Sound inside

The Sound Inside 9/20/19 47
CHRISTOPHER Do you think he’s coming back?
BELLA
No.
(to AUDIENCE)
I tell him that his sentences are stunning, that his dialogue is sharp and
essential.
(to CHRISTOPHER)
Sometimes you mix your metaphors, but even that feels honest because your
narrator is a freshman who’s also probably prone to mixing his metaphors.
CHRISTOPHER That’s not intentional.
BELLA
Well it works.
CHRISTOPHER It’s clumsy.
BELLA
There’s nothing clumsy about it. It’s tragic and mysterious and your prose is
beautifully restrained. You manage to make me root for a murderer and I
can’t explain why. His hard actions completely define him, he gives his
mother the fucking murder weapon, and yet you never editorialize or beg my
sympathy in any way.
CHRISTOPHER You’re also pretty high.
BELLA
Just accept the fucking praise, Christopher.
CHRISTOPHER I accept.
BELLA(to AUDIENCE)
The next phase of the evening is cloudy, dreamlike.
I remember carefully placing Christopher’s manuscript back in its stationery
box.
I remember opening my refrigerator and removing the three clearly marked
hypos from the butter cubby and giving Christopher a quick tutorial on their
sequence… I remember him repeating this sequence back to me with a
detached, clinical authority.
I remember asking him to help me to my bedroom because I’m now high on
Percocet.
I remember Christopher helping me lay down on my bed.