Words Without Paper, Part III

The notebook sat propped against a wall, atop Dalyn’s desk. His bedroom consisted of little more than a bed, a clock, a set of drawers, a bookshelf, and his desk. The walls were bare, something he’d always promised himself he’d get around to fixing. The bookshelf was stuffed with poetry and novels, half of which he’d always promised himself he’d get around to reading. For every book he started, he’d hear of three more before he hit the back cover.

Dalyn’s bedroom only had one corner of personality, where the notebook sat: Paper littered it, discs of music occupied a dusty corner, pens and pencils stuffed themselves into a crowded mug. He pulled his chair closer and studied what he’d just written—for once he’d attempted a sestina, despite his hatred of organized poetry. It followed strangely complex yet simple rules, and he wasn’t sure if he quite liked it yet. Still…

He rested his arms on his desk and let his head sink down. The fluorescent light on his desk reflected off of a black pen, that, against all logic, wrote in purple. He stared at it. Then he picked a good spot on the wall and gave that a good stare, leaning back in his seat. His eyes eventually landed on the drawers next to the bed, sliding down to the handle on the third drawer.

Crossing the room, he stepped out of the patch of light and into the shadow where the drawers lay. His hand encompassed the decorated handle for an instant before pulling it open, revealing, in one swift, anticlimactic moment, a pile of folded underwear.

“Wrong one,” he murmured, and moved up a drawer. This one also had clothing in it, which he dug into, uncovering a small golden circle in one corner. The chain attached seemed to have no end—eventually he found it, and slowly pulled until the talisman revealed itself, out of the depths.

He held it in midair for a moment, watching it gently swing from side to side, then eventually slowing to the point that it rotated around the chain. He laid it on his palm, then grasped the sides—it sprung open energetically, revealing a frozen clock face.

“Needs batteries,” he grunted, closing his hand around it. A light click sealed it up again, and Dalyn returned to his desk. He sat back, dangling the pocketwatch from its chain, gleaming an artificial white from the lamp.

Something was bothering him—which was odd, considering there really wasn’t much on his mind save for watching the world. At least, not until recently, when he discovered these auras around people. What was this anyway? What’d the colors mean—if anything at all.

Coming back to meaning, he gave his notebook yet another read. He’d written it—he’d been there when the pen spilled out the words, sitting in the pew, then in his cramped living room, and finally here at his desk. It meant something to him. He never wrote without meaning. Meaningless words had no purpose.

Meaningless words didn’t exist.

He’d written it, but he couldn’t read it. It’d happened before, but it irked him still that he had to let his poetry travel the minds of others just to get a picture of his own. None of his readers knew him. Maybe it was about time he picked someone he knew personally, or not even personally, but knew him as a human being.

***

“Where’s Nick?”

“Ah yeah Nick,” he said, pushing his thick-rimmed glasses up his nose. “Look if you wanna kill him use the back room okay? Prevents lawsuits you know. Heh.”

Dalyn was vaguely impressed that someone could shoot straight through a whole line of sentences without so much as considering a comma. He didn’t particularly like commas himself—as a matter of fact he’d annihilated all punctuation in most of his poems—but he doubted the man in front of him had a poetic license, and he seemed to downright despise the little things.

“No, I just wanted to ask him something.”

“Look really if you wanna ask something you should really be asking someone else. He can get a little ya know witty and such, thinks he’s so amazing.”

Ah, there’s a comma. Just horribly misused, is all.

“Yes, yes, I understand that,” Dalyn continued, with just a faint hint of annoyance. Customer service, my ass. “It’s—just tell me if I can speak with him for a moment.”

“Oh sure yeah. Just—Jade! Jade tell Nick someone wants to speak to him okay, don’t worry I don’t think he’s armed heh.”

“Dalyn! Dalyn Blackpool. He knows who I am.” He slapped himself internally for mentioning his last name. There was always something he did that was off ever so slightly—just enough to for someone to pause a moment and give him an odd look. Even if they didn’t physically do it, he knew, in their heads, they thought something was wrong with him for a split second.

Dalyn took his pocketwatch from his right inside pocket and looked at the time. He didn’t really need to know—his internal clock could have guessed it was around 2:15—he just enjoyed having it out and hearing its steady tick.

***

Jade poked her head into the break room and found Nick reclining in a chair clearly not designed to do so, reading a book that she just knew would make her head twirl from looking at the print. He was always buried in one book or another. It didn’t matter what book, really—she would see him reading anything at all from Captain Underpants to Dante’s Inferno in a variation of old English that he had to explain when he read excepts aloud.

“Hey, Nick,” she called across the room.

He didn’t bother to look up, instead raising a finger in the universal “just a second” signal.

“Nick, I’m not waiting for you to finish a damn paragraph. The world doesn’t revolve around you.”

He raised a different finger.

She sighed.

“All right, what?” he asked, closing the book.

“That Dalyn guy is here, and he wants to talk to you.”

“I’m dead.”

“I wish.”

“I’m not here.”

“Fine,” she said, and turned to go.

“Hold it! Get a message from him. Oh, wait a minute. Movie night is this Friday, right?”

“Last Friday of the month, yes,” she said testily, one foot beyond the doorway.

“Hmm. Maybe he’d like to, you know, tag along?”

“With the rest of us? Are you kidding me?” she laughed. “It’s obvious from just looking at the guy. His hands don’t stop moving, except when he’s grabbing the counter. His left foot’s tapping. He stands far too straight. He’s not a social person.”

“Not to insult my own intelligence by saying this, but, duh. Wouldn’t be nearly as interesting if he was.”

“What, so I just waltz out there and ask him, you wanna come to some movie? With a bunch of people he’s never even met?”

“Mm-hmm.”

“And you think he’s gonna accept?”

“No.”

They stared at each other for a moment.

Jade gave in, and a smile crossed her face.

“I hate you,” she said. “What do I have to say—you’re taking a vacation?”

“Sounds good.”

“Won’t be in the store for a week?”

“Even better.”

“Won’t give out your number because none of us have it.”

“No, back up, try again.”

“Won’t give out your number… because none of us know him and don’t want to just hand out your cell to some random guy.”

“No, that’s just stupid. Come to a movie with us, but I won’t tell you your friend’s number?”

“You don’t want to be disturbed.”

“That’ll work.”

“Loopholes?” he asked, reaching for the book again.

“Maybe he can wait a week to talk to you.”

“Bet anything he can’t.”

“Maybe he’ll ask us to deliver the message, and that’ll be it.”

Nick thought for a moment, and then said: “Nah, he’ll want to talk to me about something or other. Just go with it. Invite him.”

“And if he finally says no?”

“You fail at being a manipulative bitch.”

Jade’s smile grew again. “Fine,” she said, and left.

Nick reopened the book to page three hundred twenty-seven, third paragraph. Bookmarks were for amateurs.