Chapter 1 - Untitled

He’s stubborn=Stubborn=
 
He’s stubborn.
I mean, he’s really stubborn, you know? Even when itcomes to stuff he isn’t right about. Frustrating sometimes, yeah.
(I’m stubborn too. But it’s not so bad, because at least Iknow what I’m talking about.)
So we argue a lot. Usually about the same things, over andover, because he won’t back down and I won’t back down, mm-mn. Course, no goodexplosion goes off without a fuse getting lit first. There’s usually somethingto set us off – otherwise we get along pretty much okay, most of the time. Notalways. We’re lightning and rain, you know. I’m fast, he waits; I flash, hewhispers. I tire him out, he makes me impatient. But…yeah, it’s okay, in theend. Because we’re both artists, and he’s with me, and I’m his.
 
Still, we argue, when we’re triggered. When somethingsparks. Last fight was my fault, probably. Hmm. Because I’d gotten clay allover everything, mm. He missed the best part; he usually does, yeah. He doesn’tget it anyways. Which is what we were fighting about. It’s not worth anythingif it just sits there, I said. Sure, it’s a pretty sculpture, but what good isit if that’s all, hm? If it just hangs around and picks up dust…there’s nothingartistic in that, and shouldn’t he know that? But of course he doesn’t, no.That’s the kind of thing he thinks is art, believe it or not. ‘Eternal’, hecalls it. I call it flat, dull, lifeless.
 
Maybe that’s why he is like he is.
 
I can’t imagine doing it, mm. Turning myself into a doll theway he did. Art is life, and life is breathing, and what’s he in all that? Woodand thread and those things that aren’t real…he’s one of his own ‘eternal’things. I don’t know, I guess, because it’s not me. But looking on, I don’t gethow that could be worth it – how anything could be worth giving up your ownheartbeat for, yeah. Not just that, either, not just the heartbeat. It’s feeling.When something hits you, something really great and amazing – like athunderstorm, or a firework show – you’ve gotta be able to feel that, oryou’re just not alive. I tried to get him to see it, one time. We sat in therain, the rain he couldn’t feel on the skin he doesn’t really have, and I triedto show him how beautiful the lightning was. He nodded, he put up with it, hegot as soaked as I was – but he didn’t get it, I know he didn’t.
 
And it’s not fair! It’s not. I help him out sometimes –patch up the bits of him that need repairing, because ‘eternal’ things arefrustrating like that – and I can feel it. I can feel my hands gettingwarm while I’m working on him, I can feel my heart get all crazy-wingedif he tosses me one of his little smiles, I can feel all of it. But whatabout him? He can’t feel my fingertips, and how careful and gentle I am withhim. He hasn’t got a pulse to start fluttering, even if I wrap him up in a hug(telling us both it’s to keep him warm or dry, as if he needs that). He doesn’tget the little jittery flashes I do, and no matter how much I touch it’ll neverget to him. Unfair…mm.
 
I do it anyway, so I guess it’s for my sake. And he’s a lotmore patient than me, so I get away with enough – I get to sleep next to him ifit’s just us, maybe sneak an arm around him or lean on him while we’retraveling (he’s just short enough to make a nice little armrest, mm) – and heputs up with it.  Not sure why I bother.The memories I go away with are nothing amazing; he’s smooth and cold and allthe things I can’t usually stand. But I can imagine. Do imagine, mm. He told mehe used to be more alive than that, said he had a pulse and a heart andeverything. So that’s what I imagine. Mine, my one, feeling and breathing andbeing warm, and shivering when I touch him, and letting me get away with evenmore without that look that reminds me how futile it is, I imagine him reactingand squirming and maybe even crying out just a little and by now I’mready to explode ---
 
He’s headstrong, you know? And he’s convinced he’s right,mm. He thinks he’s art, still and unfeeling and…’eternal’. I’m usually the onewho gives in, just because he’ll give me the silent treatment otherwise. Andit’s the one argument I wish I could win – he can make all the puppets hewants, and I’ll keep my clay to myself and everything, all of that, if he’djust let me have this one. It’s crazy, how much I’d give to win him over, toget the chance to make him know what all this is like. It’s too hard,handling it alone, knowing it’s just me.
 
But he’s stubborn, even when it comes to stuff he isn’tright about, and I don’t think I’m ever gonna be able to change that.

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