cosmonauts

They were in the same space talking. They were no windows to reveal how dark it had gotten.

“Well,” Bill boomed. “When they’re finished here I know they can step to the side and say I made that. I did that. It gives them a sense of pride that before was probably lacking.”

I glanced between the toes of my boots at flames licking wood split in two by the heat in the fireplace.

“I just hope they find something cathartic in it,” I retorted. Almost in defence of my own small program. “In writing through and about their illness. It might surprise you how many people are simply content to fudge their diagnosis into a box without thought or reference to it. That’s truly disturbing.”

“Hmm,” Bill huffed. “Have you ever noticed how those motherfuckers just explode when you light them up? Like they’re intrinsically corrupt, right, an aroused zit or pimple? Real people wouldn’t do that, okay? When you shoot at them.”

It was a lie. He was lying, of course, that or he’d been bitten by some kind of delusion he bought into down the line. Real people come apart in bits too. It happens all the time.