The truly unapproachable notion he dared not challenge was that as long as it was within his head, he had full control.
“Why did you stay?” Naush wanted to scream at Vic’s face at the top of his lungs, but the words rushed too fast to his lips and collapsed into one syllable: “Hey.”
The blurry contour slowly produced a man, drawing closer as the shadow preceding him invaded Naush’s delimitation of personal space. And right there Vic stopped, at the uncomfortable distance whereby one could sense his presence without twisting their head. There was a brief moment Naush thought he missed Vic’s words. A whirl of glass-clinking and Latina beats escaped the bar when a few more inebriated stumbled out. But as the noises went with the high-pitched screeching laughter down the street, Naush figured that Vic was just standing in silence. His heart sank. Now what?
He felt compelled to spill more words to dispel the stare-down. But before Naush squeezed out the last bit of humor he stockpiled for socializing tonight, Vic made a move. He handed Naush his big, cheek-to-cheek, signature grin. “All good?”
No. No. Nothing was good. It was a verbal hostage situation, in which no other option than “I’m good” was socially acceptable and morally unambiguous. And just how could Naush determine if Vic was asking for a confirmation that he could go on about his life having done his bare minimum obligation as a decent human being, or if he was asking for a paragraph of bulleted points? And just how could Naush explain to Vic that to everyone else, every last man that ever walked the earth, Naush’s answer would’ve been the standardized affirmation, but to him, it wouldn’t? And just how could Naush begin to unload to Vic about the layers of barricades he had to put up in case he spilled the wrong thing to the right person at the wrong time when the wind was cutting into his sobriety and the splattering waves were encroaching on his rationality?
The water was getting louder, almost drowning the conversation. Naush had a split second to think, but the grin sent him daring the truly unapproachable notion.