Agreed?
ADAM: I don’t know.
CLARISSA: Exactly, you don’t.
ADAM: No heaven or hell we don’t ourselves construct is my overriding point Clarissa.
CLARISSA: Ah, there it is, right on schedule.
ADAM: You doubt it? Receive some tragic news and note how instantly the very environs you’d just drawn comfort from will transform into instruments of the vilest torture. Note contrarily how a joyous enough development will free a man to kiss his severest enemy.
Are we to believe that all this. Life. Is a mere question of geography? Locate yourself on the map so you know what to feel? I think rather we move through our world as if entering coloring book pages with only the barest outlines then start coloring.
CLARISSA: So now you’ve gone from base animal to supercilious artist freely creating his world? No wonder you’re in no rush to leave this cocoon, little longer and it’ll be a metamorphosed demigod filling this room with undergraduate-level musings instead of just you.
ADAM: I’m not hesitant to leave this room. I want to stay because I’m curious what will happen next.
CLARISSA: It’s all very curious all right. Your every move beginning with that laughable pretense to disability. Very curious indeed.
ADAM: What, the wheelchair? I had no say in that.
CLARISSA: Did you say anything?
ADAM: No.
CLARISSA: Then you as good as essayed it. See what I’m saying?
ADAM: No.
CLARISSA: And don’t think we haven’t noticed what a turn for the worse Charles has taken since you arrived. Why should we forgive you for that?
ADAM: Forgive?
CLARISSA: No. Why should we?
ADAM: I’m not asking for forgiveness.
CLARISSA: Good, cause you can forget it. We never forget, what for? Or give.
( Charles moans. )
ADAM: I’m not responsible for that.
CLARISSA: If you’re not able to respond who is? You’re not suggesting…
ADAM: No one’s responsible .
( They look at Charles. )
That there’s the way of the world, he’s ancient.
CLARISSA: Perhaps you’re right. But O’ how the ways of the world do seem to weigh on him now.
ADAM: As if the shell of his corpse can no longer contain the ghosts of everything he’s seen and done.
CLARISSA: Do you feel guilty?
ADAM: I told you, I have nothing to do with…
CLARISSA: No, guilt at how much more vital you feel in his presence.
( Charles’s breathing becomes audibly labored. )
ADAM: Look at him. Maybe he once gave orders that men rushed to comply with. I bet he accumulated titles and positions, wrote his name in sundry registries that business might be conducted more expeditiously but always with an eye towards the full and faithful credit of all his rights thereunder.
CLARISSA: I don’t know, I rather think he toiled diligently at the secret arts. Repaid the niceness of a comely young woman with steadily increasing niceness until they became two halves of a whole with him maybe slightly less than half. From there it was just a long string of staying to the proper course through an incalculable number of imperceptible adjustments, the constant choosing of the right over the wrong.
ADAM: To what profit though? All his sums and takeaways culminate in a bottom line where his personal electricity no longer suffices and he has to plug his heart into an outlet if it’s to keep pumping. What’s he make now? What workproduct and what does it earn him? What does he make of his various liens and levies now that the levee’s burst and there’s nothing left to lean on? A lifetime spent impersonating dignity and putting on airs but at the end nothing’s too undignified provided it supplies the air needed to expend more life. Look at him gasping there. Living, no dying proof, at long last, that life is grand. Don’t let anyone tell you different. Else why the white-knuckle grip on something that otherwise engenders so much
ADAM: I don’t know.
CLARISSA: Exactly, you don’t.
ADAM: No heaven or hell we don’t ourselves construct is my overriding point Clarissa.
CLARISSA: Ah, there it is, right on schedule.
ADAM: You doubt it? Receive some tragic news and note how instantly the very environs you’d just drawn comfort from will transform into instruments of the vilest torture. Note contrarily how a joyous enough development will free a man to kiss his severest enemy.
Are we to believe that all this. Life. Is a mere question of geography? Locate yourself on the map so you know what to feel? I think rather we move through our world as if entering coloring book pages with only the barest outlines then start coloring.
CLARISSA: So now you’ve gone from base animal to supercilious artist freely creating his world? No wonder you’re in no rush to leave this cocoon, little longer and it’ll be a metamorphosed demigod filling this room with undergraduate-level musings instead of just you.
ADAM: I’m not hesitant to leave this room. I want to stay because I’m curious what will happen next.
CLARISSA: It’s all very curious all right. Your every move beginning with that laughable pretense to disability. Very curious indeed.
ADAM: What, the wheelchair? I had no say in that.
CLARISSA: Did you say anything?
ADAM: No.
CLARISSA: Then you as good as essayed it. See what I’m saying?
ADAM: No.
CLARISSA: And don’t think we haven’t noticed what a turn for the worse Charles has taken since you arrived. Why should we forgive you for that?
ADAM: Forgive?
CLARISSA: No. Why should we?
ADAM: I’m not asking for forgiveness.
CLARISSA: Good, cause you can forget it. We never forget, what for? Or give.
( Charles moans. )
ADAM: I’m not responsible for that.
CLARISSA: If you’re not able to respond who is? You’re not suggesting…
ADAM: No one’s responsible .
( They look at Charles. )
That there’s the way of the world, he’s ancient.
CLARISSA: Perhaps you’re right. But O’ how the ways of the world do seem to weigh on him now.
ADAM: As if the shell of his corpse can no longer contain the ghosts of everything he’s seen and done.
CLARISSA: Do you feel guilty?
ADAM: I told you, I have nothing to do with…
CLARISSA: No, guilt at how much more vital you feel in his presence.
( Charles’s breathing becomes audibly labored. )
ADAM: Look at him. Maybe he once gave orders that men rushed to comply with. I bet he accumulated titles and positions, wrote his name in sundry registries that business might be conducted more expeditiously but always with an eye towards the full and faithful credit of all his rights thereunder.
CLARISSA: I don’t know, I rather think he toiled diligently at the secret arts. Repaid the niceness of a comely young woman with steadily increasing niceness until they became two halves of a whole with him maybe slightly less than half. From there it was just a long string of staying to the proper course through an incalculable number of imperceptible adjustments, the constant choosing of the right over the wrong.
ADAM: To what profit though? All his sums and takeaways culminate in a bottom line where his personal electricity no longer suffices and he has to plug his heart into an outlet if it’s to keep pumping. What’s he make now? What workproduct and what does it earn him? What does he make of his various liens and levies now that the levee’s burst and there’s nothing left to lean on? A lifetime spent impersonating dignity and putting on airs but at the end nothing’s too undignified provided it supplies the air needed to expend more life. Look at him gasping there. Living, no dying proof, at long last, that life is grand. Don’t let anyone tell you different. Else why the white-knuckle grip on something that otherwise engenders so much
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