Story: The War Within

“Should” is a dangerous word; it is a weapon that splits atoms. “We are not as good friends as we should be”, the sentence strikes, and like a cosmic blade slicing through my being I am suddenly caught between two realities. I am here, in this world, in a plane 9000 miles from him, our physical distance almost as long as our emotional, but I am also here, in an otherworld, a realm that started fading a decade ago in the moment he handed me the first sheet of paper.

He and I, we have been friends for twelve years, but just as longevity is only a drawn out decay, so too has our friendship suffered the vicissitudes of time. “I have known you the longest, but I know you the least”, the sentence lashes, and even as I recoil I am struck by the appropriateness of the attack. He and I, we are writers – we understand not only that a well-placed word can flay a person more completely than the sharpest blade, but also that the simple combination of pen and paper can immobilize that person completely, freeze him for excoriation.

He must have known this six years ago when he sent me that second of three papers, an envelope innocently hiding a rectangle of white anthrax. “We exchange so many words”, the sentence stings, and suddenly that mailed nail-bomb of words explodes in my mind again, tearing through the depths of my consciousness to pierce every corner of my brain.

It was only the second time our feelings had poured out of our mouths, untranslated. Six years had passed since we first met, and three days before the bomb arrived he was sitting in my home, a boy among strangers, waiting for a stranger. When I finally arrived, almost two hours late, he didn’t say nothing, and underneath the civility of his manners I could see four years of needling nails straining at the seams of his being, even as the methodical hands of his anger were slowly packing them into an organized letter, designed for maximum devastation.

He and I met again two weeks later, waiting together for a bus. He and I said hi to each other, and nothing more, because if he and I understood that words were weapons, then he and I also understood that silence was, not a healing salve, but a plaster. And so as he and I stood there, we hoped that the absence of words would smooth over not just our freshest wounds, but also all the wounds that had been struck since he first handed me a sheet of paper four years ago.

“We’ve had problems”, the sentence jabs, and I know he has not forgotten it either, that one incident that divided our roads a decade ago. That first sheet of paper contained only a harmless story, if such things exist, but in the outline of his story were etched the minute details of his ambition, so much larger than mine. He gave it to me because I had won the lottery of our English teacher’s favor, and he knew that as his best friend I could help him see his story be published in our school’s annual book. As I looked into his eyes, I saw trust, but not the blind variety – it was trust with two wide-open eyes.

So I said yes. I took the story, and later I threw his ambition away.

“When both you and I come back, maybe things will be different”, the sentence touches hesitantly. “Should” is a weapon, but sometimes it is also a warning, shouted before a world disappears. “When you and I come back, maybe things will be different.” What it means is, “When you and I come back, maybe things will be the same”.