Never-ending

(David carries in Bianca. Bianca does not utter a sound. He sets her down gently on a chair. He sits on the floor, and paces throughout. She never gets up from the chair).


David: I needed to talk to someone. It sounds nuts, I know, but I don’t have anyone I can talk to, or anyone I would feel comfortable talking with at the moment. That’s how it is so often. You don’t know what I mean, but I know what I mean, so it all means something although I don’t know what it is. Oh, sure, I can say, "Hi. How are you?" After someone has already said something to me, but nothing else, I run out of things to say, and I feel either completely lonely, lost, confused, exhausted, and wishing to be erased from existence. I’ve also never been any good at treating people well. I’m always tearing them apart, I don’t know any other way. It’s not a good excuse, yes, but it’s what I do, and I’m sure I’ll never stop.
Bianca: But why me?
David: I don’t know. You looked nice, you looked understanding. In a very strange way I feel I’m in love with you. I even think I really am. You know? No, you probably don’t, and I’m probably not. I don’t know anything about love. I’ve never been close to knowing anything about love. I’m pretty sure I’ve never been in love. Sadly I’ve acted as though I were in love, but I was very wrong. It’s unfortunate. It’s funny though, I’ve been surrounded by love my entire life. It’s all I’ve known. My parents and people I thought were my friends always said they loved me, although it was never shown in a physical way, well, no, it was, but.... it’s very hard to explain. Very hard. Of course I later realized no one I thought were my friends really were. But that’s something else altogether. I don’t know. I don’t know. I’m not too bright as you can see, and yet you’re here. I don’t get it. Anyway, yes, I’ve been loved but not by anyone outside of my family, sure they’d throw the word out when I threw the word to them, but that’s about it. That’s all I ever heard. And..... Oh, God, I’m such an idiot. I am so sick of being alive but I am so terrified of death. I don’t know if I hate living or am simply afraid of it. Both, probably. That would make the most sense. But. in any case, there’s something about you. When I saw you walking along outside my house, all alone, looking so cute with those big, beautiful blue eyes, I knew instantly I had to do something. Normally I wouldn’t do this with a girl. Normally I don’t say anything to girls. Normally I don’t say anything to anyone. I never have anything to say. I can’t figure out why. We’ll save that for later. Anyway as soon as I saw you, I instinctively knew I needed to have you all for myself. Oh, please don’t get the wrong idea. I’m not going to harm you or force you to do anything you don’t want to do. I’m not like that. I’m only awkward and incompetent. I just want us to talk, and to be friends.
Bianca: No, I don’t think that’s possible. You kidnapped me. You brought me here against my will. I was on my way to see my best friend who was just released from the hospital, but you decided your loneliness and despair were of more important than my friend and mine’s reunion. I’m sure you’re not a bad guy. You don’t seem like one. You’re not sex-crazy, and I know you don’t want to kill me. You’re lonely and you want to talk, and have a few friends. You’ve probably tried everything, and nothing has worked. You feel you don’t belong, and you never will. I don’t know what to say  about all that. All I know is when you carried in me you were very gentle,. and treated me well in a creepy sort of way, yes, but gentle and respectful nonetheless. But... we can’t be friends. I take my first impressions very seriously. And my first impression of you is your kidnapping me. You see, you seem a little unbalanced and desperate to me, and although I know you’re harmless now, maybe you’ll become more and more harmful as the years go by, and you can’t function too well.
David: No, no, I’m not as desperate as I seem at first.
Bianca: I’m sure you’re not but you did kidnap me. First impressions are hard to forget and destroy.
David: I don’t know why I did it. I’ve just been so lonely for so long. Now I have you here. A beautiful, smart girl, and I have no idea what to talk to you about, or how to treat you.
Bianca: Well, I don’t know what to talk to you about either. Maybe we could play checkers, or you could just let me go, and I’ll let you suffer with your loneliness and fear by yourself. We’ll both be better off.
David: Well, I don’t have checkers. I have chess but I don’t know how to play it. Do you know how to play chess?
Bianca: I’m afraid not. There isn’t much to talk about anymore. There’s too much going on in the world to talk about any of it.
David: Yeah, I know what you mean.
Bianca: Do you?
David: No, I’m trying to make conversation. I’m not any good at it, as you can see. I don’t talk to people very often. Actually I never do. I am so envious of those people who can just talk and talk, listen and listen. Make others laugh, make themselves happy, and those around them happy. I don’t remember ever being happy, which is no one’s fault, nor do I remember ever making anyone happy. I’m also so jealous of those who can write, think, and create the fantastic, the creative, the brilliant, the attractive, and all of that. I can’t do any of those things. I’ve never been any good at those things. I’ve never been much good at anything. It’s unfortunate. It’s a pity. But it’ll never change. I’m not complaining, although it seems I am, I am merely stating the truth as I have come to know it. You can call me a pessimist, a loser, a peon, any number of names and negative things, but all I am is someone who does not and never will belong, or be loved by many because I just don’t measure up or fit in, or anything along those lines. Anyway I am still looking for something I could be just a little good at. I haven’t found it. I wish I could. I really do, but I won’t for there isn’t anything.
Bianca: Have you looked very much?
David: No, not really.
Bianca: I wonder why.
David: Well, we can both psychoanalyze the situation, but let’s not bore ourselves too much. We’re both already very bored because I am in this room. You’re here with an outcast like me, but don’t forget I have to live with this outcast every day. I’ve never known who I am. I don’t know how I speak or move, everything I do is an imitation of some sort, of things I have seen and heard, but I don’t know what any of them are. I used to decry everyone as a fraud, as a poser, as a schmuck, but then I realized I was the worst of all those things. So I don’t complain about others anymore. They’re not that bad. I know for a fact you would rather be in a room with a mentally deficient rhino right now than me.
Bianca: Low self-esteem, I see. You hate yourself. Self-loathing will only kill you a little more every day.
David: Enough clichés, please. Stop. They’re true, true, but the problems don’t matter. I’ll be dead and gone soon, and no one will miss me, or remember that I ever lived. A few days they’ll be upset but they’ll pick up pretty fast. I’ve never been good for anything.
Bianca: No, you’re the type who will live in loneliness and misery until you’re 120.
David: Yeah. I know. I’ll be homeless, penniless and worthless then, too.
Bianca: Probably but even a person as lowly, as pathetic, as vile, as disgusting and revolting as you can find some love and acceptance in this world. It isn’t as unforgiving and as bleak as you have painted it.
David: I don’t know. No. No. I’ve never felt close to anyone in my entire life. My parents and I were very close, but we couldn’t really talk about the things that were keeping me from failing and being pathetic time after time. I don’t call anyone else a loser, but I call myself it every day to remind myself how unworthy I am of love, of acceptance. How I deserve alienation, obscurity. How I have to go on being a nobody or I may develop an ego I never deserved. It’s silly. It’s ridiculous. I am stupid. I am ugly. I am..... See, I have all this time, all this time, but I never do anything. It’s like something out of an existential universe... time, time, time, we take it for granted until it’s too late and we’re so lost that we can never find our way back to the place where everything comes together. I’m lost on some path, a path where there is no way to get back to any of the clear or happy paths. It’s a sickness, it’s disgusting, and I will be lost forever because I never thought ahead, and I never valued anything, because I was so stupid and selfish. and....... I sit around, I sleep, I lounge, I loaf. I try to read and be somewhat informed but I don’t have the mental discipline, the loyalty, the capacity, to stay with it long enough but to be anything other than what I am: an illiterate, ignorant ignoramus. I’m pathetic. So, instead I indulge myself in mindlessness, in trivialities, in nothingness. I live the hedonist, the nihilistic lifestyle, where nothing matters but staying alive and ceaselessly searching for pleasure without having to feel passionate about anything.
Bianca: I don’t get you.
David: No one does. I don’t.
Bianca: You bring me here so you can speak your darkness, most dreary thoughts to me. The ones you feel every day, the ones that will haunt you and taunt you until the day you die. And I thought you brought me here to disgrace me, to ruin my reputation, and instead....you want to do is talk but you don’t know how to talk, and neither do I, so we go back and forth, talk a little, then the other talks, says a lot or a little, and so forth. We haven’t embraced or touched, and I know we won’t.. So, other than one-way talking and confessing your deepest failing and torments to me, what do you want of me?
David: Can I hold you?
Bianca: I have a boyfriend.
David: Oh. Never mind then.
Bianca: I’ll rest my head on your shoulder as I fall asleep though.
David: I’ve heard that’s one of the greatest feelings in the world.
Bianca: Yep. Do you want to?
David: I’d love to, but no.
Bianca: Ok. We all suffer from loneliness and thoughts of worthlessness, you know?
David: Of course I know. I’m not an idiot. I am but... never mind. But others can find some reason for living, for doing everything that they do, for being who they are. I can’t figure out any of those things. No I can’t. I’m not like that. I am so far away from paradise or understanding, or anything like that. I’m not like that. Can’t you see? No, you can’t, I am not to be understood by anyone, which is their fault, I’m just not to make sense. I make no sense. That’s how it is. See, others find some sort of purpose through something, they have a little passion., A little fun. A little self-confidence. Whatever it is. I don’t and it doesn’t make sense. Does it? Maybe it does but not to me, and maybe I have just imagined all of this and I am actually incredible at everything, but I doubt it. Even if I knew how to get any of the things I have talked about before, I wouldn’t get them, I wouldn’t try because my selfish fears would stop me, I would stop myself because I wouldn’t feel safe without all my weaknesses of anger and loneliness and self-loathing. I could not fit in in a world where I was not a complete loser. I can’t describe it. It is impossible to describe. It cannot be described. I wish this made sense to you or me, or anyone. But it doesn’t. It never will. I should let you go, and be happy again. But I can’t. I just can’t. I can’t say why. I can’t describe how I feel about you although we hardly know each other, I have this very deep feeling, this instinct that there is something between us, and I have no idea what it could be. And my instincts are probably wrong because I’m always wrong, but maybe this one time I’m right and we could have something. I know we can never have anything, but, I don’t know what I’m saying.
Bianca: You’ll find someone somewhere someday, I’m sure of it. You just have to figure out how to change everything about yourself, then you may have a chance of having something with someone. Applying yourself to work, school, and relationships are not bad ideas. Get more responsibility, learn, learn, read, read, grow, grow
David: I’ve heard all of this millions of times from thousands of different ideas who didn’t understand a word I was saying. And you’re the same. The same. You don’t understand me because none of us can understand others. We don’t know how to. We’re so limited, so empty, so .... mean, and cruel and we’re.... it doesn’t even matter. It only matters that none of this means anything. I still like you,. I still care about you, but what was I thinking? I can’t drag you into something as bad as this, something as superfluous as this. Something so, so juvenile and infantile, and everything. it can’t be done. it won’t be done. You have to go. Go, go. Please go. You can’t be around for all this. It’s way too late. It’s all here to stay., The loneliness and self-loathing, the anger, the meanness, the cruelty, the everything is never going to die in me because I’m too lost, and I can’t offer hope or redemption. I’ve lost it all. All. Please go.
Bianca: Ok. Bye.
(She exits).
David: It never ends.