Collected Fictions

by Gordon Lish

  I'd like to feel good.

  Of course you would. Who wouldn't?

  Just for a minute.

  That's right.

  I'm tired.

  How could you not be?

  I'm so tired.

  We're all of us weary through and through.

  Why is that?

  It's tiring.

  Truer words were never etc.

  There's the proof.

  There's what?

  The proof.

  What proof?

  Etc. You said etc.

  The rest of it would have killed me.

  My meaning exactly.

  I'd never have made it.

  The syllables. It's never not the syllables.

  We're perishing from the syllables.

  Why is it, why is it?

  Do the math.

  The divisor is?

  Syllables, number of.

  And the dividend?

  Oh, Jesus.

  What's the dividend?

  It's, oh, it's a certain variable.

  Variable how?

  Who can say? Can anyone say?

  But is it known?

  Try one. Try an infinitely divisible one.

  Cut it out. Infinition?

  Try it.

  Head's spinning.

  Lie down.

  Don't feel so hot.

  Who does?

  Really feeling pretty lousy.

  Let's get those shoes off.

  Feel bad. Honest.

  Me too.

  All the phonemes, Christ.

  Don't forget the hyphens. Even just the periods.

  You're saying don't speak.

  I'm just saying.

  But you're saying don't speak.

  Touch.

  Touch instead?

  Just touch.

  Touch divided into the time you've got?

  Touches.

  But supposing, just supposing.

  Go ahead and suppose.

  Well, what gets done?

  One lives.

  But in the way of things.

  My very meaning.

  Touch?

  And be touched.

  But this, all this, isn't it speech?

  Shh.

  Don't speak?

  Shh.

  Don't sue?

  Shh.

  Just shush?

  Hush.

  Nothing but this?

  What is there but this?

  I'm getting everything off.

  Yes.

  It's all coming off.

  Yes.

  Once I get going, don't look for me to quit.

  Yes.

  Now's the time.

  Yes.

  Now's the only time.

  That's it.

  It's all contracting.

  Um.

  It's all condensing.

  Isn't it?

  It all comes down to only this.

  No, no—not this—that.

  That?

  Yes, that.

  You never said that.

  What else but that?

  But you said this.

  I said this?

  I swear you said this.

  But this is that.

  This is that?

  You think not?

  It's what anyone thinks—this and that.

  It? Which it is it that is that it?

  You're gaslighting me again.

  This is the movie, you mean.

  Gaslight me one more time.

  And you'll do what?

  I'll sue.

  So sue.

  I'm suing.

  You're suing me?

  I'm suing you.

  So everything up to this point was pointless?

  But look how far we got.

  I tried to save you.

  Thanks for that.

  This is the thanks I get for that?

  That's the thanks you get for this.

  Got.

  See why I'm suing?

  But why sue me? Sue how we speak.

  You see that? Do you see it, do you see it?

  See what?

  Sue at the beginning of a sentence.

  This was to see sue at the beginning of a sentence?

  Not this, but that.

  All that was just to see sue like that?

  You want my answer?

  You owe me an answer.

  The answer is it wasn't until it was.