Write a dialog between a man and a woman who disagree about something other than what they're arguing about.
“I stepped out for a smoke; the street was shiny with rain, the hills shadows on the western skyline. And I died.”
“Uh-huh.”
“Just for a little bit, nothing dramatic.”
“Ok.”
“There’s a point you know, I’m not trying to impress you.”
“Good.”
“We’re always living and dying, not in some corny social context or some wispy philosophical way, we snap in and out of existence all the fucking time just like everything else.”
“You should really quit smoking.”
“Fuck you,” I said and I just walked away. I could hear branchs snapping, crickets thundering then stopping, worlds colliding, then; traffic, some kid crying. A mother or a sister stressing out about it. There is no point in looking behind you. You can use mirrors, maybe, if you wanted to. Not me. Mirrors record histories. They’re creepy. Your attention is drawn to all your own lives and deaths and not the all the kittens of chaos constantly being stuffed into bags and shipped … out.
I hear her heels tick across sidewalk, she grabs me by the shoulder and I let her spin me around.
“I don’t want you to die,” her arm stiff against my right shoulder she leans her weight into my left.
“I … thanks.”
She flexes her stiff arm, lets it drop and leans into me. The arm is dead. Later over hot toddies it will come alive and we will kiss and she will scowl at the taste of cigarettes. There’s a hole in the earth with teeth and it’s always hungry.
Loading comments...