We Need to Talk

We had a conversation and things went bad. I’m not sure why. A night to remember or just the beginning of the end?

“I never really know what to say when I met people. Everything just is so superficial.”
“I know what you mean the small talk never tells you anything. You just want know like in depth who you are. How do you get there, though? You know?”
“Alright are we being serious?”
“Yeah let’s be serious.”
“Do you want to go big or small?”
“What do you mean?”
“Um, well its like on one hand theres small talk and then on the other there is big talk. But, theres all this space in the middle. Small talk can start off superficial, but there is depth there, if you go and get it.”
“Whats small?”
“We could talk about the moon.”
“The moon?”
“Yeah its like the weather but more. You talk about the moon and then you’re talking about space, about the future, about beauty from a distance. But if you went to the moon it could get old so fast. We would change the moon if we could and then what? Even bigger questions would come.”
“Ah, I get it small would start small but the big ones they would go for the meat.”
I laughed at that. I could hear the parallelisms and I loved it. “The meat?”
“Oh yeah, we would get to talk about we actually came here to talk about. We talk about ourselves.”
“Okay, lets get there. In one word, from you, for you, who are you?”
“If I could boil it all down. If I answered truthfully 110% my word would be…” She looked down towards the table for a while. Then she ran her fingers into her hair and looked up at me while smiling. “Broken,” she said.
“Oh, thats good! The next questions is even better though. Would you change?”
“No, that’s not fair, it’s your turn.”
“Me?” I said stroking my chin. “Thats easy, in one word who I am…” I paused let it linger “Pretend.” I said it kind of quiet though. I don’t think I realized how true it was. But when you say it out loud it gets made flesh. It’s more real then.
“Would you change?” She blurted.
I laughed. “No, not at all, I love it. My personas they insulate me. Can’t be hurt if you can’t be reached.”
“Seems kind of lonely all the way in the back with no contact.”
“Oh it is, but I mean what’s the alternative really. You got to really take the good with the bad. I mean being pretend means I get to live so many lives. Imaginary ones, real ones, I get to experience the world differently any day I want. What’s isolation to adventure?”
“Sure, but I mean you’re out here trying to make friends, so I’m not sure that I can believe you.”
“Oh,” I said softly running my tongue over my teeth. “Would you change from being broken?”
“I see your conversation change but I’m with it. Would I change? I could, couldn’t I?
“I mean if you wanted to yeah, but do you really want to?”
“It’s just familiarity, you know. It gives you certain perspectives.”
“Broken seems bad. Why pick it?” I said concerned. The question had been needling me.
“It’s not broken; it’s just I don’t work as intended. I try really hard to be, you know, like real working adults, but it never really holds. But I’ve kind of figured it out. I work. I have survived, and I’m attached to my method of survival. If I gave that up would I still be me?”
I peered over my glasses and waited till she held my gaze. “Are there downsides to being you?”
“You first,” she said. She pointed at me. Her nails were painted a royal blue except the index finger, those were painted silver.
“Are there downsides? Yeah, but thats not really the question is it? The real question is what are the downsides. Because maybe we could switch. I mean, I handle other peoples problem way better than my own. If I took your word and you took mine would my life be better?”
She laughed softly. A chuckle really; a smile with sound. She had a dimple on her left cheek, it was lovely.
I looked down at the table. The sight of her was too bright. “I see why people talk about the weather.” I tapped my chest, felt the base of my sternum against my knuckle. “It doesn’t hit as hard.” I said.
She waited. She lifted her glass drank a little, put the glass down and crossed her arms. I grinned, I couldn’t stop. When I finally stopped smiling I said, “Downsides, there are a few. The big one is connectivity. I can be friends with everyone. I mean, I designed my persona just for you. I have tons of friends, I never need be alone. It’s just, you can’t let them get too close because then they’ll see the strings. My “pretend” keeps me safe, but it keeps me alone. Other than that the only other downside is, um, hatred. I despise the real one, the one I buried deep. They’re weak, no one would like them. I don’t even like them.”
I took a deep breath and glanced at the glinting chandelier. I swear I almost felt tears at the corners of my eyes, but, that’s not me. I laughed instead. “This almost feels like therapy,” I said.
She smiled but not a wide smile. A smile so tinged with emotion that it had started to fade. “Is that not what a good relationship should be like? A safe space to really air your thoughts. A place thats wants you to aspire to greatness. A place with people who are willing to help you get there. Isn’t it a good thing to have little therapy between friends?”
“Yes,” I said.
“Guess it’s my turn. The downside to being “broken” is incompetence. People think you’re incompetent when you don’t do things like they were taught. It doesn’t matter if you get the same answer or even if you got to the answer first. The only thing they care about is you didn’t do it like you were supposed to. Then theres uh,” she scoffed and stopped speaking. Her lip curling into a snarl. “You can’t ask for help. I don’t know if theres one word for that. Advice doesn’t work with your methods. If you are in trouble, you can’t just do what someone says because the way they work, doesn’t work for you. So every time you hear advice you have to take it and remold it and try to make it fit so that you can use it. But they hate that.” She shifted her shoulders and sat straighter in her chair. The sarcasm when she spoke stung. “Oh you’re going do your own thing. If you just did what I told you.” She put her hands back into her lap. “God, I hate that. Because I’m trying so hard and no one can see that.” She inhaled, gathered herself, and exhaled. “Guess invisibility is a downside as well. If no one knows the struggle, how can they help you when you’re in it?”
We sat in silence for a while. Then, I got an idea one that made me almost giddy. It was a stupid thing really. I had to hold my tongue between my teeth to keep from laughing. I couldn’t wipe the smile off my face though.“So about that weather,” I said.
She laughed and it was bright, it was blinding. No more sad smiles. I wanted that. I wanted to hear her laugh all the time. I wanted to be the reason she laughed. It was dumb and small but that was my favorite sentence of the whole night.
When she finished laughing and she was just sitting there grinning. She said to me, “I have enjoyed this therapy. We have to do this again.”
I agreed. “I’m working on erasing the downsides. Not really changing, but growing into something new,” I said.
“It’s possible,” she said.
“It is possible,” I said.
We talked well into the night.
You know what, I feel like that was the best talk I ever had in my life. I mean sure nothing was resolved, but talking with her was easy. It was like we resonated. We listened, we understood. We accepted each other. I remember that. We accepted each other not as something to be fixed. We are ideas. Ideas that were good and bad, right and wrong. Ideas that were ours, that we chose to be; ideas that we could choose not to be. I remember being accepted being understood.

“You were naive. She played you. She manipulated you. With uncanny ease, I might add.”
“It wasn’t like that.”
“It was. People don’t talk like that. What you think people just sit down for dinner? Just start talking about their life problems? It’s unrealistic."
“It wasn’t our problems it was who we are.”
“Unrealistic.”
“Yeah well it shouldn’t be. People can understand you. You are not a mystery, you are human and as simple as everyone else. You just need someone to listen to the you you’ve buried. She understood, she listened. Its more than anyone I know has done.”
She was silent for a while. So I kept going.
“I think you understand. In fact I think you know me better than anyone else. You just lie, to yourself, to me, to everyone. I think at the heart of it you don’t want to be known. No, that’s not it, no, I think you’re scared of being known. Pierce the cloud of mystery and I’d find you so vulnerable, fragile, frail.”
“Do you remember anything about what happened yesterday?”
“I think the fact that I quoted the conversation, that she and I had, from memory is indication that my memory is quite prodigious. That’s a yes I remember.”
“What happened yesterday?”
“I do not want to relive this.”
“What happened yesterday?”
“At 2247 the woman know to me as Doctor Faheem Ward exited via the south gate of the black site known as The Leviathan.”
“She did.”
“Whereupon she encountered me.”
“She did.”
“I think she had a weapon, already drawn.”
“She did."
“I think she shot me.”
“She did.”
“I don’t understand how I’m still alive. I didn’t tell her anything. I never mentioned anything about the site. We just talked. That conversation was weeks ago.”
“What happened yesterday?”
"I was carrying the hard copies for project Carrion. I think she took them.”
“She did."
“Their retrieval is top priority.”
“That is correct.”
“So when do we leave?"
“We…do not.”
I heard the emphasis on the we. Still, considering I had already been cuffed to a chair I had an inkling of how it would play out. I heard her safety click off. I heard her chamber a round.
Then, I woke up here. Tied to a different chair. I’m not saying I’m not grateful. It’s just that this is the third time I’ve told this story and I’m not really sure why I’m still alive.

End