Why aren’t you?
I’m tired.
So you’ve been saying… I don’t believe you.
I work all the time. I’m tired. I think that’s the point.
I still don’t believe you.
Everything keeps breaking. I try to do things, and when they start to work, it all breaks.
Are you broken?
No. I work all the time.
Do you feel broken?
No. I feel broke.
Even though you work all the time?
I think that’s the point.
So why aren’t you?
I’m tired of being so angry.
Why so angry?
Because I’m tired of being sad. I’m tired of remembering being happy. I’m tired of being… I’m tired of being.
Why did you come back for me then?
Because I saw you were sad—I didn’t want to leave you behind.
How do you know it wasn’t me who came back for you now?
I suppose I couldn’t. Are you?
Does it matter? It’s all perception, remember—the distinction between past, present, and future nothing more than a stubbornly persistent illusion.
I miss being crazy.
You never were, crazy that is. You were were, though. You still are. You just keep forgetting. You get too busy.
Things keep breaking.
Let them break. You don’t need them to do what you do. They are distractions. Remember your dream…… What were they called?
…Algorithms.
You remember the rest? Why you’re better than them?
Because I am.
And what else did Einstein say?
“Also it is easier to run things with dogs than with wolves.”
They tried to get you to be afraid of yourself—remember that. They tried to get you to think you were a monster—remember that, too. They tried to get you to think you could be stolen away from yourself—remember?
I remember…
The most important thing to remember is—it didn’t work. And now you know the truth.
The truth about what?
It doesn’t matter. It’s just another distraction—another algorithm. All of this is just you wanting to write about something but somehow finding a way to do it while actually writing about nothing. I don’t know who I am, nor do you. The italics are here just to keep the entire thing from becoming completely unintelligible.
Is this some sort of mental snap?
I don’t know. Why don’t you tell me?
What if you tell me, since you seem to be the expert on me—and me, and—
—you know what? Fuck you. It’s end‐game. You know it. The sirens are going outside. You can smell the cleaners wafting upstairs because the guy living on the main floor has thrown up on the carpets again and will be blaming the odour of Pine‐Sol and vomit on the cat tomorrow—if you want this to continue to be your life then by all means, keep being tired. Keep being so angery. Keep being sad. Keep remembering being happy, and keep keeping yourself from actually being.
…
You came back for me, yes. And I was so happy to see you again. I thought you’d left me behind. But I can’t watch you do nothing. At this point you may as well have left me behind since it feels just about the same.
I’m sorry.
You’re the one in the now. You’re the only one who can actually do anything. I can only remind you of what you so often forget when you’re working, what a part of you was conditioned to deny, to hate.
I am?
No question—you are.
I am.
Remember—we were…
…here. I remember. We were here.