Hey, BIG guy. Last night was something else. I can still taste you. Call me. JJ. 🙂 ??? 🙂
Charlene
She strode into the TV room, Barry’s mobile gripped tightly in her hand. He was slouched on the couch playing a video game. He didn’t take his eyes off the screen, kept thumbing the controller, torquing his body to correct his aim.
– What’s this?
He muttered in her direction, not looking up,
– Just a minute, I’m two kills from finishing this level.
She moved in front of the TV, blocking his view. He leaned over, still maniacally pushing buttons.
– Move! I can’t see!
She held the phone at arm’s length, the screen toward him, and screamed,
– What’s this, you bastard!
He leaned far over, trying to see past her, but he missed the final shot and the game ended. He scowled at her.
– God damn it, Char, what’s so fucking important?
She was seething. His frustration just made her angrier.
– This, you cheating cocksucker. She threw the phone at his head. He ducked and caught it as it flew by.
– What the fuck has gotten into you? You on your period or something?
She watched as he read the text. She could see his cheating mind struggling to find purchase on a very slippery slope.
– It’s not what it looks like.
She regarded him with contempt. That was always his opening line when she caught him with his fly open. Was she that unimportant to him, that he couldn’t come up with a more imaginative lie than that?
– No? If it’s not what it looks like, then tell me what the fuck it is, Barry. And who the fuck is JJ anyway?
– He’s just a guy I work with. We went out for a drink.
She could see him scrambling .
– He works on the loading dock.
She thinks, So he has lots of muscles and smells like man sweat.
– And why were you, a senior accountant, part of the management team, out drinking with a random guy who works on the loading dock? No, don’t tell me, I know. You promised me, you bastard. We agreed: no more men!
He hung his head, looking trapped and ashamed. Defenceless. The anger seeped out of her as she realized he couldn’t help it. It just was who he was. Despite all her efforts to rationalize it, to give him an alternative, he couldn’t change who he was. The sad thing was, she like him most of the time, but it was clear that they had no future together.
She said softly,
– You have to go. I’ll give you until tomorrow to get your stuff out .
Barry
– WTF, JJ. Why’d you send that fucking email. You screwed me over, man.
– Come here, you big lug, put your head on JJ’s shoulder and tell meall about it.
Barry moulded his body into JJ’s bulk and sighed.
– So, what happened?
– Okay, I was just chilling, playing a video game.
– What game?
– Doom Eternal. Actually, I was almost finished a level when she walked in with my phone.
JJ was aghast.
– You let her go through your phone?
Barry squirmed. He hated the implication of weakness implied by his confession that he hadn’t kept his phone private.
– I didn’t let her. She just did it. So she marches in and stands right in front of the TV. I’ve been trying to get past that level for weeks now and I was one kill away. So she yells and throws the phone at me. Nearly hit me in the head.
JJ ran his fingers through Barry’s hair.
– Poor Barry.
Barry can’t tell if JJ was being sarcastic or genuinely empathizing with his pain. He’s torn between feeling comforted and humiliated.
– So what happened next?
– Well, I told her we just went out for a drink, but she sussed it out right away and kicked me out.
– I always told you she was a bitch.
Barry felt overwhelmed. It had always been like this. He’d try to build a respectable life, but then the urge would get too strong, and everything he had built would get kicked out from under him, leaving him empty, hopeless and defenceless. He started to sob.
– What am I going to do? Where am I going to stay?
– C’mon, man. You’re better off without the bitch. You have to learn to be yourself. Let’s get your stuff out of the car. You can stay here until you get a new place.
This… this… is heartbreaking. A story without resolution, where the reader has to learn to sit with quiet discomfort—on both sides, Charlene’s and Barry’s.
There is so much subtext at work here.
Barry being torn apart, retreating into video games as a way of avoiding an inevitable truth—almost as if the game itself were an anchor in a world where nothing else feels stable. The gamer becomes the only identity he can fully inhabit in the storm.
Charlene’s cursive talk feels like the climax of long-accumulated pain—patterns repeating, the same story replayed again and again. And then the quiet at the end of her section: the silent tragedy of having nothing left to say.
For some reason, I feel a subtle resistance toward JJ. And yet, he’s not there to comfort the reader. I experience him as slightly selfish, even manipulative, particularly in the way he demonizes Charlene—almost as if he provoked the entire rupture with that email. If that was your intention, it works extremely well.
I don’t want to exempt Barry. But I do deeply understand his agonization—his identity still fragile, not yet fully owned. He doesn’t have to choose between two romantic interests. He has to choose between two identities, two worlds.
And God help him—that is a brutally difficult path. He will either claim it… or vanish—and I don’t mean it physically. Both options are painful, but in profoundly different ways.
In the end, homelessness here isn’t only physical—it’s identitary and existential. “Nowhere to go” isn’t an address. It’s ontological.
Thank you for letting us, as readers, into that quiet moment.
Thank you.
Getting feedback is such an interesting process. You saw things in this little piece that I didn’t see until you articulated them, like the significance of the video game and the existential abyss of the ending. Yes, on reflection, of course it’s about identity, but I didn’t set out to write about identity, I just wanted to talk about about Charlene and Barry’s contrasting reactions to JJ’s email. The theme of identity emerged from the story, it was not imposed on it.
That’s the beauty of writing: the same story can carry different meanings for different readers. And I think it’s far better to touch people and awaken emotion than to land neutral.
I tend to read deeply — partly because I’ve spent the last two decades studying psychology (unofficially), and partly because I’ve supported people through trauma and crisis, listening to so many life stories that very little surprises me anymore. Along the way, I’ve also developed a deeper-than-average understanding of myself.
That doesn’t mean your story is about what I wrote. But it is what it became for me. And I was genuinely, deeply touched by it — most likely because Charlene and Barry remind me of people I know.
Thank you for that.
Hi Dogonit,
I really enjoyed the concept of this piece(s). If I can add anything constructive at all, its that I found the first scene between the Char and Barry more authentic than the scene with JJ. The dialogue felt different – which of course it would be, but it didn’t feel as authentic to me:
Barry moulded his body into JJ’s bulk and sighed.
– So, what happened?
– Okay, I was just chilling, playing a video game.
– What game?
– Doom Eternal. Actually, I was almost finished a level when she walked in with my phone.
JJ was aghast.
– You let her go through your phone?’
This section seems a distraction. Sunlover’s point about the game is good, but I wonder if it works the same in the second scenario. Barry has been put out of his home. It seems out of place to focus on the game at this point in their conversation. Also confusing. Was JJ aghast about the game or the partner going through his phone?
The story of men having sex with men, but not necessarily being gay is one that doesn’t get spoken about much. I know the exercise was meant to be short, but the dynamic between JJ and Barry would be good to explore more deeply. Hope this is helpful. Just suggestions.