“We should open it.”
“No we shouldn’t.”
“We should definitely open it.”
“We should definitely not.”
“Aren’t you the least bit curious?”
“We’ve already been through this.”
“Well, maybe we should go through it again. For benefit of my short term memory. I can’t seem to remember anything until just now.”
“Sigh.”
“Sigh?”
“Yes.”
“Sigh?”
“I am saying ‘sigh’ because, whilst I can afford the energy to engage you vocally and verbally in… in whatever this is, I cannot afford to waste the required physical energy needed for the necessary exhalation that I would have to undertake to audibly, and actually, sigh to your repeated insisting.”
“See, all that that you just said? It seems to me like a whole lot more effort than it would’ve taken to just sigh, or just answer my question. In fact, it seems to me an awful lot like you were just using as many words as you could to avoid sighing and kill time, or actually, make more of it, between my asking you and you eventually answering the question of your curiosity. Like you were filling space or something.”
“Sigh.”
“Can’t be arsed to exert the energy to actually sigh again?”
“No, I just don’t know how to spell out the sound of a sigh.”
“What?”
“I don’t know.”
“Okay… Well, moving swiftly backwards; let’s open it.”
“No.”
“Why?”
“Because I said no.”
“That’s not a reason.”
“It’s reason enough.”
“But-“
“No.”
“Alright, but at least answer my question.”
“And what’s that?”
“Aren’t you the least bit curious?”
“We’ve already been through this.”
“And we’re going through it again. I’ve forgotten. Humour me. You have a captive audience!”
“Why should I be the least bit curious in the first place though?”
“Because we don’t know what’s inside it. It could be anything.”
“It could be nothing.”
“I don’t think there’d be nothing in there.”
“Because nothing could be deemed, technically, as something, as opposed to there not being anything at all in there?”
“What? No. I mean…“
“You mean…?”
“I mean, I don’t think there’d be nothing in there, or that there wouldn’t be anything at all in there, because what would be the point in that?”
“Does there have to be a point?”
“Well, yeah.”
“Well, why?”
“Because it wouldn’t make sense for there not to be.”
“There has to be a point because it wouldn’t make sense for there not to be?”
“Yeah.”
“But there isn’t a point in any of this; in me; in you; in life; in anything, and that makes perfect sense.”
“Not this again.”
“And it all makes perfect sense that there isn’t any point in anything, because if there was a point to it all, it wouldn’t make any sense, and then all we’d have is nonsense, like religion and philosophy, and order, and it would be chaos. And I thought that you were forgetful.”
“What?”
“You said ‘not again’.”
“And?”
“If you were as forgetful as you said you were just now, you wouldn’t be able to remember if we’d covered this topic of conversation before.”
“I couldn’t. I just got the impression that it would’ve come up before. It seemed like one of those things that probably comes up a lot.”
“Well, it doesn’t.”
“Are you sure?”
“Yes.”
“But what do you think’s in there?”
“Nothing.”
“Oh come on. Seriously. Where would be the point in that?”
“The point is, that as far as we are concerned there is nothing in there. Were we inside of it, or were we to open it, then we would know, but as it stands we aren’t, we haven’t, and we don’t. We can’t possibly know what is in there, and unless you choose to believe that everything and all possibilities of what we think might be in there is in fact in there, there is nothing in there. It is only what we perceive, and that is, what it is, as it is, right now. A box.”
“Is this something to do with that bollocks about a cat and a box, and it’s both alive and dead while the box is closed, and it’s not until the box is opened that it becomes either alive, or dead?”
“For someone who isn’t able to remember anything further back than just now, you seem unusually able to reference a topic that hasn’t occurred since just now began.”
“What?”
“You just made a reference, albeit clumsily, to Schrödinger’s cat.”
“No I didn’t. So wait, you think there’s a cat in there?”
“No, you just-“
“Do you think the cat’s alive or dead? I can’t see any airholes.”
“You’re doing it again.”
“Doing what?”
“Look. There is nothing in there, it is what it is, and that is a box.”
“Yeah, but boxes have things inside them.”
“Not empty ones.”
“Hmm.”
“See?”
“No. Why would we be sitting here watching an empty box?”
“Because we are.”
“Well, I can see that, but why are we?”
“Because it’s what we’re here to do.”
“Yeah, but why are we here to do it?”
“You know full well ‘why’ we are here to do it.”
“No I don’t.”
“Yes you do.”
“I really don’t.”
“You’re going to make me go through it again?”
“You haven’t been through it a first time.”
“Yes I have, and you were there the first time it was went through.”
“When what was?”
“It.”
“What’s it?”
“The reason we are sitting here, waiting, and watching this box.”
“And what’s that?”
“Jesus Christ!”
“Who’s he?”
“Oh, you know.”
“I don’t.”
“You don’t know a lot, do you?”
“Neither do you.”
“I know plenty, and that’s plenty more than you.”
“You don’t.”
“I do.”
“Then how come you can’t answer my questions. You just seem to dance around them, and answer them with more questions.”
“I am answering your questions.”
“You haven’t answered a single question yet.”
“I have.”
“Haven’t.”
“Fine! What do you want to know?”
“Why we’re here?”
“We are watching the box.”
“But why are we watching it?”
“Because we have to.”
“Why do we have to?”
“Because we were told to.”
“By who?”
“By the person whose box it is.”
“But who’s that?”
“The person who gave us the box and told us to watch it.”
“I don’t remember anyone giving us the box.”
“Well they did.”
“Who did?”
“They.”
“Who are they?”
“I don’t know!”
“What?”
“I don’t know alright, I don’t know.”
“You don’t know?”
“No!”
“I don’t remember anyone giving us the box.”
“I don’t either.”
“You don’t?”
“No.”
“Then why did you say they did?”
“I don’t know. Because… because I thought someone must’ve had to have given us the box.”
“Why?”
“Because why else would it be here, and why else would we be here watching it.”
“Are we here watching it?”
“I assumed so.”
“But you’re not sure?”
“Not really, no.”
“I thought you knew!”
“I thought I did.”
“I thought you fucking knew!”
“Well, I didn’t, alright? Happy?”
“No I’m not happy! Why the fuck are we here? And why the fuck have you been pretending to know it all, when you didn’t know anything?”
“Because… because you didn’t know anything.”
“And evidently, neither did you!”
“Yes, but someone had to.”
“What? Why?”
“Well, I thought-“
“Oh, you thought. Well-fucking-done. You thought. You’ve an awful lot to say about my forgetting, but there seems a lot needs saying about your fucking thinking.”
“Alright! Calm down. I was wrong, alright? I was wrong. I thought that we must’ve been watching the box, and that for us to be watching it, there must’ve been a reason.”
“Why?”
“Because what would be the point in it otherwise?”
“What would be the… what would be the fucking point? Oh-ho! You are just too fucking much you are. You make up some bullshit about us being here, and why there’s a fucking box there, and when I ask what’s in the box, it’s nothing, and when I question it being nothing because there wouldn’t be a point in it being nothing, you belittle me and give me some bollocks about there being no point in anything, and some grand pretentious drivel about there being no meaning in any, or all, of this. But! But when it comes down to it. You made up the reason we, and the box, are here because you didn’t think there’d be a point in it otherwise. Oh, ho ho ho. You fucking cunt.”
“Look, I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I made it all up, I made myself out to be this clever character that was cleverer than you, and all acerbic and knowledgeable and thoughtful and witty. I’m not, and I don’t know why I pretended otherwise. But, we’re here now, and we both know the truth.”
“No we don’t. We still don’t know why we’re here, or why we’re watching that box, or if we’re watching that box, or what’s in the fucking box.”
“No, but we’re back on a level playing field now. There’s me, there’s you, there’s now, and there’s the box.”
“Okay.”
“We can just carry on as we were, and forget about the box.”
“Carry on with what?”
“Whatever we were doing before the box.”
“Which was?”
“Oh, I don’t know. Something.”
“Can you remember a time before the box?”
“Haha, what? Come on.”
“No. Seriously. Can you remember a time before the box?”
“Well, of course I can… there was, uh… and… um…”
“Can you remember a time before the box?”
“No.”
“Okay.”
“Can you?”
“No.”
“Come on, let’s just go. Let’s just get out of here, and leave the box.”
“Don’t you want to know what’s in it?”
“No.”
“Why?”
“Because I don’t.”
“Why?”
“Because… because I’m scared.”
“Me too.”
“Then let’s just go, let’s just go.”
“And go where? We don’t know where we are, and I wouldn’t be surprised if we don’t know who we are.”
“Oh, come on now.”
“Do you!? Cause I fucking don’t. We don’t know anything.”
“But we’ve made references to things. Like the cat, you made a reference, and I knew what it was called, and what it was about.”
“That doesn’t mean anything, and if it does, it doesn’t matter. What matters is… I don’t even know. I just know that whatever matters, or whatever we need to find out, or what we know, or what we don’t know, or why we’re fucking here, has something to do with that fucking box.”
“I agree.”
“We should open it.”
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