writing doodle - character dev. back to Zero - word count 498

"You are nothing but a dirty dog." I gritted the words as my chair was pulled from behind the desk.  I do so miss the days when I had a swivel office chair, the kind with rollers and height adjustment.  Now the office is graced with a couple of old but comfortable chairs, the kind that more or less stay where you put them. "I almost had a heart attack."

"Come on, Alf, you knew it was me. Besides, if you ate better and exercised more, you wouldn't have to worry so much about your heart."

"That's not the point, and you know it, Zero."

Sadly, it was part of the point.  As I licked the surplus milk chocolate from around my lips, I grabbed the chair arms and attempted to scoot my chair back under the desk. It was too late at night to think about getting on a treadmill or going to water aerobics.

I was looking for a plot, his plot.  His conflict has escaped me. The last time he was here, my companion animal was sick and dying, tonight the younger dogs are in bed with Santa and all of them are snoring.  

"Can I ask you a personal question?" he asked.

"Depends on the question."  I slipped my glasses to the top of my head so I wouldn't lose them later.  Besides, I hear better when I can't see.  Tonight Zero was wearing an outfit designed to distract, a red wife-beater that had enough holes in it to be declared Pope in an alternate universe and his jeans were torn at the seat and were frayed around the hem. The last time Zero asked me a personal question, it was exactly how much grey hair I thought I had.  That he was standing behind me and was picking up one hair at a time, in the back where (1) I have no idea and (2) he was out of my reach, meant absolutely nothing.

"How long should you grieve for someone you really love?"

That was a question I hadn't seen coming.  Not from the man who just looked at women, crooked his finger, and was able to do with them whatever he so choose.  At least that was the way he was telling the stories.

"It's a pretty serious question," I said.  How did I tell him that I grieved for my uncle for exactly twenty minutes when I was in college?  Or that my mother never got over a miscarriage that left her sterile.  "It all depends on the person and the relationship. Are you OK?"

He plucked a stack of old newspapers from the desk and placed them on the floor.  He leaned against the desktop and clutched it with his hands.  "Probably."

"Do you want to talk about it?"

"Nah.  I'll figure it out on my own." He shrugged.  "I've moved on but I haven't.  You know?"

Yeah.  I knew.  So much for conflict and back story ... Shit.