Bored?

 

Basil watched Death's face shrivel and burn. He'd mistaken it for Eric Draven's at first. The warmth

was pleasant, but his stomach was turning as he watched his library go up in smoke. Well, they

weren't entertaining. He'd loved them once, but that morning he realized that he hadn't picked up any 

book off that shelf in three years. 

 

He could smell the linoleum in the kitchen melting, but he didn't care. At least, not at that moment. 

"Maybe now it'll finally warm up," Ezra murmured, squatting at the edge of the flaming pile of books 

and leaning in closer than Basil dared.

"What is this, some sort of reverse rain dance?"

"Something like that," Ezra said.

"My landlady's gonna be so pissed."

"So leave before she finds out."

"And go where, exactly?"

Ezra shrugged. "Up to you, really."

Basil tossed a crumpled piece of waxed paper from a sandwich onto the pile. He wondered when it 

would spread enough to burn the rest of the apartment. Or would it burn through the floor first? "You 

say that so casually. Like there's even anywhere for me to go."

Ezra rolled his eyes and looked up at Basil. "You have worlds at the soles of your pretty pink Docs. 

Pick one."

Basil snorted. "There you go again."

Ezra smirked and looked back at the fire. "Well, you do."

"Like where?"

"Like... anywhere. You just have to stop dismissing everything as nonviable."

"Excuse me for not wanting to be a gutter punk."

"Do I look like a gutter punk to you?" Ezra was smiling up at him again.

"You--I don't even know what you look like."

Ezra looked back at the fire again. "Sure you do."

"Not like it matters. I can't go tagging along with you."

"Damn straight you can't. We maybe oughta put this out if we don't want it to do even more damage."

Basil dumped the bucket of water sitting on the counter onto the pile without bothering to aim 

around Ezra, who flopped backward and managed to only get his shoes wet.

"I don't really have to leave here, do I? I mean, I can live with a blackened kitchen floor and a ticked 

off landlady."

"No you can't," Ezra said automatically as he lit a cigarette.

"Same difference, I guess."

*

"BASIL!"

Basil wondered how long it would take her to notice the bathroom. He'd hoped maybe she would like 

it, but deep down he knew she'd take it the wrong way.

He'd been awake for the past four hours since he finished painting it. He'd meant to sleep, but he was 

too amped up anticipating her reaction. Up you get.

He forced himself to sit up on the couch and roll into a standing position in one fluid motion--no one 

was there to see, but it amused him anyway.

"Basil, what the hell is this?"

"A painting."

His friend's mouth flattened and eyes narrowed. "No shit, Sherlock. Why is it on my bathroom wall?"

Basil shrugged. He had no excuse and did not feel like he needed one even though he knew people 

usually pretended like they wanted one when he did things like this.

"What is this even supposed to be?"

At first Basil had been thinking of the splatter his body would make on the sidewalk if he were to 

jump off Sarah's balcony, but once he'd started painting he couldn't stop thinking of his comics that 

time he set them all on fire. It had turned out a bit too orange and misshapen to look like a bloody 

corpse in the end. Basil figured that was probably a good thing.

"Art?"

"Fuck your art. Are you going to clean this up?"

"Nope."

Sarah's lips were trembling. So was the rest of her. Basil couldn't help but be drawn to the bags 

around her bloodshot eyes. He wanted to paint them. He wasn't sure if painting the image of them on 

something else or putting paint on them would be more satisfying.

"Basil, get out."

"Okay." There were worlds at the soles of his pretty pink Docs, but he didn't like any of them. Or at 

least, he didn't like them from the inside. They always seemed so appealing from the outside. 

*

 "HEY!"

Basil looked over his shoulder. He didn't know the person who was shouting at him, so he just turned 

around and continued contemplating the Mississippi.

"Look, man, I don't know what your life is life, but don't just throw it all away--"

Basil giggled when he realized what it looked like he was doing. Just a few inches made so much 

difference. Well, it wasn't the inches, he supposed. The difference was there were two sides of the 

guard rails on this bridge, and he was standing on the wrong side of them even if his hands were 

hanging onto the right side.

"Dude, what is wrong with you? Are you high?"

Basil had just begun to quit giggling when the man said something even funnier, so he had to start 

laughing. He saw the man's hand cautiously moving toward his arm and thought of a self-defense 

move his older brother had taught him when they were kids. There wasn't really a lot of momentum 

for Basil to take advantage of in this case, but he figured he was strong enough to make up for that so 

he single-handedly yanked the man over the rail by his wrist and sent him plunging.

Never made an impact like that before. He was replaying the death scream of his victim in his head 

even though he hadn't really listened very hard the first time. Then he realized this is shit. All of this 

is garbage. I don't even know if I feel better or worse after writing this. It does seem to reflect my 

mood at the moment pretty well, though.