W1: i got this from a girl about ten years old. i used to walk in the park with my friend’s niece while she was at university. her niece – well, a normal five-year-old, was always asking things, nagging, interrupting. she met that ten-year-old at the park.
and then i heard that girl and thought her parents should have been neutered when they came of age. and i also thought there should be a law that allows people to have children only after a psychiatric evaluation and exams.
can you imagine how many of those poor idiots are out there? half of humanity at least, maybe more.
and i thought this girl should be sent to a psychiatric facility or to sterilization straight away, because she’ll then have like five kids, and they’ll have more kids, so why not stop it right now with her. you know, it’s like high-risk hereditary disorders. and i finally felt for those psychos that don’t allow people with such disorders to have children. that’s how the disorder gets spread, until it finally affects everyone. there’ll be no healthy people left.
long pause
W2: nice shirt.
W1: thanks, just got it yesterday, i loved the color, i –
W2: what is it, cotton?
W1: it’s linen, 100%, belgia-
W2: you can’t even use an iron! linen, really? it’s all wrinkled already.
W1: i’ll iron it, goddamnit, will you ever stop?
W2: you’d rather burn it than iron it, give it to me. well, not so chic when you have a closer look.
W1: won’t be too sorry to burn it then.
W2: what did you say?
W1: i said won’t be too sorry to burn it, since it’s not so chic.
W2: like you’ve got a lot of money!
W1: maybe i do.
W2: maybe you’ve even got a real job now?
W1: maybe i have.
W2: so why don’t i know about it?
W1: and how much do you know at all?
pause
W1: i’ve been to rome.
pause. W2 turns to W1, whispers.
W2: i know that you leave home at 7:45, and when you come back you always take your coat off first, then your shoes, then you go to the bathroom and lock yourself up, then you eat, then close the door to your room and get in bed, then stare at your phone for forty minutes, then turn it off and just lie awake for 15 minutes more.
i know that when you leave home at 7:45, you take a pack of cigarettes out of someone else’s mailbox, walk two blocks and then light up. i know it’s always marlborough red in apartment 217. i know you skip the first classes every tuesday and every other thursday, and i know it’s political science and history. i know that after university you walk two metro stations on foot then take the ring tram. i know that when you enter the block you have a pepper spray in your right hand and marlborough red in your left hand and you put it in the 217 mailbox. i know it takes you between three minutes twenty-seven seconds to four minutes fifty-three seconds to go up the stairs.