Fury Read Online Free PDF Page A

cuttlefish): People who need sepia are irritable or angry when contradicted. They are averse to family and averse to consolation. They are averse to company even as they fear being alone. They are hysterical. They fear insanity. They may be overwhelmingly apathetic.
    Â 
    Aurum (Gold): Aurum is for people with an exaggerated sense of duty. Such an individual may be under the delusion that she has failed. She has strong feelings of guilt, severe depression and fits of anger. She may desire death or crave suicidal intervention.
    On Sunday, July 29, I awake to the respective buzzing and beeping of my American and British cell phones. Upon inspection, both are lit with matching text messages from the Lark (which I dissect ad nauseam in my notebook). I need to know you are safe somewhere, the Lark’s texted . Please let me know.
    I wonder, Which is aching: his heart or his conscience?
    I spend the morning trying to place the lines of poetry these messages bring to mind. While driving that afternoon, I realize I am hearing an echo of Theognis to his lover:
    We aren’t shutting you out of the revel, and we aren’t inviting you, either.
    For you’re a pain when you’re present, and beloved when you’re away.
    Pulling over to jot the lines into my notebook, I wonder whether the Lark can only care for me in my absence. I wonder if I can only despise him in his.

    On Monday, July 30, I run out of whatever willpower has kept me from responding to the Lark’s text message, and I sit down to compose a fine-tuned e-mail (edited here for length):
    Â 
    I received your text message. . . . I guess it won’t hurt to tell you that I’m back in the States, tapping this message between the on-again-off-again blinking of an electrical outage. I ask you: why can’t I escape these rotten rainstorms?
    As for the other night, we sure had ‘A Modern Midnight Conversation. ’ [A reference to our favorite Hogarth.] As devastating as it was to hear some of the things you had to say, more than anything, I wish you didn’t have to get quite so far over-the-edge before you felt you could tell them to me. [He had been drinking heavily that night. We’d earlier gone to see a band at a venue on Gloucester Place.]
    Because alongside whatever small condolences you had to offer, that archimage, that alcoholic voodoo, also made you say some things that were pretty barbed and inhumane. And I know that’s not you. You’ve always been one of the most empathetic people I know. You’re usually so generous in word and action.
    Try my damndest, I can’t work up any real haggishness for you. . . . I’m here for you always and any old time. Ring me up if you ever need an ear, okay? Pierce my pocket with a text message. Tap me out an e-mail. I miss talking to you, notwithstanding. You’re in my dreams, despite.
    Â 
    On Tuesday, July 31, I awake after a series of nightmares. I dreamed that I am in grade school. I walk up to the math teacher and tell him that I’ve found a formula for everything. For inner peace, for empathy, for making things right. He shakes his head no, saying the formula in my hand doesn’t work. He tells me: You forgot to carry the one . I dreamed that I find a knife in my bed. I dreamed of an auditorium full of strangers (you, readers?) all laughing and pointing at me.
    Checking my e-mail that morning, I find the following (abridged) reply from the Lark:
    Â 
    I said some awful things that night for which I’m really, cringingly ashamed. I think I was trying to get you to hate me. Thank you for seeing through my idiocy. . . . I care about you so much. These past few days have been some of the hardest. I can only say I was trying to do my best for you, to end things without lying to you or leading you on. I hope you understand. You really are amazing. . . . I feel an emptiness that will take some time to fill.
    Â 
    On Wednesday, August 1, Alyssa’s package