|
People often said David and Harold looked alike, but Harold did not see the resemblance.
David, for one, Harold thought, had a head that smelled persistently of cheese—which Harold attributed to his scar—and his skin flaked so abundantly that he always looked as if he'd come in from the snow. Sometimes, the skin flakes would land on his scar, which was darker than the rest of his pasty white skin, so the gleaming flakes appeared like inverse freckles.
Once, after Casey won an award that both David and Casey had been nominated for, David had found Casey reading on a bench in the courtyard outside Lawes, where Harold was also reading, tucked away in a corner, out of view, and Harold watched as David proceeded to compliment Casey profusely. However, when Casey responded in a befuddled, somewhat flustered manner, not meeting David's excitement—the result, Harold imagined, of being interrupted while reading—David turned red, and muttered, "These awards, you know, they're basically meaningless anyway," then laughed.
As he laughed, Harold had noticed that David's face was stiff; it was only after the laugh that his face moved—his smile had been delayed, like in bad ventriloquism. Harold had discerned a flash of spite beneath David's eyes, as he backed away from Casey, tripping over himself, and falling flat onto his back, wriggling before getting up and, without looking at either Casey or Harold, who was still hidden in the bushes, skittering away.
Later that day, David found Harold in his office, and told him he thought that Casey's award-winning essay was an "absolute abomination." Harold nodded, although he hadn't read the article, while feeling repulsed, and his hatred for David increased each time he nodded against his will.
|