‘Oh Pox, I never knew, you hated Peru, do you?
‘I get all silly and my brain all willy nilly and sometimes I feel like channeling Dr. Seuss an inimical moose on a rampage and inevitable meeting with the proverbial noose on subject of import.
‘That dirty wraith, I had a girl once.’
Pox, as always, trying to follow, though heaven knows why. Sometimes Darius was a conundrum, wrapped in an enigma, wrapped in an impregnable - yet well known - box that was further hidden behind layers and layers of muddy, viscous (and always rather superfluous so she thought) nonsense. ‘You had a girl?’
Darius mused and muttered almost inaudibly ‘Weh shearel’ on all his past relationships but there was only one that ever really mattered outside familial and friends. He loved the latter two, it was true but not that way. The way he loved her. The oneness she helped foster that made him whole.
He would gladly die for all three though and Pox too; maybe it was the only way to show her that he really did care. Would she finally understand as D’s fleshy portion of life was ebbing away on a train to a dimension right here but still far away. Incommunicado in any case.
‘What, Darius? I find it rather precarious and in my more lucid moments hilarious, of which I’m currently not having one, you’re not making this any fun. I thought we’d have a hell of a run musing upon DFW songs he hadn’t quite sung. But off you had to go to Peru, to rescue who and just when I was feeling sedate you come along and yank me out, which wasn’t bad enough but your ostentatious obliviousness, Mr Man, I’ve had all I can stand. And now I’m extremely irate.’
‘Good thing you’re lying down, no need to frown unless it’s upside down.’
‘For the love of O.N.A.N. can you please shut up for once. I need you to be serious, you’re so immature and ridiculous.
‘I’m trying to comprehend. Waiting for that message you’re trying to send.’
‘Who am I kidding, she had me. For anyone who looked it was plain to see. She was in my brain whether I was on a tree or in a plane, it was here in my mind she reigned, she held the reins. I was at such pains near the end, there’s no use in trying to pretend.’
‘What’s your problem, D!’ Pox as always concerned about whether there was any self physiatry behind the prepubescent psychology.
‘Michael Valentine that martian swine.’
‘You grok it too? That Heinlein, he knew,’ even in her agitated state still trying to humor D for Gentle knows what reason.
‘But only in that one book; he wasted all his brain power etching out that nook and felt like a crook; the homeless guy from the idea he took and at only a cost of a two-dollar bottle of thunderbird wine, the filthy swine. What a tragic loss.’
‘Ugh that shit! you can’t even call that real vino even if you're getting it intravenously and your tremens of delirium put you in need mode and there’s no denying because there’s feelings worse than dying, at least you think so at that time. In fact, death would be good, better and tragically misunderstood. Are you saying Heinlein stole the idea?’
‘Given what else he wrote, I’d say it’s a good bet. One that on my mind’s pretty much set. After reading ‘Stranger In a Strange,’ I tried all his other tomes and I couldn’t get through any of them and you know me, I usually keep reading no matter how much I can’t cognate, how much I seem to not relate, hoping for a nugget of good, I’d read almost all and everything I could. But not him no sir E ma’am, I just had to stop, He seemed such a flop and though I felt bad, a bit rather sad, I just couldn’t go on reading that swill no matter how many pills -.’
‘D! Please enough. I’m still quite taken aback, the mental stamina I currently lack, no neither one of us should feel they need to be on the attack.’
‘Of course, you’re right my dear, as you are almost always.’
‘ALMOST?’
‘Stay calm and I’ll explain and soon you’ll see you have no qualm with me.
‘Now about Peru, I didn’t know what to do, but I knew I missed you and wanted you back in this realm, your editorial expertise at the helm, the phrases that you turn and churn so well. Blame it on my inherent lack of trust if you must but I didn’t see any way in hell that anyone in all of O.N.A.N would lend us a hand without having something beside your continued well being to sell and now here you are so not very far and soon to be on the mend and everything kind of reset and inchoate again.’
The wraith smiled wider was pleased and dissipated, probably only temporarily; true genuine caring is all it (he) ever wanted out of every one and especially those who felt a driving, insatiable need to take on the - some would say unrealistic - almost insurmountable task of trying to channel him in a tribute blog.
Jovial now, ‘Could you stop trying to ape the good doctor, already. If I must say and you know I must, you’re doing a terrible job.’
Darius stopped talking, that smug satisfied grin wide on his chin. He was sure Pox got it and, despite his joker face, she understood with what gravity he took this particular conversation and that was rare indeed and only made him smile wider.
Pox knew he was being serious but for just a second she second guessed his genuineness but that moment quickly passed.
‘Now get over here and give me a hug, you big lug.’
Soon, hand in hand, both fell into a long, deep and untroubled sleep. It was dreamless and reinvigorating.
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