“What do you think would be the worst part about dying?”
“Hello, Random! Haven’t seen you around here lately.”
“Come on. Humor me.
“Well, I guess it depends on how it happens. I mean, dying in your sleep can’t be that bad. You don’t even know it happens, and it doesn’t hurt at all. You just don’t wake up.”
“Wouldn’t you hate that?”
“What?”
“Not knowing if you were alive or dead?”
“…Yeah. I guess I’d rather be sure. I wouldn’t want to be like Nicole Kidman and think my house is haunted when I’m the one who shot myself in the head.”
“That’d be quick.”
“And also messy. Then again, I wouldn’t have to clean it up, so who gives a shit?”
“Is that how you’d do it?”
“Maybe. If I had a choice, I mean. Not saying I’m suicidal. That’s just fucked up.”
“Yeah. Fucked up.”
“Wouldn’t mind being taken hostage though. You know, huge bank robbery goes terribly wrong. Bastards threaten to shoot one of us in the head. I heroically offer my neck up on the chopping block – well, my head to the barrel anyway – and then bang! I’m splattered everywhere, and I die a hero. Pretty sweet, I think.”
“Too scary.”
“Well, I wouldn’t be scared. I’d have a stiff upper lip and all that jazz.”
“You’d pee yourself.”
“There is that.”
“…I think I might like falling.”
“What, like jumping off the roof?”
“I didn’t say jumping. I said falling. It would be peaceful that way. Sort of like flying for awhile. I wouldn’t even feel it when I’d hit the ground. I’d be that… I’d be ready for it, if I died like that.”
“…No more vodka for you.”
“If you didn’t want to talk about it, you should have said so.”
“Whatever. Who gives a flying fuck about death anyway? We’re young, light-hearted, fancy-free. I mean, come on, we can’t even be having this stuff legally yet. We’re not supposed to think about death until we’re like… thirty.”
“…What if I do anyway?”
“Then tomorrow, we buy you a puppy or something. I think there’s a study that people with pets are less likely to be death-obsessed freakazoids. I vote we name it Chester.”
“I do not want a dog.”
“It would be helpful. Trust me. I’m a psychology major; I know this shit.”
“I’m trying to have a serious--”
“Well, then you’re morbid. It’s fine. Not like your attitude brings me down or anything…. Actually, it totally does, but I forgive you because our love is as boundless as the ocean. If the ocean didn’t have bounds.”
“Could we actually talk here for a minute?”
“We are talking.”
“No, you’re quipping. There’s a difference.”
“Are you asking me--"
“If you are going to make a joke, I swear to God--”
“…Wow. Um, okay. Okay. You’re trying to tell me something. I get it.”
“I just… I just think about it.”
“A… A lot?”
“All the time.”
“Er… Specifically?”
“I’ve come up with different scenarios. I have dozens, maybe a hundred by now. Sleeping pills and chardonnay. Car accident. Stepping out in front of on an oncoming train and throwing my arms out, laughing.”
“...I fail to see the humor in any of this.”
“It’s not funny.”
“Then why are you laughing?”
“Maybe because I’m crazy. I think about that too. It’s not normal to think about death this much unless you’re actually going to die.”
“I don’t think you’re crazy.”
“Don’t lie.”
“It’s better to lie right now.”
“This one time, I was trying to come up with funny ways to do it. All I could come up with was holding a séance, calling up Jack the Ripper, and dressing sexy.”
“Well, that’d do it all right.”
“It’s not that funny.”
“Would be if I said it.”
“Probably.”
“Everything’s funny when I say it.”
“That’s because you can’t say anything that means something.”
“I aim to bring joy into people’s lives…. Guess I’m not doing that great a job.”
“I really do like falling the best.”
“Do you have to say that when we’re on the roof?”
“Fall, not jump.”
“It’s all the same once you hit the bottom, Baby Doll.”
“I wouldn’t want to scream all the way down. I’d do that if I did it on purpose.”
“You know, most people would scream if it were an accident.”
“Most people don’t know a good thing when they see it.”
“…We should go in now.”
“Would you care if I flew?”
“Damn it, you wouldn’t fly. You’d--"
“Die. It rhymes.”
“Would you just come the fuck inside?”
“…I’ll meet you downstairs.”
