Short Story - Mismatched

Mismatched

Someone was knocking ont he door. It didn't matter, the only thing that mattered was how to solve the problem. No matter how many times he put the numbers into the calculator, the problem wouldn't come out right. He knew it was possible, but why wouldn't the math work out? Tyrin had seen the same arc and roof on half a dozen buildings, and this was the only piece that wasn't fitting. Sitting on top of the large stack of magazines and newspapers that weighed down the table to almost buckling, was the final blue prints of every piece of the masterpiece of a building Tyrin was creating, except the final key stone that would hold all the weight and beauty. The knocking continued.
Pieces of the very expensive calculator stuck to his knuckles as he scribbled equations and diagrams onto the back of a home depot receipt. Each minute of the Tuesday afternoon hit the back of his aching head like a gong going off in the middle of an elegant Japanese restaurant. He did the math in long form next to the diagram and the remainder laughed at his lack of mathematical skills. He stabbed the paper with a ferocity of a giant with an unwanted house guest. When the pencil finally dug into the latest version of Architect monthly, a knock came to the door. After the signature three knocks, a jiggle of the door handle, and a swift kick to the bottom, the door swung open.
Rainlin Jimins loved working at home, and loved that his neighbor across the street worked from home also. He kicked a path through the hundreds of balled up pieces of legal paper that littered the living room floor and grabbed a dirty glass that was holding up a lamp. The lamp fell to the ground with a crash, and Rainlin's spit echoed out of the glass. As he washed the glass with his shirt and spit, he looked down at his balding friend who was repeatedly slamming his head into the stack of pencils that sat in front of him.
"The good thing Ty is that they're not sharpened eh?" He chuckled and walked over to the Corona Keg dispenser that sat in the corner. As he poured a perfect glass of beer he continued. "Yep, it's bullshit. When you truly want to throw in the towel, you get an opportunity. The opportunity of a lifetime, and there's always that one last thing that just won't work out."
"Door!" Tyrin moaned through his Ticonderoga pillow.
"The door. Yeah, yeah. I mean at least now you're thinking of that right?"
"The door asshole. The door. Is it really that hard to remember to close the door? I know you're a writer. I know that every single woman that has every lived with you has moved out because you're a slob. But is it too much just to close the fuckin door and leave me alone?"
Railin drained the cup and set it next to the broken lamp on the floor. "You know what your problem is? You don't understand the language that you so eloquently throw out with such ferocity. Now there's a word -- ferocity. Do you know how few people actually don't know how to use or even conjugate that word, let alone care to use it?" He got up and filled another glass of beer as Tyrin pushed everything off the trable. You could almost hear the table say thank-you and the floor begin cussing.
As the heap slammed into the floor and wall, Railin continued. "I mean Ty, it's almost like I can't even dumb myself down to the common populace these days. I told the coffee lady that I wanted a coffee with sugar and one without. As if looking at me stupid like that was an odd request wasn't enough, when I asked her to denote which was which she looked at me like I had just fallen out of space or something. Now Ty, this wasn't some foreign person; which hey if you know half the words I say I'll shake your hand. No -- "
Tyrin walked over to the keg dispenser and filled his glass with half head and half beer. He stared at the head hoping it would go down but it just stared back. As if this movement warranted silence Railin stopped talking. Tyrin smiled at him and walked back to the couch, but not before stepping on the pieces of lamp that littered the floor. The glass bit into his instep and the blood gushed out in a minor lake. He looked at Railin and yelled, "I'm bleeding now. I have been on the cover of architect monthly sevwen times, I've built houses for princes and movie stars. Then I gave a house away that a fellow architect wanted to buy and I wouldn't sell it, so my phone and bank account goes dry, and now I've been given an opportunity to get back into the game, and I can't figure out the last part. The LAST PART Rai! Now, I'm sitting in the living room of this rat trap fuckin house because I can't afford anything else, and bleeding from my foot because you don't know how to pay attention."
"Actually, I don't have the money to pay for anything. Attention is something I've always thought you should just not put money into." Ty fell over himself laughing and landed on one of the many stacks of books that lined the room. "However, if you want me to start paying attention just for you, I'm not quite sure if my accountant would take very nicely to me taking on a servant such as that. I hear you have to conastantly talk to him and if you don't he jumps in front of you yelling look at me. I preffer to see me as a magnet of happenstance, where items of irrelevant insanity happen upon me and I merely react to the affects. Of course, that's the influences upon me not the reactions." He took another long drink of beer and handed Ty a towel to replace the red soaked couch piullow he was using. "That's another one of those words that people just can't use. Why is it so hard to just use the words that you're given? Is denote that odd of a word? This coffee lady told me that she had no idea what I was saying. Railin, I can't dumb my English down. I mean truly, "Why can't the English teach their -- "
"Great, I get to listen to My fair lady from the mouth of an insanely paid madman. I can't believe the same people who walk into my fuckin concert hall will buy your books? I need to go to bed." Railin walked into his bedroom and fell into his bliss of Egyptian cotton. He heard Tyrin put the glass on the table, and hum his song as he skipped out, leaving the door wide open. The makeshift towel-bandage thumped pain into his head as he fell of to sleep.