Brother: What're the symptoms?
Sister: Sweaty palms, and achey knees. Sometimes when I close my eyes and don't think about anything, I can feel my heart beating really hard. Harder than usual. Ba-bump. Ba-bump. There is something seriously wrong with me.
Brother: Alright, I'm googling your symptoms. Hmm... Web MD says you're in love.
Brother: I guess so, if that's what Web MD says it must be true.
Sister: I have never been in love with someone before, not romantically, at least. I don't think I am in love.
Brother: How would you know if you've never been in love before? You don't know how it feels.
Sister: That is logical. I guess, I don't know. If this is love, then it is underwhelming.
Brother: Most things in life are underwhelming.
Sister: It won't mean anything, but sure.
Brother: *blazed to fuck staring at the wall*
Sister: You know, I wish I could understand how you feel now. No matter how high I get, I always feel the same. Everything feels the same to me. I have never told anyone this but I don't think I have ever felt happy, or sad, or angry. I just always feel the same. Neutral.
Sister: Remember that old friend I used to hang out with? The one I would always bring over and she would do my hair and other things that friends do. She stopped being friends with me. She actually told me she loved me - this was way before we stopped being friends - and I told her I did not feel the same way, but I still valued her friendship. I did not actually value her friendship. I did not think much about her at all. I just said that because I thought I should. I remember the last day I spoke to her, we were out at the lake just sitting and watching it. It was frozen over and so gray and lifeless. It looked like it went on forever. It was so quiet too and I could just close my eyes and take in the absolute silence of it all. I wanted to lay back and let the atmosphere take me. I could have frozen to death for all I cared. I just wanted to be lost in that gray moment forever. She just got up and left. I sat there looking at the lake. I have not talked to her since.
Sister: Do you think she got up and left because I did not care about her? Because I have been reevaluating my position on my relationship with her and the nature of my life in general. Those symptoms I described to you earlier were symptoms that I did not feel until the moment that she ran across my mind whilst I was organizing my possessions. I like to organize my possessions, disorganize them, and then reorganize them because it keeps my mind from slipping into the gray - like the gray lake I described to you before. I feel as if I will stay there forever if I slip into it too much, though the thought of that is rather comforting, if I am to be honest with you. But, when she ran across my mind, I got sweaty palms which immediately threw my organizing into disarray. It felt unsatisfying. Remember when I told you that I feel basically the same no matter how high I get, I do not think that is true. Remember how I told you I have never felt. I do not think that is true either. Brother, I think I do feel, but I think something is taking away my precious life moments regardless of if they are good or bad. Brother?
Sister: Tch, it got you too.
Social Worker: So you're saying things have been getting worse?
Sister: Exactly, please listen to me. I am about to lose my apartment as my brother was the only one capable of paying the rent. I believe I am about to lose many more things. It is good that you contacted me, as I will now be able to explain my position. Since I was born, everything and everyone of importance has simply walked out of my life or disappeared. My emotions left me at birth, my parents left me and my brother shortly afterwords, then went our inheritance, then my job, my friends, and now my brother. I am of the belief that something has been taking them away from me. I believe it may be some force that is paranormal in nature. For what reason such a force would have interest in me is beyond my understanding, but forces like this usually are not ones to be understood.
Social Worker: That sounds nuts. I think your problem is that you lack ambition.
Sister: I do lack ambition. There is no doubt that I do. I will never deny my lack of ambition, however my ambition has been taken from as well. Soon my apartment will be taken from me and the last true thing that keeps me bound this world, the organizing of my possessions, will be lost to me. What should I do, social worker?
Social Worker: I don't know. I'm not your keeper.
Sister: Social worker, may I remind you that you are the one who called me to your office and that I would rather have let myself sink into the boundless gray. I am giving this world one last chance, and I would think you would have called me here for some reason. Or would you rather waste my time?
Sister: Ah, so you too have been taken. Right before my eyes. *looks at the ceiling* How much are you willing to take from me and for what reason, I wonder?
Spindly hand: *reaches from nowhere and removes the door from the wall leaving a blank space where it once was*
Spindly hand: *reaches from nowhere and removes the window from the wall leaving a blank space where it once was*
Spindly hand: *drags the social worker's desk away, and the chairs, leaving the sister in an empty box of a room from which she can't escape*
Sister: I see. I see. You want to leave me with no choice but to give myself to the gray. Are you the gray embodied, or just a messenger of its will? Will you answer me at all, or is my search for reason in this nonsense futile. Why am I even asking? You're not listening to me. You are nonsense like all the emotions and people and things in this world. All those things that leave you when you are not perfect and you can't understand them, so they don't even bother trying to understand you. I am nonsense too because I was born when something like you exists just to slowly take away anything that ever could have meant something to me. *sits against the wall and closes her eyes*
*a frozen lake, seemingly endless, sprawls in front of her*
Sister: This is where I belong. It's like a dream, an empty miserable dream. It makes me feel like nothing. And maybe I am nothing. *blows away like dust*
