The Argument

"I'm really angry with you, you know! I can't believe you right now! After all we have been through? This? It is the last nail in the casket! And yes, I know the expression usually involves coffins, and I don't care and you know how I feel about messing with expressions that have proudly stood the test of time! I'm that pissed off!"

"Oh? You think you are pissed off? Well, I have news for you and not the usual news I deliver full of topical events from around the world. My skin is figuratively crawling at the sheer sight of you! I'm pretty sure my other organs are not too pleased either, but they are just harder to get an exact read on, unlike my overly sensitive skin. I can't believe you are blaming me for what has gone on here between us tonight. That is low, even for you, and that is saying a lot considering how impressively low you've gone in the past."

"Someone is going to get hurt, if you keep up that sort of talk up! Do you want to guess who? Aarghh! You are making me crazy! I want to punch the wall or the ceiling or, if I happen to be kneeling, the floor. Do you think I'm enjoying this? No! I'd rather be all cuddly with you, making all others in the room highly uncomfortable and wondering about the details of our friendship. But those days seem to be in the rear view mirror which I just happened to bring along this evening either for the small amount of comfort it provides but most likely for its reflective capabilities."

"My brain is making plans to evacuate the building that is my head, something it has threatened before but always kept the rent cheques coming! Do you know what I'm talking about, because I'm not totally sure I do, due to the fact that I am almost literally seeing red right now, though it is hard to tell due to my red-green colour-blindness. Are you actually laughing? Do you think my inability to enjoy deep, passionate reds and organic, forest greens is funny? I dare you to bring that laugh from where you are sitting all the way over there using your face as how else would you transport a laugh and you can bring the rest of your body too if you must! When you come over here, I'll..."

"You'll what? Come on tough guy! Don't hold back on the account that I am a woman, an attractive woman who you once claimed to love. Don't let my close resemblance to Cinderella, your hero which raises at least some questions seeing as you are a man, stop you from coming at me. I'm ready for you! Sure I may occasionally present like a human embodiment of a small piece of partially burnt wood, and I am, but unlike those other cinders, I am for real and I'll end you."

"Do you realize how desperate you sound? Desperate and sad and obviously badly in need of some refresher courses in proper grammar and punctuation. Look, I don't want to fight you. I don't. Not really. Well, a bit. I think my fists do, but my arms are not interested. I also care about you despite your choices and your infuriating grammatical mistakes that are highly correctable if you'd only take my advice and enrol at the local community college. I'm willing to let the past be the past, as long as you will do the same and stop pretending to press your coveted invisible rewind button that we both know isn't there."

"I can't believe you, of all people, are calling me desperate. Ha! That's what I say to that. If anyone here is desperate it's you, although, to be honest, it's usually one of your best features and makes me want to pet and groom you like a cute puppy. You are always calling me something, usually things that are sweet, things I love - like baby dolphin, bananamobile, high fructose corn syrup - to name a few. But not now, not tonight. Why? What is really going on?"

"I could tell you. I could tell you a long, dramatic and elaborate heart-wrenching story. I could tell you lots of things, just like I used to when we first met. I remember we'd sit there, facing each other, taking turns talking, while the other person used their ears to hear what the other was saying. Oh, we were so young and naive back then. I thought things would always be perfect. I wasn't ready for you to change. You've changed, you do know that don't you?"

"I do. I used to be as graceful as an ox, albeit the most graceful ox humans have ever seen. Now I'd probably compare myself to some other beast of burden that is also partially graceful, just incrementally less so. I know it seems similar to you, but inside I feel the difference. I also have grown more serious over time. I used to spend hours and hours laughing and giggling at the slightest thing. It was so annoying! I had next to no control over it. Sure it seemed like I was having the time of my life, but I wasn't, not in the least. How I wanted to be taken seriously and be treated like the 25 year old that I was, but everyone saw me, and treated me, like a clown. And the tips were so small! So, yes I have changed. Your clown has left the building."

"If I had a handsaw for everytime I've heard you tell that story, I'd own exactly three handsaws which is actually one fewer than I actually own right now, so it would be a step backward. Others have wondered, quite rightfully, why does one person, in the big city, who doesn't work on construction projects and is not at all handy around the house, need to own any handsaws, let alone four. "Good question," I answer while admiring my reflection in the blade of my favourite saw. I've changed too. We've drifted like two pieces of driftwood on a river that is cascading down a waterfall. I'm not sure at all how that image relates in anyway to our issue here, but I thought I'd toss it out there. It makes me so angry, because I love you. I love you like a person loves their handsaw collection, although there are probably minor differences, with the safety precautions being one."

"I love you too. I love both the idea of you and the physical manifestation of that idea. I love both you and the collection of puppets I made in your likeness that I use to act out short scenes with during holiday times. I love that our love was both normal and never normal. Sure I could have predicted that as I found you in the Looking for Abnormal Relationship column in the local newspaper that I was reading out of spite one Friday night after working out of spite all day - it was just so easy to keep the spite going and I'm glad that I did, as it led me to you."

"When we first met, I felt like a subatomic particle being annihilated into radiant energy. I remember our first date. The touch of your lips made me burn, though, the lit candle I leaned against as we were allowed our passion to get the better of us burned even more. I wanted to devour you, though, the pizza we ordered seemed even more appropriate. And yet, I am still angry. Things seem so different now. What you did was so insensitive, like you don't love me or care about me or are treating my feelings like lab rats, which I am morally opposed to on a number of levels. But, I know I am to blame for where we are as well and I am angry with myself too."

"Me too. I know I came here tonight ready to yell at you until my voice went hoarse and my brow was full of sweat and needed mopping, but I also need to yell at myself, after my voice has time to rest, of course, as I don't want to do any permanent damage. Permanent Damage, coincidentally, is actually my ironic working title for the novel I am writing that is loosely based on my amazing childhood. But, I just can't yell at you or accidentally drip sweat on you. Can we fix this? Can we go back to how things were?"

"I think so. I also am speaking those thoughts out loud to you as well otherwise you'd be fairly uncertain regarding my answer to your question. You know, maybe this is the blip on the computer screen that is our relationship with our relationship being a computer screen in that analogy just like you used to always joke that it was. Sure, this could be the hiccup that just requires copious amounts of water for us to breathe normally again. I certainly hope so, as I love you, and just so you don't take that the wrong way, my love is the love that many other people use the word "like" to mean and nothing more unless you are into that and then I'm open to any new definitions you want to suggest."

"I love you too. I really do. Just that it feels weird to go from a few minutes ago where we wanted to tear each other's heads off or, more precisely, race to see who could tear the other's heads off first as once one person had lost their head, their ability to then, headless, remove the other's would be rendered impossible. But I am one to quickly forgive, though not forget. Let me make that clear, that I forget nothing and will keep the memory of the beginning of this encounter in the recesses of my brain for as long as I shall live and possibly beyond that if the experimental research my brother is working on comes through in time. But, I do love you; all of you, though some parts more than others, which only makes sense as I think it would highly suspicious if I claimed to love every single little part of you exactly the same."

"So where do we go from here? Do we just move on? Do we attempt to hug it out? Do we just pretend it never happened? Do we spend the better part of the evening breaking down our disagreement to its component parts and then analyze each with as much detail as we have the collective brain capacity to do? I, for one, vote for ordering pizza with extra cheese as well as extra dough and extra sauce, mostly so the other components don't feel left behind or marginalized. Now some would argue that I am suggesting just ordering a larger pizza, and while I don't disagree or refute that point, I just don't choose to agree."

"You are such an extremist when it comes to pizza and, while it freaks me out something fierce, I also respect you and hold you in higher regard because of it as well. I say we move on, only first to the next room, and then regarding the issue as this room feels so...dirty to me now. Then we can spend up to, but not exceeding, 5 minutes hugging. Any less and it will come off as yet another half-assed attempt on our part to follow through on a solution to a problem and any more, someone will invariably suggest that we get a room, which will compel us to rent a space together and we already rent this space and we just can't afford to rent two apartments what with our current financial constraints. And then if we still feel like pretending it never happened, then why not? And sure let's order that pizza! Let's order it together, like old times."

"Oh, the old times! How I miss them so! I remember that you used to call me "Junior", which made very little sense, as I both older and larger than you and had absolutely no one else in my life who I consider my senior, no matter how inaccurate that perception was in reality. I'm not sure if you are suggesting this, but I am in total favourite of living a considerable amount of time in the past, including, but not limited to, changing our hairstyles and caloric intake. I can't believe I was so angry earlier! You are so important to me and I need you like someone who loves chicken nuggets with honey mustard sauce needs napkins especially if they are anything like me when I eat those with my outright disregard for the precise location of my mouth on my face."

"And you are so important to me! I would follow you wherever you go as long as you don't do anything crazy like walk 40km in the rain. Yes, I'd follow you, walking about a half block behind you, wearing a black trench coat and sunglasses and possibly a wig. Sure some would call me a creeper and others would consider reporting me to the authorities, which has only happened a couple of times before, thinking of me as a "threat", while I always claim to be a triple threat, especially when playing basketball. That reminds me, I never said sorry for trying to dribble you that one time when you were curled up like a ball in that orange blanket you love."

"I forgive you. I forgive you completely, or more accurately, I forgive you as much as one entity can forgive another which is fairly unquantifiable, but it probably falls somewhere between completely and not at all. As you know, I'm quite oblivious towards all quantities in life. Anyways, all of this arguing has made me hungry. Or, I entered not hungry, we argued and now I'm hungry. Hard to argue cause and effect here, I know. Anyways, let's go get something to eat."