Patrick's Surfaces IX

"So now you know," she said.

I said nothing. She wasn't looking at me. I had in mind a man with thick calves, bermuda shorts with many full pockets, a white long sleeve linen shirt - rolled up just once at the wrists, dirty hiking boots, a straw hat that had been wet and dried many many times, a brown untrimmed mustache, a ruddy sun-wrinkled complexion.

I looked past the whiskey-rounded, sweatshirted-blue belly at my white knees and said, "No, I don't, yet, know."

What I knew was that I had the mind and body of a dungeon and dragon's addict. What I knew was that remembering Patrick only made me hate myself. What I didn't know was what exactly I was remembering.

"I don't know. Why don't you just tell me." My voice had lost all niceness.

"You do know." Her voice had lost all patience.

"I don't know your name," I said. "I don't even know your name," I said.

"You owe us, Zachary." She looked up then, and showed me her tears. I thought that a programmer could forget to make the voice choke while tears fell, but sorrow never forgets such details.

"I don't know your name," I said.

"You owe us," she said.

I thought this would be a good time to declare the day, the game, the adventure, finished. But, I couldn't. I needed to know two things.

"Okay," I said. "If you tell me what it is I asked of you, I will give you what I owe you." I thought that there couldn't be much one owes to pixels.

"You asked me to marry you," she said.

"That's it?"

"That's it."

"No, it was bigger than that," I said.

"You made it bigger than that," she said. She looked so sad still that I wanted to stroke her cheek, could feel a compulsion that I could see leading to a proposal. But, this was nothing. This happened all the time.

"No, Zachary. Not in this life. Not with this you. Patrick wouldn't bother with this you."

"So why is he bothering with me?"

"Because you owe us." She leaned forward, placing each foot hard on the white nothing floor. I could see her black-rosed ankle again, finally. "And you said you'd give it."

"Tell me what it is and I will give it."

"Burn the book, Zachary. Set us free. Destroy the book, I beg of you, again." Begging put unattractive stress on her jawbone, colored her face unnaturally. Almost well done, Patrick, I thought.

"No," I said.

"You promised."

"I did. But, I won't."

"Set us free, Zachary."

"No. You'll have to stay." And I picked up the monitor and threw it against the front door and watched its surfaces splinter into small bits of rainbows. Then, I went to the closet and went through two cardboard boxes of paperbacks before finding The Surfaces of Wemoreland.