"Yeah?"
"What are you saying yeah to?"
"It's kind of like that."
"It's kind of like what?"
"That's not what I meant to say."
"What did you mean to say?"
"I thought it was something else I was reacting to."
"Squirrel?"
"No, bug. It always comes down to some form of bug."
"Then what were you initially reacting to?"
"I forgot."
"Never mind."
"That's right continue doing what comes naturally to you."
"Especially when you are such an exemplar of the alternative."
"Just one of those dead end positions with extra adhesive for clinging to the underbelly of my repertoire."
"Someone had some time to think up a response."
"It only became clear what to say once I blew the dust off of our conversation."
Put it back put it back to that part where they're trying their efforts their energy and remind yourself of what that was like before the shrugging of shoulders and that hazy light and the look on her face looking out the window at that hazy light showering her with anticipation of rain that only trickles or doesn't come at all and she observes from a growing distance all their trying their efforts their energy and her headache grows with every thought of her opportunities to teach and her cautioning and her timing and her tone and how it all gets shrugged away into screams that manage to echo on the surface skin deep that'll never happen again after the last time it happened before the shrugging of shoulders that seem to have always been there back there put back there put it back put it back to that part if you want if you want to pretend that it wasn't always put back there.
"I spend more of my time lately watching the dogs meandering about. I see them their mouths and it looks like they're munching on something and I ask myself did I actually have something left that I took my eyes off of for them to scoop up something I didn't know I still had or thought I put it somewhere they couldn't get it or I'm just being self-absorbed they could have grabbed somebody else's shit and I think about going over to them and reminding them and I remember that they end up calling me something and to never mind that's where that comes from so you know and I think maybe I'm not so self-absorbed it's about the few puzzles I managed to save and I'm not sure if I have that one last one if I still have it not so sure it didn't have that many pieces lots of dogs though."
"I was going to take another crack at it."
"At the pile of crap in the living room?"
"You mean the stack of bodies?"
"No not that one. That's why we stopped calling it the living room."
"At least I did."
"You want to take a crack at the pile of crap in the bedroom?"
"And I thought I was the only one who had trouble with terminology."
"It's just that the list gets so large it begins to eat into the main bulk of the front part."
"The front part?"
"You know the beginning."
"The beginning?"
"Why stop there? Those lists take the middle and the ending as well. Might as well they make lists of endings. Endings after endings."
"Since you put it that way that's what I was going to take a crack at. I thought what about it's about a prison and among the population they discover one of them plays a musical instrument."
"That's what they have bands for."
"That's not what I meant to say. It's about a prison and among the population they discover one of them builds things."
"That's what they have construction crews for."
"That's not what I meant to say. It's about a prison and among the population they discover one of them uses anesthesia."
"That's what they have hospitals for."
"That's not what I meant to say."
- Max Stoltenberg
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