This story may have been made to show how people wait to take action on anything they want in life, or to show what you lose before you gain something. It's free for interpretation.
And so it repeated.
Compromise; to solve a dispute by mutual concession. Something Alfred would normally do, and succeed. Something that Alfred could always do. Except now, when he wanted -or needed rather- to most.
You see, Alfred was in a tough spot. Between love and trust and everything in between. A truly wonderfully horrible place that he felt he could not escape.
He desired to love just as he desired to hate and to be happy just as sad. If only he had found the right words before Arthur came along.
"There must be a word for this," Alfred said out of frustration. He could only imagine a warm presence bend over his desk and say some fancy sounding word that the American had never heard of. He wanted Arthur to weave words into a comforting sentence that contained just the right amount of harshness. But it never came. Only the same cool air that pushed the hairs on the back of his neck.
Yes, Alfred was alone. But only because he was confused. He wanted to love Arthur, and for all he knew he did. But something made him think.
What would happen to me? Will I get lost or distracted? What will my friends think? Will I hurt others?
Yet there was also the part that missed Arthur's everything. Am I missing out? He thought back to a quote that Arthur had been so happy to share with him.
"How nice-
to feel nothing,
And still get full credit for being alive."
Had Alfred even lived?
Alfred could remember the glow that had been seen so briefly in Arthur's eyes, but was quickly drawn back to those words sprawled on the page before him. Alfred hadn't ever really paid attention to what the words meant, only hanging onto the look in those green eyes. The glow lasted longer than any quote Alfred could think of would ever reach. But something in the words stuck with him in this moment. Something he hadn't picked up before.
For the longest time, Alfred had stopped feeling for fear of it being too much to handle. And for the first time, Alfred realized that he hadn't been truly living. He had gone without the love that he so badly wanted, in fear that that same love would hurt him. But even so, even if the love he deeply missed betrayed him, how could he say he had lived without feeling it? He couldn't.
But how could he do anything to help himself? He couldn't call Arthur, or walk over to meet him. He could only think to sleep on it and think. Think even harder than the night before, and the night before that, and the night before that…
And so it repeated.
Quote provided by Kurt Vonnegut's "Slaughterhouse Five"
I see Arthur as a character who looks at language as an art rather than a way of communication, and Alfred as a character that openly questions that art. As one to try to interpret it.