“Hey, you’ve got to take a look at this.”
“What, what is it?” She peered over his shoulder at his laptop.
“This post – this guy’s blog post – geez, you’ve got to take a look at this.”
She scanned the text quickly, efficiently.
“Wow. The insecurity level here is amazing.”
“I know! Can you believe it?”
“You’ve got to admit, it’s kinda sorta smart too. Kinda. Right from the get-go this guy’s been deprecating, no, been damned brutal, about what he’s writing in the hope that by committing suicide nobody’s going to bother to kill him.”
“What a loser. Criticism doesn’t work that way.”
“Exactly. Nothing more fun than flogging a dead horse.”
“Oh, and check out what he’s hiding behind: irony!”
“I beg your pardon,” she frowned, seriously, “I don’t see any irony at all.”
“Come now, can’t you see he’s trying to divert attention from that poorly constructed plot by means of an incongruity between situations developed in the story that are understood by the reader but not by the central characters?”
“He’s good.”
“Hell, yeah.”
“And look at how he’s trying to dazzle us with words. That bugger’s doing everything possible to drown out those sad caricatures of real people with words. Call me old fashioned, but I prefer stories that voir dire.”
“What?”
“Wikipedia it.”
“I’ll bet you don’t even know what that means.”
“Sticks and stones.”
“Or how to use that term in proper context.”
“May break my bones.”
“Like Captain Shakespeare over there.”
“Hey, that hurt.” She pointed her finger at the screen accusingly. “At least I know wit when I see it. This bum can’t seem to tell the difference between wit and verbal diarrhoea.”
“Define wit.”
“The power to evoke laughter by remarks showing verbal felicity or ingenuity and swift perception especially of the incongruous.”
“Does he have it?”
“I have no idea. Did you laugh when you read it?”
“Chuckle?”
“Giggle?”
“Snigger?”
“Certainly not roll about on the floor with laughter?”
“Certainly not.”
“God, I should hope not.”
“Smile to myself maybe?”
“Maybe.”
“Likewise.”
“Yeah, well, then I’m going to have to go with verbal diarrhoea.”
