Where do human faces hide?

I was thinking the other day: 'What happens when all the sandwich combinations are done?'
Like, for instance, and for real, (because they're the same thing) (...) (aren't they?) BECAUSE, if you made every sandwich combo ever, with the norms like Ham & Tomato, and then Beef with Gherkin Relish, and then the more exotic ones such as Curried Egg, and Peanut Butter, and Cheese with Bacon and BBQ sauce... I mean, what then?
And who is defining all these variations? Who puts Peanut Butter in with the 'exotic'? I mean, say all the sandwiches are laid out on the counter, on this industriously long and sturdy bench-top specifically designed to cater for all the sandwiches in existence, ever, and they're all on brown bread and white bread, so that's double, and they're all cut into triangles or something absurd, and some have crusts off- so that's almost quadruple- and after all this, ALL THIS SANDWICH MAKING THAT GAVE THESE POOR PEOPLE RSI AND KNIFE-WOUNDS AND HANDY GARDENING HINTS AND LIFE-LONG FRIENDSHIPS AND MAYBE EVEN A BABY OR FATAL ACCIDENT, then what?
So then I started thinking, 'Lawn Bowls'.
That's the place to  be. Also, a place where it's warm. Maybe a small room with a gigantic wood-oven fireplace. You wouldn't technically be able to cook pizzas in it, seeing as how it's gigantic and takes up probably most of the room, but just go with it for a minute. Just Go. With it.
But the point is. If it's not warm and it's not wood-oven, then what is it?
To be fair, I was attempting my hand at some painting a while ago (not the fancy kind where you use a blank canvas and stand in front of it wearing a white smock so any paint splatters look artistic) but the kind with lines and shapes, so you have guidelines that show you where you're supposed to go.
I said, "Guidelines? Do I look like I'm in Primary School?"
and it said, "WHY DO YOU USE ALL THE TISSUES!" in this really loud and intrusive way.
So I retorted with, "ALL I WANTED WAS AN EGG SANDWICH, THE HOT AND MELTY KIND, AND THIS IS WHAT I GET INSTEAD."
Because, I mean, it had to be pointed out that my end of the bargain was far from fair. It was so unfair that I was unclear as to my next move. Should I start painting? Or was I supposed to actually go and cook this egg sandwich?
And, paint this painting? This picture of fruit and teapots and teacups all arranged in neat lines and to appropriate scale, clearly on some fanciful picnic that I was not meant to attend?
Pfft! I said, "YOUR WATERMELON'S TOO BIG!" (Because it was. It was almost five times the size of the pear, and that is not the correct size for a slice of watermelon).
and the painting screeched out, "THAT IS NO WAY TO TREAT A MASTERPIECE!"
to which I politely (and with some scorn) pointed out that it was not yet a masterpiece.
It needed a master painter to create such a piece. That would be me.
The unpainted painting laughed at this. "MASTER PAINTER!" It cried with laughter and accusation and with a little hysteria.
"Yes," I said humbly.
"YOU?"
"Yes," I nodded, once again in a humble manner.
And the canvas portraying a feast of outlines but nothing satisfying solid, laughed and laughed and laughed and laughed, until I'd done quite enough foot-tapping and watching-checking and eye-rolling and page-turning of Who Weekly, that I gathered up all my courage and said in a calm, yet reproachful, voice, "Sir, I am off to make things happen."
And the laughing stopped, and I walked out of the room, out of the house, down to the shop on the corner, and purchased a bag of cheezels and a bag of shapes.
I said to the man behind the counter, "I had a dream that I was eating a box of cheezels, and so I have just now made my dreams come true."
And we laughed and laughed and laughed and laughed, but it wasn't four lengths of laughter in a whimsical way, like one throwing a plastic wrapper into a bin and the wind catches it so the person stands and watches it float aimlessly around in circles. It was four lengths of laughter that meant something.
Because it was about dreams. And dreams of cheezels.



glow in the darkness, that's how we do it.. just like the stars up on your ceiling.. that put you to sleep after

What happened to that orange watch you wore once?

"Oh I see how it goes now," I say, smiling a little.
"Yes," he says, pulling something white and rustling out of his jacket pocket. A bag of white powder.
He looks up at me, his eyes blazing, his expression playful but also afraid, his eyebrowse still. A credit card appears out of nowhere. It's dirty, peeling and faded. I know it's not his but I tell myself he borrowed it from a friend.
"Do you...?" he asks as he opens it and tips it gently on the table. Then he swears.
"I do."
I don't. I watch as he uses the card to make lines. He's quick. AmStart, the card says despondently. Save me, it says also, take me away from here and clean me up. I can be better. I'll sing to you and bring you groceries and patch the hole in the wall. Please.
His fingers are long and thin and pale, like maybe he's Dracula, and they look strong, as if they can, actually, carry bags of groceries at a time. My own fingers grip the chair seat tighter.
"Here," he commands, "Use this."
And as I float away, aware of his hands on my skin and the marks on the ceiling and his mouth, his eyes, his warmth, I think of the silver pennies in the street.

~

"You don't, do you?" he asks.
"No."
His fingers play with my hair.
"Ever?"
"Never."
He sighs.

~

"So there's this shop on Prembral Street that sells buns as big as, well, as that rubbish bin," I gesture down the road.
He laughs, "Let's go!"
We buy eleven, because I want ten but he wants to feed the birds, and we eat them all. Sitting on the hard, cold bench. I can feel his leg against mine. Pressing. The birds bob their heads as they pick at the bread.
It's so cold. The clouds seem endless and I hate it, looking up at all that grey, shivering, bones on bones like skeletons waltzing or fighting over the last piece of soft, sweet flesh.
"I'm trying to... you know... do it," he says quietly. His leg is pressed against mine and it's all I can think about. That and the cold. Cold like ice down your back. Cold like Bones.
"Good," I say, staring at the sky.
"No," he turns to me, and I think he sounds agitated. "I'm going to. I mean it."
Is this what agitated sounds like? I wonder. Is this really cold?
"Ok."
He sighs again. He moves. The warmth of his leg vanishes and I turn.
"What-?"
"You're not listening, are you?"
"I am, yo-"
"You're not!"
Yes, this is agitated. I look up into his face, squinting a little, and I see that he's frowning at me. His face is closed off, and his legs... how far they are now.
"Oh, I was," I say stupidly and slowly, "you said you- you were thinking of trying..."
Is this desperation? It feels strange to think about feelings and emotions. Was I always like this? So slow and foggy, like walking in a dream surrounded by clouds and clouds of fog. Walking but not aware of anything, and in the morning, after you've woken up and looked at the sunshine, when you're sitting at the table eating toast with honey, sweeping your toes back and forth over the cool tiles wondering when the mail will arrive, you don't remember that feeling of walking forever in the fog.
"Let's go," he says. His face is soft. I shiver and stand up.
"You said you were going to," I mutter, "You never said what."
"Spaced out is a side effect," he tells me cheerfully. We walk past the birds and I long to reach out and take his hand. But I don't.

~

"This is what it looks like," he says and I turn away, tired, sore and cold.
"Hey!"
I walk into the kitchen but he follows. He grabs my arm.
"You don't realise how it goes," he hisses. His face is close. His eyes burning, magnetic, absolute. I try as hard as I can to focus on the fridge and I say softly, "I have a pretty good idea."
"Ha!" he pulls my arm.
"Stop that!"
"What would you know? You're still on the fucking side effects!"
I glare at him even though somewhere far away (maybe my chest?) something is breaking. "You don't think I know about people?"
"WHAT'S THIS THEN?" And he shoves his other arm into my face so I see white skin and red lines.
"Stop it!"
"WHAT THE FUCK IS?"
His face is red and sharp, his face is hard and dark, my heart is breaking, I think, and his eyes are cold. So cold.
"I DON'T KNOW! GET AWAY FROM ME!" I yank as hard as I can; I'm not strong enough. His fingers wrapped around my wrist. He looks like he's about to laugh. He leans in close. I want to rip my arm away and run, I want to, but his hair is touching mine and his skin is so close, I feel the heat, it's only a tiny gap. If I move I could...
"You're an idiot," he says.
It's breaking. Somewhere far away, so far that I hardly notice, somewhere there, something is falling apart.
"People-"
"YOU DON'T KNOW!" He grips tighter. There's digging in my skin, there's pain and spit, there's wide eyes, pulling, tears.
"People!" I throw the words out like I'm throwing them into his face and I'm gasping at the pain, but it's not so bad. "People like you."
His eyes are so wide. I would crawl into them and drown, if he'd hold still. If he'd stop pulling my arm. "People who hurt you, people you hurt, what does it matter? If I could make it better..."
It's splitting apart. Something is falling and splitting and- oh. The tears are mine.
Then there's pain.
There's pain in his eyes and his mouth, in my head, in my eyes, in my arm. And, somewhere else. Some place in the distance something is hurting too.
The pressure on my arm makes me wince. "Please stop..."
The pain grows like someone is coming towards us with a big, illuminating sign. Take this, the person says, puffing and straining but carrying it still, show us what it's like to love.
"No!" I yell.
Show us love.
"SHUT UP!"
I pull free. He's standing there staring at me and his face is crumpling, and piecing itself back together, and then crumpling, and he's trying so hard I can't stand it.
I run into the bedroom and slam the door. Bits of plaster sprinkle down into my eyes like desperation. I can't breathe. I pull the table with the powder on it, I pull the chair, the lamp, the basket of dirty towels, I pile them all against the door and curl up on the bed. Tighter. Colder. Emptier.
It's my heart, yes, there it is. The pieces broken and sharp and small, so small and so abstract that putting them back together would be impossible. Just like that egg who fell and broke and the men ate him for breakfast...
Or was it?
Did they have toast fingers and melting butter and shiny forks with bumpy patterns on them? I can't remember.
Tell us you're in love.

~

"I think you jammed the door," he says softly, lying close. I'm not cold anymore.
"You broke the door?" I mumble, opening one eye slowly.
"Came through the window."
I grab onto his shirt because it's the closest thing to my hand, and squeeze.
"I think you can."
"No," he puts his face into my neck, "I don't think I can."
His voice is a whisper; alive yet fading, and shaky. Like he's about to cry.

~

"You ruined the pattern so it's your turn to do the dishes," I grin wickedly.
"Nah, the five goes here," he says, concentrating, moving the little tiles around. His head is bent.
I know he's pretending because he knows he's lost. And because we don't have any dishes. The plastic plates are jumbled up next to the window, one plastic spoon on the pillow, a red foam cup with split edges in the bathroom.
His knee is jiggling.
"Your turn."
I slide the tile around in my fingers as he watches. "If I put this with the nine it'll throw out the whole game."
"Mmm. Then don't play it."
"I have to play something, otherwise I'll lose."
He scratches his nose and leans down on one elbow so his body stretches out, his head near the bed, a small smile, gleaming eyes. "This is true."
I squint at him, "You made it true."
"Yes."
I tug his jacket tighter around my shoulders, put my hand in the pocket and pull out a small plastic bag. A plastic bag with white stuff in it. His face changes. Clenches. Hardens.
"You know that foggy feeling where you feel lost and you're walking and walking and going nowhere because you can't see anything?" I say.
He shrugs, "Possibly."
"I was hoping, maybe, to experience that again. Anyway..."
He blinks. Then he grins and I feel tingly. He scrambles up, slides a mirror from somewhere and says, "What you want to do, is..."
He pours, cuts, neatens. He holds it out. Waits. Watches. Kisses me, hard, like he's trying to tell me something. Leans back but his fingers are tangled in my hair, pulling me, and his eyes are so bright, so big.
"I said I'm going to," he breathes. I nod. "No," he pulls me closer, "I mean it. I meant it."
His eyes as big as the universe. His knees under mine. His warm breath, his skin, his words.
"It's ok. I believe you," I lean into his forehead, "I want to as well."
But there's something cold in my chest, now. Because we're lying.

~

(c)

Does this shade of gnome make my garden look big?

At some point in my life, I did use the last toilet roll. I was apologetic. I was probably even sad, for a little while, at how it all ended up. Could there be something better? Something else? Could toilet rolls really advance?

"Oh don't start getting into that nonsense again!" hooted Sparigy. (She was the spoon). "I feel it would just appall me! Like Knover over there! Look at him with all his spare time and serrated edges."

Knover stopped peering at his reflection in the stainless steel sugar bowl and glanced over, wide-eyed. (He was the knife). Sparigy sort of nodded in a satisfied way. 'I've known all along', is what her nod said. 

Ferance rolled her eyes and pressed her lips together in a thin line. (She was the fork). "Toilet rolls went out in the eighties!" she told them all smartly, "When everyone had those silly perms and tight jeans."

"What tosh!" Sparigy shot back, "While it is true that they aren't exactly flourishing, the TP of today is not doing too badly, not too badly at all."

Knover lost interest and went back to scrutinizing himself. Ferance declared, "One time, I decided to stab the cook to see how it would feel."

Sparigy didn't look surprised and Ferance took this personally. "I did!" she exclaimed.

"Shh!" hissed Sparigy but Ferance was in full swing and unaware of the little coffee shop crowd coming in.

"It was too hot! Too bloody hot! It's always hot in that kitchen, and then there's the rubbing. Don't even talk to me about the effing rubbing that goes on in those silly, uncomfortable things they call cutlery trays. Pardon me, but I mean, do we look like cutlery?"

Knover cut in at this moment and said, "Absolutely! We are nothing if not cutlery!"

Sparigy said, "I fear that might be true, but I fear it might also be not."

Ferance continued in a high-pitched wail: "I now have chaff! I chaff so much that I am not only chaffing, but I am also, probably, shorter in size. I have positively shrunk, have I not?"

Sparigy ignored this blasphemy and turned to Knover. "Darling," she said in a very pleasant tone, for Knover was like a fragile, wilting flower and it broke her heart to even lay her eyes on him at times. This was not one of those times, but her voice has instinctively taken on that tone out of habit and she had long ago tired of trying to correct it. "I believe you have a date tonight?"

"A what?!" he shouted and slipped forward, clanging the tip of his oblongish head against the sugar bowl.

"I know," agreed Ferance without interest. Sparigy said, "With Tersary?" (The teaspoon).

"I never!" cried Knover, "She's much too young!"

"She's small," supplied Ferance.

Sparigy nodded, "What is she now, Ferance, about eighty?"

Ferance and Sparigy both frowned and Knover turned a marvelous shade of dull grey with embarrassment. 

"If you please!" he spoke up hastily, "I have never even looked at Tersary like that, let alone agreed to go on a date with her!"

"No..." said Sparigy in a thoughtful tone that hid her actual thoughts with rare talented deception. She was not considering the age of Knover's new girlfriend, but was really pondering how to make it over to the bowls of pumpkin soup. She had tried and tried for weeks, but Solece had only been trying for the past three days and just yesterday he'd been snapped up! Sparigy shuddered in disgust. She couldn't believe she had ever been friends with such a traitor!

"I do believe she is around twelve," Ferance put in.

"What a load of rubbish!" Knover spluttered. There was a short silence, in which they all listened to the customers chatting and laughing at various tables. Sparigy fixed her eye on the leftover prawn salad on her plate and wondered how much effort it would take to slide it off.

"Don't be too hard on yourself, Knover, lovely as you are. You are quite lovely." Ferance stopped and let that sink in. Knover stared. Ferance continued, "And, being such, you can't help who you fall for. Love is like a delicate chocolate crisp! Delicate! And chocolatey! Maybe not so much in the crisp side of things, which is a shame with a name like that, but oh well. What is one such as yourself meant to do with information of such? Take it! Take it at once and take Tersary with you!"

"Take her where?" Knover blinked, annoyed and slightly sore.

"TO LOVE!" shrieked Ferance, clearly overcome and unapproachable.

Ferance stared up at the room and admired all that she could see at the top. She could see wall and ceiling, framed paintings and wooden panels, clocks and signs that she couldn't read but understood because she made up her own meaning. She could see dried paint-drips that looked like white blood spots and little cobwebs. 

There was a sudden crashing sound and a high-pitched scream that seemed to come from Knover. 

"What happened?!" she turned her gaze back to the table.

"Sparigy's fallen!" he cried in horror.

"Ah well, there you go then." Ferance and Knover moved to the edge discreetly and with much sliding along the silky tablecloth. Down on the ground lay Sparigy, grinning brightly up at them as if she'd just slipped down a water-slide while sitting in a floaty giraffe ring. "Farewell friends at table five! Pumpkin soup is coming!"

There was another silence, but it stretched out for longer this time while everyone took in the situation. 

"What utter trash talk!" Ferance muttered hotly, "they've taken pumpkin off the menu!"

(4_4)v

Are these lies all that we have?

"Oh, there are days, some days..." started Geraldine, and Sergio leaned forward on the spindly red chair in his eagerness and quite purposely forgot his urge to pee. But Geraldine drifted away. There was a piece of paper in her hands and a hole forming in the back of her cardigan.
"Hey there!" called out Sergio, so far forward now that he was having trouble keeping his eyes on her patterned shoes. "What are the some days?" he asked desperately.
Geraldine drifted away from Sergio and his obtrusive leather pants. She gazed about the room in all it's cluttered glory and scorned everything she saw. Rolled up parchment, hah! What on earth is that supposed to do? Five-foot-tall feathers? Caramel-coloured boots? Five pairs! A ski mask, well, when the hell have we ever gone skiing?
"Gerdy!" Sergio called again.
She drifted through the study and out into the living room, muttering about things under her breath and berating other things in her brain, just as harsh, and she ignored Sergio altogether. But then: Sergio, she thought suddenly, as if a strong wind had rushed up and blown everything about him into her head. Sunshine and sparkles and things that light up. 
"Oh. No..." she said quietly. She was in the hall now, at the entrance, staring at the front door. There was a panel of glass built in and it was glowing with the sun.
"No... I couldn't..."
"Come on Gerd!" shouted Sergio. "I'm almost on the floor! Come back and tell me!"
Things that light up.
She pushed her heart back down, opened the front door, and quite positively drifted away, just as Sergio fell.

~

Did you think this song was about you?

Joseph was losing.
"That doesn't count!" Tarry exclaimed with indignation.
The boy who claimed to be a zombie said, "Yes, it does."
"You haven't got two of the fingers that make up that move," Tarry held up her hand and arranged her fingers in the scissor position.
Joseph held up his stump and Tarry raised her eyes at the thumb and pinky finger. "You're doing the 'dawg'."
"Seven out of ten." Joseph said smugly, "I win."
"You're a zombie!" Tarry said in outrage as her stomach rumbled loudly. "You've got your arm!"
And he had. It was lying on the ground next to his right knee.
"We'll halve it," he compromised.
"No."
"You can't have the whole thing!"
"You have an arm!"
Tarry stood up in a huff and Joseph scrambled up after her. "Alright!" He lurched in her direction and held up his decaying, soggy, bloodied arm mere inches from her face, "We can share!"
"No! That's disgusting!"
Although- was it? She stared at the pale flesh with appraising eyes, as if she was assessing a leafy sculpted unicorn in a hedge-clipping contest.
"I'll halve it so you get the bigger end!" Joesph was saying desperately. Tarry looked up into his brown eyes. She noted that while he was temporarily sagging with the pressure of swaying her judgement, he did have the most attractive brown eyes she had ever seen.
"Do you put anything in them, to keep them so brown and shiny?" she whimsically asked, kicking herself that she hadn't used proper manners and compliments earlier on in their meeting. "They're very brown."
"Huh?" Joseph's desperation turned into bewilderment, and Tarry said quickly, "Of course you do! Sorry! Sorry, I see that you do, of course, how rude of me to think you'd be so careless just because you developed this ailment. Pardon me, please."
She almost bowed but realised the action alone would never be enough.
Joseph looked nonplussed. "Are you saying yes to half the arm and half the apple? The bigger portions?"
Poor Joseph, Tarry thought, also rather whimsically for such a situation, how hard he tries and how often he fails. She sighed and focused once again on the putrid arm shaking slightly before her as it was held up in the air. Maybe this was what her life had been preparing her for. All those lighthearted comments, all those cooking utensils and all those sharp, frosty mornings when she had sobbed into her over-sized mittens at how absurd it was that snow could be that cold. And all those bars on playground! How could one manage to swing around them all and still live to tell the tale?
So many things stretched out behind her.
"Um, girl...?"
Tarry shook out of her reverie. "Sorry? Oh, yes..."
As she considered this token of newly found acquaintanceship , she wondered how she could ever have thought otherwise. The smell of that meaty arm was suddenly so overpowering that she found herself leaning inwards. She took a long deep breath.
"I- I think..." she looked at Joesph, who was gazing at her in that glassy way people do when they've been forced to watch something for longer than they wanted to, and rasped dramatically, "I think I'd like the whole arm."
And she leaned into the stale chunk of flesh that was dripping with blood and coated in a slimy film and took a bite.
~

Why is a raven like a writing desk?

.Text Claire Back.

In the early hours of morning, Claire reached over to her night table and pulled Edgar, the stuffed rabbit she'd had since she was nine, to her chest, hugging him tight. She felt like she was maybe nine again.
I could be nine, just once more, before... I think I would like that. She stared up at the dirty white ceiling and thought back. There had been strawberry lollies and long dresses that tripped her up, laughter in the sunshine. She remembered holding hands and playing games that made you scared and excited at the same time. Running. So much running.
When she had been nine, life had been a whirlwind of colour, of silly voices and plastic toys. So many smells, too. The smell of sugar, of coloured pencils, of new shoes, clean hair and that musty, comforting smell of soft carpet.
There is always something new, every day, when you're nine.
Claire stopped thinking because she started to feel sad, so she found her phone, tucked away under her pillow, and sent a text to her friend Maribelle.
Mari!! She texted quickly, remember when we stole Mr Farland's cat and dressed her up with a tiara and necklaces and everything and you didn't want her to go back, even when she started meowing and scratching us? How funny! We were so funny weren't we? And that time we ate so much of that forbidden pudding that I threw up and you told my parents it was because i'd watched a guy eating a sandwich with a baby lizard in it? Mum was so cracked up about me reacting to the lizard that she didn't care about the missing pudding. 'I've never seen anything so funny.' she laughed and laughed.
Claire stopped texting and lowered the phone. Her eyes lazily drifted over the items in her room; the little square table that held her year ten graduation photo, the little wooden chair with a plank missing at the back so bits of you sagged out uncomfortably (no one has to worry about fixing that now, she thought vaguely), the tall narrow bookcase and the rocking horse with it's fluffy rainbow tail. She felt light all of a sudden. And she felt something else.
Something darker and stronger that made her pick up her phone again and squeeze Edgar closer.
I feel like everything is going wrong and it's not just picking subjects for next year, it's everything that was good is now bad, I can't even explain it. It's like I was coasting smoothly in a car, like going down a straight highway, and then suddenly I don't know, but the car just started going faster and bumpy and to the sides, like those dodgem cars but it's not fun, and I feel like it's gong to crash and i can't stop it and i don't know how to tell anyone or what to do, i wish i knew what to do, Mari, i don't know how to make it better. It's never going to get better. I'm not even scared, i mean i was, but now it's like the best feeling, i wish you could feel it, it's floaty and dreamy and it's just peace, i think it's peace so much peace    I just want

~

Claire,
I was going to text you back. I kept thinking about it, going over in my head, 'text Claire back, text Claire back' and I was I just forgot, I mean, people forget things, ok? For fucks sake. 

~

Claire,
I'm really sorry for not texting you back. I thought about it all weekend, but I also thought that I hadn't seen you in a while and I'd see you at school anyway, so it didn't really matter if I waited. I read the first bit and then had to get ready for tennis, and you k

~

Claire,
I am so sorry that I didn't text you back. I should have.
They held an assembly at school, not that principal Mack cared, he just felt he should do something for you, so all the parents and some of the older ex-students came and he went on and on, and it was really overdone but ok. What I don't understand is why you did it. I don't get it. Like, did you even think about me? While you were 'floating' around, because, shit, i mean, shit, i mean, what is the fucking point of being your fucking friend 

~

Claire,
I miss you. I miss you now but I missed you when you were alive, too. You just didn't know. I should have told you, but I didn't think I wouldn't be able to anymore. You didn't turn up at school, and then your mum told me, and I was walking home past that old man's house and he was out mowing his lawn, and he got grass on my skirt so I yelled at him. Then I started to cry and ran off, but he just stared at me the whole time, you know how much of a perv he is. 
The thing is, I was angry at you, I was furious that you never talked to me because I feel that way sometimes, and maybe I could have helped.
I was angry because I thought you blamed me, like I was the reason, like if I had texted you then none of this would have happened. 
Claire, you were this amazing person with the brightest eyes and biggest smile, and now you're just a pretty name, how pretty your name is. I wish I could still say it. You used to make some lame joke and then laugh the loudest at it. I know we weren't best friends or anything, but you used to light up my life, whenever I saw you, you were so peaceful and gentle and adventurous and small, Claire, you were so small, why were you that small? Claire

~

How would you define 'good?'

"Goodness, Calamine! What kind of hour do you call this?" Earnest exclaimed.
Calamine turned and glanced at Earnest in a sleepy sort of way, but boomed: "Whatever are you talking about, Earnest?! Is this not the proper hour to do all sorts of things?"
Earnest thought about this while he dunked a round crumbling biscuit into his English Breakfsat tea. The little porcelain tea cup had once belonged to his mother and it had a very pretty pattern of pink flowers around the rim and made that delicate clink when placed upon the patterned saucer.
Earnest liked this clink, so he made sure to take little sips and invent numerous excuses to pick it up and put it down.
Calamine didn't like the clinking sound.
"Oh, for tiddle's sake, can you not just gulp your tea and burn your tongue like the rest of us, Earnest!" he would say throughout the day whenever he heard the offending noise. Earnest would just smile and tap his nose.
"I believe in all things green and luscious," Earnest said smartly, setting his cup down and picking up his pipe.
Calamine shuddered. "Green!" he said somewhat viciously. He set down the pile of books he'd been holding, adjusted his monocle so it sat firmly around the eye, and then gazed around at the gigantic bookcases that lined the walls of the library.
Had Calamine taken up the violin instead of joining his junior school's Book Club, none of this would ever have happened. They would never have had to go without eggs and bread because Calamine had purchased another bookcase on a whim; his arms wouldn't wake him in the night aching with the effort of holding and carrying books to and fro for most of the day; his favourite top hat would never have been squashed flat beyond repair by a stack of his favourite novels when he bumped the ladder against their shelf. He certainly wouldn't be wearing such a gorgeous and refined monocle, to say the least!
But Calamine's heart had been captivated by his very first novel, back in his frivolous youth, and had set the path for a dusty, heavy, tiresome future.
"Would you like to hear what I found when searching for pipes the other day, Calamine?" Earnest puffed.
"Not in the sl-"
"Jolly ho! Let me tell you what!"
Calamine sighed. "Is it not time we grew tired of such phrases and silly pastimes?"
Earnest looked up at Calamine with a scandalous expression one might use upon finding out their anticipated sandwich had been eaten by an unworthy nemesis. "Certainly not in this room!"
"Well I've had it!" Calamine whirled around like a ballerina practicing a complicated twirl movement, and looked his delightful Earnest in the eye. "I've simply had it up to here, all th-"
"Up to where?" asked Earnest innocently.
"Up to HERE!" Calamine shot his hand up as far as it would go in indication of how high his tolerance had gone.
"Oh, well, yes..." Earnest shook out his pipe gruffly,  "...that is quite high. But tell me THIS, Calamine dime, CAN it go HIGHER?!"
"Oh! Surely, I don- it ca-" Calamine flustered, his face turning a rather nice shade of crimson that made Earnest wish he could paint, "it couldn't possibly go higher than my hand, Earnest!"
"What... a shame," Earnest said in a pretend but entirely plausible dismal tone. He put his pipe on the little coffee table as Calamine stood glaring through his attractive monocle. He stood up and stretched.
Calamine took a step forward, "I say it's time we moved along, quite along. As far and as wide as it will take us!"
Earnest smiled, and not in the condescending way someone might smile at an overly raging person to tip them over the edge. No. Earnest smiled in adoration at his bright and practical Calamine, his companion who made lists and rows and copies, who could put almost anything in order and sort almost anything out. He had undoubtedly catalogued this very library in under two days. Earnest was so very lucky.
"Calamine, old chap. Shall we not grab a pot of coffee together and read a fancy novel? I'd very much enjoy hearing your voice while I drink."
Calamine stared. Earnest touched his top hat and bowed his head a little in an offhand gesture.
"I- I beg your pardon?"
"Oh let's! This and that can wait, Calamine! These and things and those and theys, why, they shall wait!"
Earnest clapped Calamine gently on the shoulder, and Calamine's eyes twinkled a little.
"Oh alright. I shall chose a grand tale, shall I? One of treasure and champions?"
"Tickery salubrians," said Earnest as they made their way out of the library, "whatever you like, old man."
~