two lives moving toward a dissapearing center

clyde (or herb from "the rise and fall of a most unpleasant man") lives in an apartment with his girlfriend it is a one bedroom. after an office party and many drinks later, clyde comes home convinced that his life needs order. this realization occurs after a lengthy discussion with one of the office secretaries who had a mad crush on clyde, but was always afraid to tell him so. during a particularly innuendo laden conversation about filing systems, clyde felt a sudden need to organize his life (add conversation b/w clyde and secretary). clyde took it upon himself to reassess his life and thought long and hard while watching grizzly adams, that he needed to be alone to find himself and not let the rush of emotions that had come on as a result of his alcoholism control him. in order to keep track of and visually convey to his g/f his emotional state, clyde developed a system to show how he felt. he moved out of the room he shared with his g/f and moved into their apt.'s living room. he bought a small tent and camped out there. he needed to maintain privacy, but wanted to remain connected to his "emotional monitoring officer": or EMO aka, his g/f. the water, but not light proof tent would allow the couple to see each other in silhouettes, or their physical essence, without being distracted by clothes/physical attractiveness. as time wore on, clyde found that he need another tend, mainly for space. he kept needing more room until, eventually the whole living room was a nesting doll of various tents, culminating in all their sheets being hung from the ceiling a mere 3 inches away from the actual wall. after a particularly insightful/moving bit of psycho babble from life coach extraordinate, dr. phil, clyde came to discover that what he needed to do was compartmentalize his emotional states into separate categories and understand where each emotion stems from, thus conquering the uncertainty it can produce in life. dr. phil's stirring expose on peruvian pregnant preteens and their petulant prenatal offspring opened clyde's eyes. a rather colorful add for closet world also affected clyde in ways that formerly, only cheap porn and hot pockets could do. unfortunately, because clyde watched both programs while in the third circle of his tents, both the sound and picture quality of the tv was poor, since it was placed on the outter most circle. clyde's nesting egg of tents came to represent his emotional state of the day, the further toward the center he was, the darker the emotions and the less amount of contact he would want with the outside world. the tents were loosely based on dante's circles of hell, maslow's pyramid of needs, his drunken conversation with the office secretary, and his childhood dream of living in some sort of homemade fort, preferably subsisting on a diet of smores and hi-c.

conclusion of the story ends with tents collapsing somehow/ for some reason. clyde is trapped in the center circle. his g/f, stuck only a circle away from him, desperately tries to reach him, thinking they are in the same circle. the two find each other and mirror each other's silhouettes and momentarily stand together, letting their shadows merge into a dark, amorphous shape, neither person distinguishable from the other. they both sit down. clyde asks her to think of an object and he'll try to guess it. they put their foreheads together and watch as the nylon gently billows with each other's breath. (a series of thoughts and guesses). their list becomes more random, desperate, until there is only disconnection. things fall apart. there is nothing between them. not thoughts, not words, not love, only the vague but ominous feeling that they each don't belong, and both were, inextricably drawn to each other, to the present, to that very moment in their lives. the reason for that moment is unclear. they only know that it is happening, now,before them; they realize that they are alone, together, and the center they tried so hard to find has utterly escaped they know they are here, but can never be Here. a place. a distinguishable point of reference, autonomous from the rest of their lives, from the stream of moments, the current of emotion. and so they lie there, motionless, moving (floating) through time as aimless as they began; their limp silhouettes consumed by the whole of night's languor. (look up last lines from interterm story, or whichever story was titled, Alone, Together)

notes on the story:
alternate beginnings...instead of merging unpleasant man with this, have characters begin by lying in bed in the morning. spooning. the sun shines through the curtains, but rather than flood the apt. in an amber glow, it is a cool, winter light, muted, glacial light, a light that brings with it not warmth, but the crisp chill of early morning, a sky veiled in a thin veneer of gray, and the distinct gratefulness that there is another body in the bed; a warm spot to crowd around and take refuge in. pleasant conversation turns into argument over clyde's lack of cleaning skills and the ease in which he becomes offended/hurt. he in turn sulks/broods, moves out into the tent.

alternate phrasings of last line:
their limp silhouettes washed over by the whole of night's languor.
their limp silhouettes engulfed by the whole of night's languor.
their limp silhouettes swallowed by the whole of night's languor.

description of g/f trying to find clyde:
fumbled toward him. they fumbled toward each other.