William Myrl; Letters to No One (37)

Dear No One,
The days all twist and tumble til we cannot parse one from the next. Life is looking forward; to a paycheck or a letter, to a Friday or a publication date. One goal floats into the next, and little changes in between, there is only the hope that some part of one adds on to its follower, that someone is keeping score. For Christmas, Blue, my celly, and I made a pizza. We bought flour from a kitchen worker and cooked it in the microwave to form the semblance of real crust. The two of us get along well, I make him laugh. We have nothing in common aside from context, so most of our interaction is just what is necessary of people living in such close quarters. I talk to him enough, respond enough, that I can say I'm not ignoring him. I'm happiest pretending I'm alone. I wonder what it would be like to share a cell with someone I would talk to if I didn't have to. Ender or Mao; I wouldn't pick Jark because we could never have a conversation that wasn't about a shared project. Too similar in some ways, too dissimilar in others.
On the weekends, final lockdown isn't until one in the morning. Ender and I will sit in the pod, oftentimes the lone pair to remain out so late, listening to music and working on whatever is at hand. Lately I've been drawing tellurians for my Mythopoeia series. He is usually working on maps for his zombie role playing game. We talk in circular puns and dick jokes; I pick at his past and his pathology. He will be here well after I am gone. I have seen pictures of his ex, of them together. It is the strangest thing, and it can only be stranger for him; to look at them and know what he has done, to have that tangled knot of love and of despair, and never letting go. We joke about things it isn't polite to joke about. I try to wear that mask, to have those eyes, and imagine what it would feel like to have murdered someone that you love. I can't explain it, and nothing he says will do. He has serious issues with rage, and though I've never witnessed an explosion, it isn't difficult to imagine him catching fire. It makes me grateful for my passivity.
At work, I sometimes help the backup cutter. His machine doesn't slice the fabric automatically, so every layer has to be done with scissors. He spreads the fabric to the length of four or five patterns, scrub shirts or pants or jumpsuits. We wali back and forth, cut, then back and forth. He switches out the rolls when they run out. Fifty layers, or seventy five, he only uses me for the big orders. We don't speak more than a few sentences to each other in two hours. Back and forth, and back and forth, sort of like the days.

Yours,
William Myrl