledged, physically, by another person.But Reg wasn’t the one needing comfort.He held Joel, applying just enough gentle pressure for Joel to feel him.He could feel Joel’s ribs through his T-shirt.
When you find yourself comforting someone who is crying for some unknown reason, presumably not your fault, after a while, even if you’re a very patient person, you start to wonder when they are going to stop.And, as often happened to Reg when he was forced to sit still, brilliant ideas and images started exploding in his head like popcorn.Joel’s watch ticked like a bomb, a relentless, oppressive rhythm that cut straight through his heart, and words came to Reg in pulsing bursts.Joel was still holding him for dear life, and Reg couldn’t bring himself to push him away, but a stick of yellow chalk lay along the back of the settee, and he released Joel with one hand to pick it up and surreptitiously ghost words onto the brick.No clear area remained, so he had to write across old words.Reg’s poems didn’t normally come fully fledged like this.He tried to catch the words as they came, which unfortunately, meant jostling Joel.
Joel’s sobbing stopped abruptly.He pulled back and looked at Reg’s hand.Reg wrote the last line of the poem and dropped the chalk.Released from his creative impulse and also Joel, Reg went to the liquor cabinet, poured a glass of absinthe, and set it on Joel’s knee.
Joel sniffed the glass and flinched.
“It’s absinthe.Not poison.”
“I can’t drink,” said Joel, handing it back.“I’m eighteen.”
Reg sighed and set the glass on the coffee table.“Eat something, at least.”
Joel picked up a fork and tried the korma while Reg resumed his seat beside Joel.
“Don’t tell Juliet,” said Joel.
“Why would I?”
“Don’t tell Martin either.He’ll tell her.”
“I wouldn’t know what to tell him.What’s going on, Joel?”
Joel stared at his food.“I’m supposed to be a doctor.”
“So I gathered.But I don’t understand why you’re upset.”
