Untamed

He liked to own a little part of me, he got a kick out of the idea that somewhere there was a piece of me with his name on it. It gave him a sense of superiority, control and status; it was something that usually went to his head and inflated his ego far too rapidly. Ash never was one to know when to pull the rip cord before it was too late and most of the time, he had let it get to him before he could manage it effectively. ‘Why is it that you think you know me?’ he asked, whilst I sat eating a bagel that I had diligently coated with cream with all the fat and high calories.

‘It isn’t think I think I know you, it’s that I can see certain things about you that give me an impression, a view, an opinion,’ I said, with my mouth full and chewing at the same time. It was true – I never thought that I knew Ash, despite that we talked often and our friendship had withstood many things, for years on end. He was an odd ball, one of those people that society wouldn’t cast a second look at because he would dance in the street in fluoro colours just to be different from everyone else. Maybe it was because he actually was different from everyone else, naturally.

Another bagel sat on my plate, free of any cream and not yet ready to be eaten. He took it upon himself to pick it up and take a healthy bite out of it, then smiling in the way that he does when he knows he owns that little part of me. He has me, and my bagel. ‘So how can you be certain that what you think and see is right?’ he asked, as I stared at him eating my now last bagel, and chewing on its remains. I knew where this was leading; it always ended up being a conversation that went back and forth between us, in a pointless manner.

We both enjoyed stirring the other and we took pleasure in doing so on a frequent basis, just for kicks. ‘I don’t know if I’m even right, but I only have whatever you show me before I can make any kind of evaluation. Why is it that we do this, every day?’ I asked, licking my fingers clean of any cream that I had accidentally gotten on them. He smiled even more, and reached a hand for my coffee, another sign that he could do what he pleased with me and anything that I had. I was fine with this little fact, oddly enough.

‘We do this because we can, because you and I both enjoy it,’ he responded before asking a question of his own, ‘Why do you do this with me?’ It was a question that was much easier to ask than it was to answer. He continued, ‘you said that you don’t care, so why do you do it, why do you ask the things that you ask?’ and I sat there, contemplating my response, calculating a move. With him, one has to calculate their responses, find some algorithm that works; one wrong move and it was check-mate, he’d have you in a position you could not get out of.

‘I’m purely curious, Ash, just wondering about it all, really. I don’t have to care about everything to at least have a slight amount of compassion and interest for you,’ I responded, hoping that would be sufficient enough. He rolled his eyes, a bastard kind of smile across a face that seemed tired and worn, ‘I wish you wouldn’t,’ he said. With those words, he consumed the last of my coffee and stood up to leave, but not before I asked, ‘Why do you do this?’

‘I like the feeding the ego that is me,’ he said with a smug grin, and left without another word. There’s a bit of him in all of us.