here’s experimental fiction mixing dialogue with script stage direction. meant to evoke those cut scenes in films where characters have hours-long distance conversation spliced into a few spare minutes. there’s a sparseness to it.

after, she replays the terms of dialogue in her head.

incoherent; words roll off the tongue, but it’s all wrong. bent out of shape, malformed from the start. should not be here, out in the open.

this is a bloodless thing. pink drains from her face.

i want all of this to mean something.

pray to a bad religion. call a number until the dialtone, repeatedly. perhaps the receiver is on the other end, will pick up the phone, can finally hear you. renounce the gods. they weren’t listening. attention as an act of desperation. cannot fault gravity, trying its hardest to perform a thankless job. keeps you here, still—doesn’t it? keep close company among sunk stones, lofty deadweights.

wake up, scald some tea leaves, wonder if divination can pour its heart out at the bottom of an empty cup. who tends to your church? remember, there used to be a cathedral here before the ramparts raised along the banks. it used to be a sightly thing, all that verdant greenery. now, how do you tend to a place so overdefended it forgot the weaknesses in its bones. commons, made inaccessible. inquire how might anything grow in the grey.

you exist to me, and that’s the worst thing i’ve ever heard. in the fogged-up mirrors of my periphery, in the ghastly sharp shiny fragments of my confessions—splinters lodged in the fleshy underfoot. notice: this all takes up space. one molecule bonded with another, scaffolded synchrony, vibrating at scarcely detectible frequencies; does not know how to do anything but hold itself together. was never asked for more.

and soon you’ll say i exist too much.

stuff self-sacrifice into a yawning mouth, heed its warning for once. slake the thirst of indifference with a faithless promise. half-light slants through the blackout curtains, arrives with fresh covenants. take a long walk outside, suppose you will have it all figured out. no more than than a shattered figurine, porcelain dust strewn on the roadway. sit down, the day’s not over yet.

toast is best enjoyed:

• exposed, caramelized in a convection oven. some, but not too much color. golden. maillard as an act of love.
• in the mornings, with a pot of honeyed tea.
• fresh seasonal strawberries, lush whipped cream. crust cut off, halved into triangles.
• tangzhong. thick. tasty.
• open-faced canvas for avocado green with a sprinkle of flaky salt, rain of lemon. warm yolk, broken.
• just a small, spare pat of butter.
• crunchy, crusted. delicate prosciutto ruffles, fig jam dress.
• at this open, airy cafe in the middle of ginza. breaking bread as a centrepiece.

sometimes i sit in a room and look up and think about how everyone who is important to us can fit in a room. and i wonder how all of them became important to us and how they all fit here. people can be contained: within us, within four walls and a low ceiling; within a space we made worth saving. a safe space, made sanctuary.

we are gathered on the couch in my apartment; crowded around a high table in the back of a bar; waiting in a car at the arrivals terminal. we are in a room together and the earth is rotating about its tilted axis, and we revolve around each other in this time-space we all happen to share. some cosmic overlap, and we all became important to one another.

a place holds people, orbiting in proximity. i don’t think the actual room matters. it can be any room, any size, any shape. it is a corporeal reality that asserts certainty. but what’s scary is that we can situation everyone inside—everyone, count them off, do roll call—close the door, and then anything goes. we eat dinner or share bad dreams, we make life plans or divulge little secrets.

anything can happen in the room. by that logic, anything can happen to the room. the room has a door and that door can be opened: someone leaves. the room burns down. the room never earned its certifications and the ceiling collapses, a flimsy thing. the room becomes a stage trick, and the walls fall down to reveal a laughing audience.

still, we fill our rooms with people. and still, we walk into the rooms of others. sometimes, isn’t it simply and stupidly nice to share space at the same time?

“You seem happier.”

“Do I?” Looks down, askew, the chipped polish on my split nails.

Nods. Genuine and unassuming.

“In all the years I’ve known you.” A number that requires a second hand to count.

I remember we were at the wooden table and my chair had an uneven leg (set me slanted from the moment I sat down). I don’t remember how we got there, but I suppose we were always having conversations about the best and worst of times. We had easily exhausted all other discursive topics; the only thing left was happiness.