The Ripeness is All
Conversation #8: Greet Death
Wendy: Blake, Blake! He said I was ready. He said I could leave today.
Blake: That's great! That's awesome! You're finally coming home. Your mom and dad are going to be so happy. I can finally tell them you're alive.
Wendy: No, don't. I mean, I'd really prefer to tell them myself. I want to just hug them and feel their warmth.
Blake: Okay, I won't tell them.
Wendy: First, though, I want to hug you. You're my best friend, Blake, and I want to thank you.
Blake: I want to hug you, too. When you are getting here?
Wendy: I'm going right now. Meet me behind the garage. You remember?
Blake: I remember.
Wendy: Good. I'll see you there.
"He could hear nothing: the night was perfectly silent. He listened again: perfectly silent. He felt that he was alone."
« James Joyce, Dubliners
Conversation #1: A Song for Our Fathers
Wendy: Hello, Blake.
Blake: Wendy? That can't be you. This is some stupid prank, isn't it?
Wendy: No prank. Remember that time we kissed behind the garage? We never told anyone about that.
Blake: Oh my god. It can't be you. It can't.
Wendy: Why not?
Blake: I just saw your dad. I was just there.
Wendy: Where, Blake?
Blake: Your funeral. You're dead, Wendy.
Wendy: I'm not. I don't understand it, but I'm not. I mean, I was walking alone and it was freezing outside and I remember thinking how stupid it was not to wear my mittens and then...then I saw him.
Blake: Him? Where are you, Wendy?
Wendy: I don't know. Somewhere cold. Colder than I've ever been.
"Howl, howl, howl, howl! O! you are men of stones:
Had I your tongues and eyes, I’d use them so
That heaven’s vaults should crack. — She’s gone for ever! —
I know when one is dead, and when one lives;
She’s dead as earth."
« King Lear
Conversation #4: Look into the Air
Blake: What do you do over there?
Wendy: I don't know. Sleep mostly. I think. At least, I go to sleep and I wake up and I assume time has passed. We can't really measure time here.
Blake: We?
Wendy: There was someone else. He put someone else here with me.
Blake: So you're not alone anymore. That's good.
Wendy: I thought it was. Except the boy...well, the boy he brought just wouldn't stop crying. Just nonstop crying.
Blake: Can you blame him?
Wendy: No, I guess not. But he didn't like the boy crying. He...did something and made the boy stop. The boy he brought looks weak now. I don't think he's going to live here very long.
Blake: Wendy, doesn't that bother you?
Wendy: Should it?
"Here we go round the mulberry bush,
The mulberry bush, the mulberry bush.
Here we go round the mulberry bush,
On a cold and frosty morning."
« Nursery rhyme
Conversation #6: Time Stops
Wendy: He let me out of the house today, so to speak.
Blake: Is he going to let you come home?
Wendy: Not yet, but he let me outside. It was weird.
Blake: What do you mean?
Wendy: It was a weird place. I don't know if it was his home or just a place that he travels through, but it was...still. Quiet. I couldn't hear anything.
Blake: What did it look like?
Wendy: I don't remember. Actually, I remember walking through a door and there was a great city, but I don't really remember what the city looked like. And we didn't stay in the city for long, just a few minutes before passing through another door. And then we were in the quiet place. The white place. I didn't like it there.
Blake: Are you okay?
Wendy: I don't know.
"In the bleak mid-winter
Frosty wind made moan,
Earth stood hard as iron,
Water like a stone."
« Christina Rossetti, Mid-Winter
Conversation #3: Magic Hours
Wendy: He's gone now.
Blake: Gone where?
Wendy: Back to the world. Back to the lonely people. To the cold people.
Blake: Why can't you just give me a straight answer?
Wendy: Because I don't know the answer. I don't know any answers. He doesn't talk to me, not really. He sings these stupid nursery rhymes and then I black out and when I wake up, I don't feel the cold as much.
Blake: Why?
Wendy: There are no whys here, Blake. No answers, no lessons, no reasons.
Blake: I'm sorry.
Wendy: No, I'm sorry. It's just, I'm worried. I'm worried one day I'll wake up and I won't be able to feel anything at all.
