‘ it’s all any of us have. ’ it’s a fact that SPLICES his tongue on the way out, bitter with the blood of his fucking ancestors that just had to settle down in the worst town imaginable. see ANGER is next in line, but fatigue maintains it’s throne - whenever he thinks about new york city being a hop, skip and jump away, flitters of brazen irritation comes to the fore, but in the end, it’s doused by an overwhelming exhaustion. a complacency, one that never stutters when it says this is what life is, and what it will always be. ‘ it’d be a ghost town without her. black springs should be a ghost town. ’ there’s no use being emphatic about it, words dwindling out of him like a broken faucet. he shuffles behind her, nodding sagely, partaking in the exact kind of talk he’d been feigning nonchalance to just moments ago. ‘ try telling my brother that. you know i wouldn’t be surprised if he was the one who threw the bagel. ’ he has a quip about damian and doodletown ready and waiting for the flare of the starting pistol but he swallows it down, saves it for another day, another life, where the mere premise of doodletown doesn’t make his stomach turn.
kevin couldn’t lie – physically, metaphorically, she was stunted in the department of untruths. and so, she doesn’t argue. he’s right. she thinks he’s more right than he even realizes, though that’s an opinion kept to herself. “ that’d mean we’d have to … ” she trails off, the implication too unsettling, and the cashier calling her to the front. suppose she should be grateful for the out, but she isn’t. “ if he was, i think you would’ve heard it by now. ” she offers him, digging through her wallet for singles. she ought to convert to the digital, but there was something COMFORTING about bills and coins, as if succumbing modern era was an act obstructed by her subconscious. paper bag collected, she moves towards the exit – tempted to leave the boy and the contents of their interaction behind. but as he himself moves from the register, she hops right back in. “ you’re not wrong – we should… realistically, we should put an end to it ourselves, and go – go extinct. ” voice lower this time, the conversation too grim for the townsfolk of black spring, already on edge. “ but – that’s so… so MORBID and it’d be like giving up and we shouldn’t do that. when this all started, when she first – people rarely left their hometowns and that wasn’t so bad. ” not sure what her aim is, she goes on. “ it’s restrictive and it’s unfair but why should we be the one to put our lives on hold to stop it? i know, i sound … selfish, i do. but, i don’t know, don’t you want, like, to grow old? have kids? ” beat. “ i do. i mean, not the having kids part, i don’t think i do … but i do want to grow old, even if it has to be here, and – i know my friends want kids and maybe, i will too one day. ” she realizes the word vomit when it’s too late, and by the time that she does – she quiets down. “ sorry. ”