“What’s out there?”
“Nothing. It’s snowing.”
“Come back to bed.”
“Why.”
“‘Why,’ he says. Jesus. Maybe because I didn’t come here to watch you stare forlornly out the window.”
“Why did you come here. Why do you ever come here.”
“Why don’t your questions ever sound like questions?”
“Why don’t you ever answer them.”
“Maybe I would if they sounded like questions. Maybe I’d answer if you asked me things instead of saying them.”
“It’s better here. Don’t you think. It’s better than the other places we used to go. The Renaissance, the Intercontinental. The Ritz. This is better. Everything is peeled back. Stripped down. Visceral. There’s something savage and honest about it. Things are clarified in ways that are almost...intimate. Don’t you think.”
“There was a cockroach in the bathroom last time.”
“How Kafkaesque.”
“Don’t use words I don’t know. It’s not nice. I mean, really. You take a girl to a sleazy motel with cockroaches and then you stand by the window looking through the blinds like some kind of crackhead, the least you can do is not talk like a snob.”
“You said ‘cockroach,’ singular. One cockroach.”
“When there’s one there are more.”
“You don’t have to come here. You could have said no. You’ve had so many opportunities to say no.”
“Is that what you want? For me to say no?”
“I don’t know what I want. I don’t think I want anything.”
“Boy, you sure know how to make a girl feel desired.”
“Don’t. It was never about desire with us. You know that. We were both looking for something and we thought the other person might have it.”
“Isn’t that desire, in a way?”
“No. It’s something else.”
“Well. Did we find it?”
“You tell me.”
“I don’t know. We must have, I guess. At some point. But then maybe we lost it again. Doesn’t it feel like we’ve lost something?”
“Everyone’s lost something.”
“I wish you’d tell me what’s outside.”
“I did tell you. Snow.”
“There has to be more than snow out there.”
“Do you want me to tell you everything that’s out there. Should I list everything I see.”
“You don’t have to be mean. I just...I feel like something’s wrong. You know? Something feels off. It feels like...like something is going to happen.”
“You think something is going to happen out there.”
“It certainly doesn’t seem like anything is going to happen in here.”
“Why don’t you tell me what you think is going to happen.”
“How should I know? Don’t you ever feel like that? Like something is coming? Like there’s something creeping up and you’re powerless to stop it, and when it comes everything will be awful?”
“Everything is already awful.”
“This room is pretty awful, actually.”
“It’s like I said. You didn’t have to come here.”
“I didn’t come for the room. I never came for the room.”
“You say that as though it makes a difference.”
“I think it does. I mean, why wouldn’t it? Don’t answer that. Just tell me what’s outside. Tell me what you see.”
“I already told you.”
“There’s something you’re not telling me. You know something I don’t.”
“I know a lot of things you don’t know. You’ll have to be more specific.”
“You’re so mean. Do you know that? Do you know what a mean, cold person you can be?”
“Why are you crying.”
“I’m not sad. I’m not crying because I’m sad. That’s not why I’m crying.”
“Why aren’t you sad.”
“Should I be sad?”
“Everyone should be sad.”
“Are you sad?”
“I don’t know. I feel something. There’s a sensation, at times unpleasant. It’s far away. Like an aftertaste. A memory. But it’s there, it’s almost always there. And sometimes I wish I could cry but the feeling is too distant and indistinct for me to grasp it, so I can’t cry. All I can do is look on and watch.”
“What are you watching?”
“The snow.”
“God. God. What do you think happened to us?”
“‘Us’ meaning what. As a culture or as a species or what.”
“You and me. I’m talking about you and me.”
“We’re still here, aren’t we.”
“I don’t know, are we? I mean, you’re over there and I’m over here. I’m in bed and you’re by the window and you won’t tell me what’s outside. You won’t tell me what you see.”
“I told you what’s outside. I told you what I see.”
“Is it because I haven’t left my husband? Is that what this is about?”
“It that what what is about.”
“This.”
“You could leave your husband or not leave your husband and it wouldn’t change anything. Time drags on regardless. It doesn’t care. It doesn’t care what you do or what you don’t do.”
“It’s not important to me what time cares about. It’s important to me what you care about.”
“The universe keeps folding in on itself irrespective of your decisions. You only get smaller until you become nothing. As far as the universe is concerned, you might as well be nothing already.”
“And as far as you’re concerned?”
“It doesn’t matter as far as I’m concerned. As far as I’m concerned is as irrelevant as anything else.”
“Please, please, please tell me what’s outside.”
“You don’t have to keep asking me that. You can come look for yourself.”
“I don’t want to look for myself. I’m afraid.”
“Afraid of what.”
“Of what I might see.”
“Seeing it or not seeing it won’t change what it is.”
“Are you sure about that? Can you say that with one hundred percent absolute certainty?”
“I’m not sure about anything. There is nothing I can say with one hundred percent absolute certainty.”
“Nothing at all?”
“Nothing at all.”
“You’re the most hurtful person I’ve ever known. You say the most hurtful things, and what you don’t say is even worse.”
“Pain is relative. Pain is what you make of it.”
“Just tell me what’s out there.”
“You don’t have to shout.”
“Please. Please. I’m begging you.”
“I told you already. Snow.”
“You’re lying. You’re lying to me. I don’t believe you.”
“If you don’t believe me then come look for yourself.”
“What am I going to see?”
“Come look for yourself.”
“What’s out there?”
“Come look.”