I didn’t really think she would do it.

She’d done it before.

I mean the first time.

Oh. Me neither.

I thought she would chicken out. I thought you both would.

I’m not a chicken.

I know, I know.

My sister –

I know.

I’m just saying. I’m not a chicken, Jack.

I know you aren’t. I didn’t mean it like that.

Good.

What do you think she’s doing right now?

She’s not doing anything. My mom says it’s just like she’s sleeping. But that’s what she told me when she took me to see Pop-Pop in his casket at the funeral. ‘See, he’s only sleeping, Stace.’

She’s not sleeping, though.

Do you think she dreams?

I don’t know if she dreams.

Do you think she does, though?

I don’t know.

I think she might. I wonder what she dreams about. Do you think she dreams lots of dreams? Or is it just one long dream that won’t end until — you know.

I don’t know.

Sorry.

I should’ve jumped first.

Don’t say that.

Maybe it would’ve happened to me.

Don’t say that.

It’s just, it’s not fair.

It’s not your fault, Jack. She won’t blame you. She’s the one who jumped wrong.

She was perfect though.

I –

She was always kind of klutzy, you know. But she jumped off and it was like she was someone else, or maybe it was her all grown-up all of a sudden, but she was different.

I don’t want to visit her anymore.

Why?

I don’t like it. I don’t like the sounds.

I don’t either.

You don’t have to go visit her, you know.

Yeah. I do.

Nobody’s making you.

I know that.

It just freaks me out. She doesn’t move. Her eyes don’t move the way people’s eyes move when they’re asleep.

Sometimes I feel her move.

What?

I was holding her hand and reading to her and I felt her finger –

You were holding her hand?

I was holding her hand. Her finger kind of moved a little. Like it twitched.

Hold my hand.

Why?

Because.

I don’t know.

Hold it.

Okay.

Hold it like you were holding hers. Not like you hold your little brother’s hand.

I don’t know how.

Yes you do. Come on.

Like this?

How am I supposed to know? You know. I don’t know.

Like this.

Oh.

What?

Nothing. Just — nothing. Nothing.

It’s getting dark out here.

It’s so nice, though.

I thought you didn’t really like being up here.

Sometimes I do.

Even though it’s really high up?

Even if it’s really high up. It’s just pretty sometimes. I like the sun going down.

My dad calls them sundowns. My mom says sunsets. Isn’t that funny?

It really is.

My parents think I fucked up.

No they don’t. They don’t think you… f-, uh, fucked up.

That was funny.

Don’t laugh at me.

You never said fuck before.

I want you to kiss me.

What?

Nothing.

What’d you just — did you say what –

Nothing, forget it. Let’s go.

Wait up, wait. What?

Stop asking. I didn’t say anything.

I — she’s –

I know, alright? I know. Forget it.

I just couldn’t do that to her.

I know! Okay? I fuh-fucking know. Stop looking at me. Let go of my hand.

Don’t be like this.

Like what? I’m not like anything.

Give me back your hand.

No.

Stacy. Give me your hand.

I don’t want to.

I want to hold it. Like you asked me to.

I don’t want you to. No.

Here. Give me.

I don’t — fine, whatever. Fine.

Come here.

Stop pulling me. I don’t want to.

Come here. Stop being a jerk.

I’m not a –

… There. Was that what you wanted?

I, uh. I. I have to go, Jack, I have to go.

Really?

I have to go home now.

Okay.

I didn’t want you to kiss me. I didn’t want you to kiss me like that.

Like what?

Like you — never mind.

Kiss you like what?

Like you were kissing her. I wanted you to kiss me like you were kissing me.

That’s stupid. I did.

No. You didn’t. I have to go home.

Fine.

I have to go home.

I know. You said.

I have to.

Monday, March 10, 2008   

the blog and design portfolio of Jason Gurley. (Learn more.) This site has been around since 1998; me, since 1978. Three years ago I drove 3,000 miles to see a movie. This is the year of meetings. Which means I'm taking an awful lot of meeting notes.

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Iron Man
Forgetting Sarah Marshall
There Will Be Blood
Gone, Baby, Gone
Live Free or Die Hard
The Indian Runner
The Iron Giant
Contact
An Inconvenient Truth
X-Men: The Last Stand
Superman Returns
Enigma
Nobody's Fool
Look, Up in the Sky
Numb3rs
Mission: Impossible III
Heaven
The Abyss
The Constant Gardener
The Mosquito Coast
The Hustler
Limbo
Grizzly Man
The Verdict
Superman Returns
Elizabethtown
Battlestar Galactica
You Can Count on Me
Rolling Roadshow 2005
The American President
My DVD collection

01. dreaming of falling
02. marvelous descent
03. a conversation
04. the colors
05. huffnagle island
06. a hundred million
07. sixty-six stories
08. anyone earthbound
09. a girl named eleanor
10. a route obscure and lonely
11. a certain stillness
12. this is jack
13. wide flat lands
14. going home
15. girl unscrewed
16. slow rehabilitation
17. twenty-three stories
18. a far-off point
19. fifteen years quiet
20. a one-beer fella
21. luminescence
22. one-sided conversation
23. hearts big and stupid
24. nineteen seventy-eight
25. first light
26. a hundred years
27. too long to stop now
28. plainswept
29. a widower in training
30. spies and assets
31. thirty years and then some
32. leaping over couches
33. cricket song
34. eleanor's first kiss
35. like so much ballast
36. too much
37. the longest wait
38. the second ice storm
39. rocket summer
40. waiting
41. wax wings
42. breakup
43. tough beans