Guy--Part Twenty-Five

Splog # 107

Twenty-Five

   A wave, somewhat bigger than the others that had been lapping at Guy's head, washed completely over him and for a moment the voice was silent. But only for a moment.

   "Excuse me, but this is getting ridiculous. Some sort of a response would be greatly appreciated, even a minor one, even a meeny minor one."

   But there was none. The voice continued with its ruminations.

   "We have places to go and people to see. We have things to accomplish and - word needed - to be. The whole thing is rather neat, if a tad derivative. But that one blank space is rather irritating. We'll go places, we'll see people, we'll accomplish things and then, what will we be?...We'll be busy but that's the wrong sort of term. We'll be travellers, but again that's not the sort of idea...What'll we become? That's it. Not what will we be, but what will our journey make us."

   "Grown-ups?" suggested Guy.

   "Excuse me? Grown-ups? No, no, no, it shouldn't take that long. It's more along the lines of, if we accomplish something, then we will have become...what? We'll have become..."

   "Accomplished?"

   "Well, that's not saying much. And it doesn't fit into a piece of poetry. No, no, no. We have blank to be. Workers. Doers. Makers. We have to be something to get done what we wish to get done. We must be... We must be - "

   "Brave? Truthful? Unselfish?"

   "No. No. No. Well, yes. Yes. Yes. We must be all those things. Or we should try anyway. But you don't understand poetry at all. You're approaching it in the wrong way. You're just making wild guesses. You're not looking at it symbolically and linguistically at the same time. You're...awake! You're awake! Why didn't you tell me? You're awake and - and - you're awake and we have things to do. Are you ready? Are you recovered? What happened? Can we resubmerge? Or will it happen again? You have the foundation, right? Well? Excuse me? You did just talk, didn't you? Hello? Hello?"

   Guy's face suddenly splashed down into the water and then jerked upright again. This occurred twice and then the voice resumed.

  "What do I have to do to get you to talk to me? I'm beginning to get frustrated being out here with you and being all alone at the same time. You need to talk to me if we're ever going to be any kind of partners. Or friends. Even acquaintances talk to each other and let each other know what's going on and how they ma - mm gm hm hm mm..."

   The voice's degeneration from its continuous verbal harangue into a series of unintelligible mumbles was caused by Guy bringing both of his hands out of the water and using them to clamp his lips firmly closed so that nothing could escape from between them except the aforementioned hums and squeaks. The sounds faltered into silence after a few more of them tried to make their way through the sealed barrier and, once Guy decided that the voice knew that further effort was useless, he removed his left hand from his mouth, leaving his right to hold the fort, and held it before his face with his index finger pointing upward and his other fingers, and thumb, curled into a fist. Then he slowly and somewhat awkwardly turned his wrist until his finger was pointing into his face in stern admonishment. He held it there for a moment and then hesitantly removed his other hand from his lips, ready at any moment to clamp it back on should the voice start up again. But the voice seemed to have taken the message and Guy gradually let both his hands rest on the water. Then he began to speak.

   "I do aplogize for interrupting you so rudely but you kept asking me to talk and then you wouldn't give me a chance. I want to thank you for what you did for me under the water so that I wouldn't drown. But now that I'm not under water any more - I mean, at least my head isn't - don't you think we should - um, separate or whatever, and then maybe it'd be easier to talk to each other."