“Good morning,” said Boy.
“Is it? I suppose it is… ish,” Girl replied.
“Not really. But I just woke up ten minutes ago and I thought it was morning, and the hangover confirms it. So how’s existence?” Boy asked.
Girl hesitated. “Eh, it’s okay-ish for now. You ever have bad feelings about things? And if so, are they usually right?”
“Are you kidding?” he said. “I have bad feelings about nearly everything, so it’s hard to tell. I’ve got a strange mix of both good and bad most of the time. Normally they cancel each other out and things are just grey and neutral. But not always.”
“So it doesn’t really matter much, the bad feelings. Maybe it just means that we’re pessimistic,” Girl observed.
“Yeah,” boy responded, “for the most part it passes. Well, not the pessimism.”
“Well, it passes when you are proven right or wrong. Probably. Right?” Girl asked.
“Depends on how much you repress your feelings about certain things,” he said. “It should pass. Life moves on. But mentally, it does not always pass so easily.”
Girl was frustrated with herself. “I just want to be a happy, trusting, tra-la-la person. Why can’t I be one? I want to be one.”
“Me too.”
“So I should just be one.”
“Yup.”
“But I can’t.”
“Nope.”
“It’s like a brain malfunction,” she said, “making me into a crazy person.”
“Yeah, it’s troublesome,” Boy replied. “I’m really not sure how I make it through the day.”
“Holding it inside and not letting people see it, I guess,” suggested Girl.
“Makes it worse. But yes, I do,” said Boy. “That’s the problem with general craziness and insanity in this society. You have to repress certain emotions and feelings, or else you probably won’t remain where you are standing for too terribly long, and you’ll end up in a bin somewhere. Even minor things. Comments amongst co-workers, friends, and family that seem radical, dangerous, or immoral.”
“We should be allowed to be crazy,” decided Girl.
“Yes.”
“Because most people probably are, but you can’t see it.”
“Indeed.”
“I’m just so average,” Girl said as if it were the worst thing one could ever be. “I should start being insane.”
“Of course.”
“People are douchebags for the most part,” she asserted.
“I agree,” said Boy.
She went on. “But then friends try and be nice and say ‘No everything is okay, people are not douchebags.’ But you find out they are.”
“Yup.”
“And then friends say ‘Oh I’m so sorry.’”
“Oops, my mistake!” Boy responded, thick with sarcasm. “Fuck that. People are generally worthless unless they prove otherwise, which rarely happens. Remember, humans are alive to consume and propagate, that’s it. They aren’t so good at anything else, except for rare examples. Some aren’t even good at that.”
“Why don’t people just say ‘Yeah, that person’s probably going to stomp on your heart and soul if they get the chance, if it benefits them, if they generally feel like it’? And I could say ‘Yes, I agree,’” she proposed.
“Maybe you just aren’t asking the right people,” he suggested, “or listening to the right people. Me, for example.” He laughed.
“So true, instead of lady friends who think things are one day going to be happily ever after.” She sighed. “I’m not in a goddamn romantic comedy.”
“Ask me more often about those romantic decisions. Things don’t end in a pile of roses in my mind. It ends in the sheer nothingness of death… and it’ll be a goddamn circus,” Boy said.
“Does history often repeat itself? And are there self-fulfilling prophecies?” she wondered aloud.
“History does have a tendency to repeat itself, as far as most are concerned. And prophecies are silly,” he alleged.
“Agreed and agreed. Unfortunately for the first part. I’m tired of being disappointed by people. But maybe setting myself up for this disappointment is a form of protecting myself,” said Girl.
“Yeah,” he replied. “Defense mechanism. I always do it, which leads me to spending a lot of time alone.”
“How can we enjoy things if we have this wall up?” Girl asked Boy.
“Well, you can’t really. You aren’t experiencing because you are shielding yourself from a true experience. But, sometimes it is keeping you from what isn’t worth experiencing. You just have to know when to let it down. And fuck, I definitely have no idea when that is,” he admitted.
She felt like she couldn’t change. “I haven’t figured it out yet either. It’s like the more I enjoy someone, the more defense I put up because I know it will hurt more.”
“Indeed. I think I was created to be alone forever,” he declared. “I mean, I suppose I’m okay with that, but it is difficult to come to terms with. I was born alone and shall die the same way.”
“I feel like I am better at being alone,” Girl related. “Sometimes I want to run away from relationships because I am convinced that I am supposed to be alone and it’ll just end anyway. All things end.”
“Everything does,” he agreed. “So is there a point to it all? Maybe, but it requires you to make that point. It isn’t just there somewhere waiting for you. Existence is meaningless until you instill it with meaning that matters, but finding that meat of life that is worth holding onto is an arduous adventure.”
“And not everyone finds it, right? So…” She trailed off. “It’s not dependent on anything except the individual,” she continued. “No one can help you. You just need to figure it out. Or not. Either way, the end result is the same.”
“Pretty much,” Boy said apathetically. “People can give advice in a general objective sense, but it mostly comes down to you as an individual. We are all unique creatures that cannot be satisfied in exactly the same way. And we all end at some point. What each of us has most in common is what we can hardly share – that we begun existing, and that we end at some point along the way.”
“What is existence anyway?” Girl asked. “Let’s look it up.”
“According to Webster,” answered Boy, “existence is the state of existing or being; continuance in being; as, the existence of body and of soul in union; the separate existence of the soul; immortal existence.”
“‘As, the existence of body and of soul in union; the separate existence of the soul; immortal existence,’” Girl repeated.
“Cute, huh?” Boy remarked.
“Well, good thing they said the separate existence of a soul.” Girl produced a halfhearted laugh. “They were trying to comfort us.”
Boy looked off into the distance. “There is no such thing as a soul,” he said, “You have you, and that is that. There’s a body, and it happens to be conscious in many ways because it has a brain that is capable of observing and remembering what it observes.”
“But darling, I thought the soul was a magical cloud that floated around us,” Girl cynically said. “And after we die, it keeps floating.”
“Yeah, it’s pink with purple polka dots.” He looked back at her. “You got any plans later?”
“Well, at some point tonight I think I have plans to be disappointed. But I wouldn’t be surprised if those plans got canceled, therefore disappointing my disappointment. But those plans are ‘later tonight,’” she said.
“Why would you be disappointed?” he asked.
“It’s a story,” she replied. “A lame I-am-an-idiot-human story.”
“Then let’s get a drink early, right after work. You can tell me the story,” he suggested.
“Great,” she agreed. “God oh god, fast forward time.”
“I’m pressing the button, but I think the VCR is broken,” Boy said.
“Use the remote.”
“Batteries are dead.”
“Ah, typical.”
“Honey, we are fucked.”
“Then nothing has changed.”
