Monday, October 10, 2011

In which I pretend to be Carver

Sometimes, I still call her up.

When she picks up, I say "I feel like we're all living too much in our heads now, too much in our screens. I'd be happier if I could get in touch with the real world again. Maybe work with my hands. Maybe cook."

"You were never any good with your hands," she says.

"That's cold," I say.

"I didn't mean it like that," she says, and I can hear her smile a little and that makes me feel good, but then she goes on, "I mean you could never cook. Not seriously. Remember that time you stuck yourself with a knife? You're too blunt, all thumbs."

I think about it for a minute, then I say, "it's not me that's blunt, its the world."

"Yeah," she says, "I guess that's about right."

The line is very quiet. You can't hear a dead telephone anymore. I'm not sure I can really remember when you could. How can you tell if a thing like that exists at all, if you can't even hear it hiss?

"You still there?" I ask.

"I guess," she says.

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