will.i.am's Lost Change (Instrumentals)

I once partook in a conversation amongst two dapper young men at my lovers quinceañera . I was playing the fool, as I often do as to not be responsible for the rising cost of therapy. 

They were both majestic partyists, going tit-for-tat in every complexifiying opinions. I thought I finally was about to witness what my father always tried to convince me was possible--two equals admitting everything they just said was full of shit, shaking hands, and shutting up. 

Maybe this satori was possible in his generation, where people weren't able to excuse themselves to the bathroom to manically search for up-to-date arguments on why the earth was flat. There is endless warfare of opinion. Some call it the 24 hour news cycle. I call it a perpetual self shitting machine.

But maybe, I thought--maybe they had the same speed of broadband connection at home--the same amount of time spend scowering for eclectic facts, and the same 4g data plan on their smart phones...maybe, even, the same perfect self-critical disposition granted by their fathers when they accidentally used their children's first poems as toilet paper. I was filled with disastrous optimism. I encouraged their conversation by continuously chinking their glasses.

They were in a splendid dance talking about energy. Charles, as I will call the first gentleman, made a dignified point.

"Clean energy is our future, Thomas--not children. Clean energy."

This is a humorous picture of Atlantis. 

Denying the commonality of not hating children! I was impressed. I smiled and nodded so eagerly, passionately.

"Charles--energy? Really? Only level 0 societies use energy. The Atlanteans never needed that garbage."

My mind was blown. An equally drastic move. Denying the value of physical energy... unfathomable... could my father be...

"Ah! A fellow Atlantean... surely you will forgive my previous statement... I did not know you were in the fraternity of the gill...'

At this point I was on the verge of tears. I will not lie to you, reader. I excused myself from the conversation and wept for a little bit outside. But this as not and is not about me. I rushed back to see how their joust-turn-dance would play out.

When I came back, I saw Thomas furiously tapping on his phone. I asked him where Charles was. In the bathroom, he said.

Things were on the verge of falling apart. A trip to the bathroom... you only get one... if Thomas were to stump him again...

"Ah, Thomas! You must excuse my bowels. The answer to your question is..."

"New Hampshire"

They answered together in unison... a détente of 4g data plans.

"Yes, Atlantis as we knew it is now New Hampshire. Cursed bowels... fogging up my mind..."

They laughed in unison. 

"Charles, which part of Atlantis did your ancestors live in?

"They moved around a lot."

"As did mine! But they usually stayed near the Azuruth Sea."

"We..." he looked off to his left and began to sweat. "Curses! You must excuse me, I must use the restroom."

Game, set, match.

And it was all over.

As Charles sprinted to the restroom, swiming through the crowd, Thomas grabbed his phone and nervously tapped. He looked up to me, barely holding on to his charisma,

"Emails! Can't live with them, can't live without them!"

I smiled. He knew what was at stake. He had tied the game.

I breathed deeply, remembering the countless meals my father tried to convince me to denounce my blackened heart. He begged me to believe that silence was possible. That détentes could emerge. That the strong could stand side by side as victors of the party. No, I said. There could only be one.

The rest of this tale hurts me too deeply, reader. Charles emerges from the restroom, making the unsightly error of saying his bowels made him enter a fugue state. This opened the door for Thomas to ask the decisive question that broke my heart.

I never saw this movie I just know enough people
who inanely quote movies to make this reference.

"Have you listened to Bach's fugues? Over-rated. I prefer the compositions in will.i.am's Lost Change (Instrumentals)."

Charles realized his demise immediately. He was gentleman he couldn't use the bathroom excuse twice. He was beaten--beaten by an associative topic due to his poor word choices. He ran out of the room yelling that he was sorry. Thomas slept with every woman in the room.

Yes, reader. There can only be one. 

The rest of that night I waited in my car for my lover's turn to be over, researching Will.I.Am, weeping.

There can only be one.