Conversation

Help find the cure

Conversation

by Rick Walton

with a doorknob (in media res)

Doorknob--: ...so there we were forty-eight of us in that box, and not one of us able to sing. It was so embarrassing!
Me--: It was only embarrassing because you let it be embarrassing. Embarrassment is a figment that is only embodied when it is willed. You willed it, you were embodied.
Doorknob--: I'd never thought of that. Of course, I've never thought of snorting cream cheese either.
Me--: I have. Disgusting thought. So. You're in a box, you're lost in this desert, what did the camel do to you?
Doorknob--: Swallowed us of course. That's how I arrived here. He walked into this room soon after the Great Swallowing and had an unfortunate accident. Your super cleaned me up and stuck me here.
Me--: And the camel?
Doorknob--: Dog food. And justly deserved.
Me--: Are most deserved things just?
Doorknob--: Come again?
Me--: Justly deserved--it's repetitive, redundant--not in word but in concept.
Doorknob--: True, but you need things repeated in order to understand.
Me--: I do not! I do not!
Doorknob--: And besides, "repetition is the greatest part of valor."
Me--: I think that's "courage is the greatest part of valor."
Doorknob--: That's repetetive.
Me--: So who're ya votin' fer this yar?
Doorknob--: Why the non-sequitur slang all of the sudden?
Me--: Sorry, I accidently tripped into an alternate universe for a moment.
Doorknob--: I had an uncle who did that once.
Me--: Doorknobs have uncles?
Doorknob--: Someone turned him too quickly and he found himself on a cabinet in an alternate Taj Mahal. Unfortunately the Mahal was being sacked at the moment and he was swiped and later swallowed by a camel.
Me--: Must have been painful.
Doorknob--: I imagine it was.
Me--: Are we done talking yet?
Doorknob--: That's up to you.
Me--: Then Done.
Doorknob--: Done.
Me--: That's repetitive.

with my dog

Me--: Have you ever looked at the sky and wished you were a comet--fast, eternal, and on fire?
Dog--: Woof.
Me--: Alone in the immensity of space, no bother, your path determined for you...
Dog--: Arf.
Me--: Reminds me of when I was a kid and would float my inner tubes down the slow stretches of the Susquehanna...
Dog--: Yip.
Me--: ...drowning in oblivion. Wouldn't oblivion be wonderful--no one to tell you what to do, to put you down, to limit your freedoms?
Dog--: Arf.
Me--: But then you wouldn't understand that, you have no worries. All you do is eat my food and chase girl dogs. And you wouldn't even understand that you don't understand, you're just a dumb dog.
Dog--: Now hold on, you have no idea what you're talking about.
Me--: Now hold on yourself! Since when could you talk?
Dog--: I've always been able to talk. All dogs talk, but only rarely to humans, because humans lack the brains for intelligent conversation. We consider it a waste of time to speak to you jerks.
Me--: You're kidding.
Dog--: Dogs don't kid. It's against our religion.
Me--: Dogs have religion too?
Dog--: We only talk when we want someone committed to an institution for the feeble-minded. You try telling people that your dog speaks to you and see what they do.
Me--: Is that why you're talking to me?
Dog--: Good idea, but no. It's that dumb dog garbage and that "dog's life" myth that was foaming out of your mouth. It made me rabid!
Me--: And you say I was foaming.
Dog--: You complain about people limiting your freedom. Have you ever worn a leash?
Me--: Not involuntarily.
Dog--: And what about that trash you feed me! Horse meat--from a can-and only when you want to feed me. If you were a decent creature you'd get me a refrigerator and your checkbook and let me go shopping.
Me--: You are mad!
Dog--: You bet I'm mad! And chasing girl dogs? When's the last time you let me off my leash to go anywhere, let alone girl-hounding? You're the female-chaser, out 'til all hours, usually without remembering my dinner--
Me--: But--
Dog--: And worry! You worry about Bills and Girls, and think you're suffering. I worry about life-and-death issues, like whether you're going to drag me in front of a truck, or whether you sappy homians are going to make me into doggie dust.
Me--: But--
Dog--: So the next time you're tempted to let some ignorant idiocy slip fro your overly inflated lips you better stop yourself or I'll bite your bloody legs off! Now I've said my piece and I'm not going to talk to you ever again.
Me--: I hope you dream of giant cats.
Dog--: ARF!

with Marcel Marceau

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with myself

I've never really been comfortable with who I am. Intellectually I understand my possibilities and my intrinsic goodness, but still there's something that tells me that perfection is the only acceptable possibility and anything short of that is failing. Of course I understand intellectually, that perfection in this life is impossible, and that we should be happy if we're progressing, but somehow my mind and heart are not communicating very well. It's complex, it's confusing, like the world. Is the the world getting better or worse? I see more and more good people, I see more and more bad people. Does it balance out? Is the world heading toward perfection? Or treading water? Or deteriorating? Am I? I don't know. Ignorance is bliss. I wish I were ignorant again. So do I.

a lamppost
(not just any lamppost, but a lamppost under which Humphrey Bogart lit a cigarette)

Me--: So, Bogie smoked here, huh?
Lamppost--: Could you lay off Bogie for once. That's all anyone ever wants to talk about. I'm so sick of it! What do they want me to say? That he secretly confided in me that he was kidnapped from the gypsies when he was four? Or that he wishes he'd married Shirley Temple? He was only here for two minutes and he said nothing the whole time.
Me--: But if I don't ask you about Bogie, what should I ask you about?
Lamppost--: Ask me about politics.
Me--: Where would you learn about politics?
Lamppost--: I read the papers. Ask me.
Me--: Okay, what about politics.
Lamppost--: They're boring and repetitious. Okay. Now ask me about primetime television.
Me--: Okay, what about primetime television?
Lamppost--: It's boring and repetitious. Now ask me about people?
Me--: All right--What about people?
Lamppost--: They're boring and repetitious.
Me--: Goodbye.
Lamppost--: Where are you going?
Me--: Anywhere but here.
Lamppost--: How come?
Me--: You're boring and repetitious.