I dont have a view. I used to. Now I dont. Although I have to say—again—that solipsism has always seemed to me a fairly inarguable position.

Would you reconsider medication? I’m sure that there are options you havent considered.

You’re digging a dry hole.

You’ve never really articulated your objections.

To your satisfaction.

If you like.

You dont know what antipsychotics are and you dont know how they work. Or why. All we have finally is the spectacle of tardive dyskinetics feeling their way along the wall. Jerking and drooling and muttering. Of course for those trekking toward the void there are waystations where the news will very suddenly become altogether bleaker. Maybe a sudden chill. There’s data in the world available only to those who have reached a certain level of wretchedness. You dont know what’s down there if you havent been down there. Joy on the other hand hardly even teaches gratitude. A thoughtful silence.

Just a silence.

Its general vacuity aside there seems to be a ceiling to well-being. My guess is that you can only be so happy. While there seems to be no floor to sorrow. Each deeper misery being a state heretofore unimagined. Each suggestive of worse to come.

I seem to remember starting out on a somewhat cheerier note.

Sorry.

I wonder if you could put into words what most troubles you. For all our chats I still have little idea of your life.

Dont sweat it, Doctor. We’re on our way to a wholly hypothetical world, we two. We’ll be happier when we get there.

I’ll have to take your word for it. Do you still play the violin?

No.

Were you playing it?

Sporadically.

You couldnt find time to practice.

Wouldnt.

How good did you think you would have to be?

At least in the top ten.

In the world?

Yes. In the world. Where else?

How did you know that you were as good at math as you were?

You just know. It’s not even a question.

Do you think that music has a therapeutic effect?

I should hark myself back thereto?

It’s just a question.

I suppose it depends on the music.

Power to soothe the savage beast.

Breast.

Excuse me?

Power to soothe the savage breast. And it’s charms to soothe, actually.

Are you sure?

Jesus.

Sorry. Do you miss the violin?

Yes. Very much.

Do you think you might have a tendency to divest yourself of the things in your life that actually sustain you?

I suppose this is psychology. I dont know the answer to your question. What? Do I? Do we? How would such a predilection stack up against the world’s own desire to divest one of just those things. I think I understand your question. We’ve been there before. And it may be a superstition with us that if we will just give up those things we are fond of then the world will not take from us what we truly love. Which of course is a folly. The world knows what you love.