"Eleutheromaniac" by Fernando M.

    We decided that coffee would be ideal for catching up, as it was something for which, in our youth, we had a common affinity. I remember vague details of him: we were childhood friends, his name was the same as mine, we were born within the same year, and we were in the same graduating class in secondary school. I cut communication with him because I decided that I would be a new person entirely, and had legally changed my name before accepting a manager position at a new internet startup company in New York City. After pulling up to the place of meeting, I advanced into the small coffeehouse to find him already seated.

     Greetings, handshakes, and small talk ensued of the most mundane topics. As he extended his arm for the handle of his mug, it was difficult to conceal my disgust for what looked like a poorly constructed tattoo on his wrist, resting atop an ugly scar on his green, rootlike vein. Taking note of the direction of my gaze, my friend looked up at me and said, “‘I am’ is what it says. It’s small, but it took about a month to complete. It’s an excerpt from a favorite novel of mine about a young debutante that spent most of the course of the story in therapy after trying to off herself, and on the very last page she found her reason to live. I first read it when we were still friends in secondary.” I must have not been a decent friend because I don’t remember seeing him reading The Bell Jar, let alone anything at all. He continued in generous detail about the August night that he tried to end his miserable existence.

     After understanding what he was insinuating, I arrived at the idea that I was looking into the face of a loon. I decided that I heard enough and had started to get up to leave, but my old friend read my expression and reassured me that there was of nothing to worry.

     “That’s great,” I slumped back down, refraining from eye rolling, half out of irritation at the inappropriate nature of the story, half out of a nervous habit as if I was being personally threatened. I rested my chin on my fist.

     “Do you remember me telling you that I wasn’t sure what I wanted to do with my life? I ended up choosing a career as an artist.”

      I could tell by the look of his tattered garb that he wasn’t making much. “I’m sure that you’re doing quite wonderful. But listen, I have to go. I have an appointment in a half hour.” I left the little establishment and felt around my coat for the key fob that would disarm the car alarm. As I drove, instead of focusing on the damp tarmac that chafed the rubber of my tires, I eyed the occasional dandelion sprouting between the cracks in the weather-torn road. I was desperately trying to recall the bits of our conversation that I was too distracted to pick up before. There was this word he had used to describe himself that I never really heard of. Eleutheromaniac? I think he defined it as being a zealot for freedom. I’m certain that was what it was.