They separated and lay next to one another, sweat glistening in the silvery moonlight. He turned, eyes closed, and draped a possessive arm around her warm stomach, while she remained still, her blinking gaze cast through the window.
“Did you like that, tonight?” she asked, breaking the silence.
“Hmph?” he grunted.
“The movie, I mean. Did you like it?”
“Yeah. I guess so. But I don't think people really talk like that. We don't talk like they do in movies. Ever.”
She said nothing for a few moments, long enough for him to assume she'd gone to sleep and begin to drift off himself. Then:
“I just think it's a shame,” she said.
“What?”
“I liked the movie, too. A lot”
“And that's a shame?”
“No,” she sighed. “Not exactly.”
“What then?” He pressed himself more closely against her, trying to will her to drop it and go to sleep. “What's a shame?”
“It's just not... permanent. None of it. That's the shame.”
He removed his arm from her waist and flopped onto his back. Opening his eyes, he noticed the tension and concern in her rigid posture as she lay beside him, her profile lit in blue and grey.
“Is this about us?” he asked, sensing her anxiety.
“No, not really. That's not what I meant.” She shifted a little, digging her shoulder into her lumpy pillow. “I'm just thinking about time.”
“Babe, go to sleep. Don't worry about that.” She was in one of her funny moods, he thought. He never knew what to make of it when those moods hit. It was like she swam off into some deep place beneath the water, too far down to see from above where the light scattered futilely off the surface. Sometimes he worried that he'd be unable to pull her back up. Sometimes he worried that she preferred it that way.
The quiet hung heavy around them, though he could tell she still wasn't sleeping.
“Babe?” He turned on his side and touched her shoulder gently. “What is it?”
She didn't respond immediately. Then she stretched her shoulders and, craning her neck, peered at him for a moment before turning, awkwardly, towards him.
“What is it?” he repeated.
“It's just time,” she said. “Time is all that lasts. Nothing else is forever.” She scrunched up her eyebrows with the air of someone trying to teach a child a lesson that just won't sink in. It gave him a cold feeling – not unloving, no, but uncomfortable and distancing none the less.
“The people in the past,” she continued, “the ones you read about or see on National Geographic... they didn't know that, someday, archaeologists would be digging them up, cutting them out of the sand and stone that would engulf them, that would swallow their culture whole. They didn't know they didn't have forever.”
“Maybe not,” he said, adding, “Maybe it's like that poem, you know? 'Gaze upon my works, ye mighty, and despair.' So what?”
“So... we're no different, really.”
“Who, us? You and I?”
“No!” she glared. “I'm not talking about that. I mean us. I mean people. People today. We don't have forever.”
His head ached dully. He didn't know what she wanted him to say, and it made him feel far more tired than he should have felt.
“What does this have to do with the movie? I still don't see what's such a shame. So we don't have forever... who says we should?”
She didn't answer at first, looking over his face, unblinking, like she was trying to take the measure of some unknown quality about him. These moods, these uneasy depths, always made him feel her greater intelligence more keenly. What was she trying to see? What did she see in him, anyway?
“We've done some good things, I think,” she said, finally.
“Us?”
“People. People today. We've done some wonderful things. We've made art, art that can pierce us like a dagger to the soul. Art that can show us ourselves, the way we're afraid to admit we are. We've done great things.”
“Things like that movie tonight?”
“Yes, for one,” she said, her face relaxing slightly as if she felt some progress had been made. “That movie was honest; it showed more honesty in two hours than two weeks worth of the bullshit at work. That's a wonderful, good thing.”
“So be happy!” he said, grasping for her hand as if to pull her out of her restlessness. “Be happy that we have something like that, something to remind us.”
“Happy?” she frowned, pulling her hand away. “You haven't been listening.”
“Babe...” His voice betrayed growing exasperation.
“I've just been saying none of this will last! We've done great things, yes, but we've made some mistakes. A lot of them, some of which might bury us just as well as the sands and tar and lava buried those other people. And if not that, well, something else will bury us just the same. A rock from space, maybe, or who knows what? Something will do away with all of this.”
“Fine. We're fucked. Are you happy?”
“Happy?! Again! I'm not talking about happy.”
“Well, I'm talking about unhappy.” His words had a harsh edge he didn't quite intend but couldn't hide, an edge honed by over-tiredness and miscommunication. “I'm talking about having a terrible morning at work when I can't stop yawning because my girlfriend decided to ponder infinity instead of sleeping like a normal person.”
“Well, I'm sorry! I just think it's a shame, that's all.”
“What is such a shame?” he fumed.
“All the good we've done... all of this art, this truth, this beauty. It won't last, and the odds are no-one will ever see it once we're gone. If someone could take just one piece of art, one movie like the one we saw tonight, one great book...”
“What are you talking about?”
“If someone could somehow save that, take that from the Earth before we're all buried, they could reconstruct it all.” She seemed on the edge of tears. “They could really understand. Then, maybe, maybe it wouldn't all go unmourned.”
“We're not going anywhere just yet. Christ!” He turned away from her again, away from those eyes searching him all over.
“Maybe not. Maybe you're right.” She sighed once more and, shifting again to face the window, lay awake for some time before sinking into a fitful sleep.
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