Do I surprise you?

I think you asked me that. Let’s just say you dont startle me.

Have you been seeing anyone?

Jesus. Seeing?

Yes.

I dont see people.

Never.

No.

I take this to be a conscious decision on your part. Can I ask how you came by it?

Ask away. I’m your creature.

I dont think so.

The man I wanted wouldnt have me. So that was that. I couldnt stop loving him. So my life was pretty much over.

The mystery man.

Yes.

It could hardly be someone I know. Is it someone I know of?

I’d prefer not to say.

Still, you must have had suitors.

Quaint, that. Suitors. Would that include drunken hayseeds trying to feel you up on the dance floor?

I dont think so. You look uncomfortable.

Beyond my normal look?

I think so. The man you were in love with. How long ago was this?

Am in love with.

Am, then.

Probably we should drop it.

All right.

I havent had as much interest as you might think. I’ve had to accept the fact that I’m a bit scary. Plus the onus of lunacy of course. Why do I have the feeling you’re not going to leave this alone?

Sorry. I guess I should say that I’m surprised to hear you describe yourself as a lunatic.

I didnt say that I so described myself. Still if I insist that I’m sane you have to consider the source of the claim. And of course it shouldnt come as a surprise to find that people in rubber rooms have a worldview at odds with that of the people who put them there.

You’re not claiming equal legitimacy for the two views.

Okay.

Okay what?

Not if it would be a problem for you.

I feel we keep drifting away from the subject.

Which is?

You.

Well.

I think the sense of being an alien—as distinct from merely feeling alienated—is fairly common among mental patients.

Or among aliens.

There’s a classic trope in which the killer catches a glimpse of himself in a mirror. He suddenly sees a crazed figure spattered with blood holding an axe aloft and he realizes that it is he himself he is looking at. In the story it usually suggests a link to a buried conscience. How would you interpret this? What is being revealed?

A taste for melodrama? Let me ask you something.

Okay.

Why do you let me bully you?

I dont know. Do I?

It’s not important. The world you live in is shored up by a collective of agreements. Is that something you think about? The hope is that the truth of the world somehow lies in the common experience of it. Of course the history of science and mathematics and even philosophy is a good bit at odds with this notion. Innovation and discovery by definition war against the common understanding. One should be wary. What do you think?

I dont know. I’m not sure what your view is.