“Well?” she said, teasing him for an answer.

  “I uh. I’m a research scientist. A scientist,” he said. “Neuroscientist.”

  He was struggling not only in forming sentences but in maintaining any consistent shape and structure to his thoughts. His mind felt like it was performing in microgravity. His thoughts swirled about in his head like specks of dust; the harder he tried to gather them, the more furious and disorderly they became. Beth, on the other hand, looked as if she was enjoying every second of his dizzying whirl.

  “What about you?” he said.

  “What are you researching?” asked Beth.

  He had no idea how, to sum up, the extent of his work. He had, after all, only become aware that he had feet. And he could, for the first time in his life, feel what it was like to move nothing but his little toe.

  “NDE,” he said, hoping that was enough to suffice.

  His lungs felt like they were made out of collapsing sand. Every breath he took was heavy and laboured and seemed as if it might very well be his last.

  “Do you have a girlfriend? You just broken up?”

  “A girlfriend? No.”

  He wondered in that second if he had emphasized the no too much. Did he make it sound like he didn’t want a girl? Did he make it sound like a girl could never possible want him? He wanted to be in a relationship more than anything else in the world. In fact, that was all he wanted. But he didn’t want her to know that. At least, he didn’t want it to be so obvious that she could easily tell. Then again, maybe she didn’t notice a thing.

  “So why are you here?” she asked.

  The answer to that question was LOVE yet for the life of him, he couldn’t string the words together. The truth was, hopefully, they would kiss and spend some time cuddling and then maybe fall asleep together in the middle of a movie, and then eventually live together and get married and have children and then sleep in on Sunday mornings. He wanted to tell her all that and that he loved her right then and there. “You have to have a story. Everyone has a story. What are you looking for?”

  “Oh you know,” he said, trying to sound as if nothing at all was much of a thrill. “Just meet some new people and ah…”

  Halfway through, he could tell that he sounded like a novice. Worse still, though, he could tell that she could tell just by how she was staring at him. And so half way through, he just stopped talking altogether.

  “So what’s NDE?” she said.

  It was as if the drugs had no effect on her whatsoever. She swung the conversation back in the other direction without any bother or sign of discomfort. She hadn’t, not for one second, broken her Zen-like veneer. She didn’t look peaceful as much as she looked at peace; even at the height of Isaac’s discomfort. She took the awkward out of the silence and made it seem as if they had known each other for years. Such was her demeanour – in how she leaned over the edge of the sofa; in how she never broke eye contact, not even when the smoke from her cigarette clouded her eyes; and in how it seemed by the tone of her voice that she hadn’t judged him once this entire time and by all likelihood, she never would.

  “Near-death experience,” he said. “But ah…We refer to it as NDE. It’s the phenomena of ethereal or otherworldly experiences in life-threatening scenarios.”

  “I know what a near-death experience is. Just not the acronym.”

  “Officially NDE is an initialism, not an acronym. But that’s a common mistake,” he said – followed by silence. “Sorry, that’s not important. My head gets like that sometimes. I say dumb shit and I…”

  “Shhhh.”

  She said it with a smile.

  “You think too much.”

  Isaac smiled. Her words were like a valve that undid all the pressure that built up inside his head. She didn’t even have to say anything. He could just look at her – in the way she looked at him – and all his neurotic stupidity diffused into high entropic quiet and bliss.

  “What do you think happens when we die?” she said.

  For the first time, though, her voice sounded unsettled and unsure, and her stare was deeper and more profound as if she were looking through Isaac, at something on the other side of the room or just as easily, at something on the other side of the universe.

  “I don’t know,” he said. “I’m an atheist, so…”

  “You don’t believe in God?”

  “Not really, no. I mean it kind of goes hand in hand with what I do.”

  He could feel the ice cracking beneath his feet.

  “But I understand why people do,” he said.

  “And why is that?”

  She didn’t at all make it clear which side she was on.

  “Because death is frickin scary. And we’re aware of it so it’s comforting to believe that there’s somewhere to go or something to go to. It takes the edge off. It takes away the fear of something you can do nothing about.”

  “Of things that are out of your control.”

  “Exactly.”

  “Like painting?”

  “No that’s different.”

  “Is it?”

  “Of course. They’re two totally different things.”

  “You paint to stop your anxiety, right?”

  “Yeah, so?”

  “What are you anxious about?”

  There were hundreds of reasons; the most prominent being – getting published, getting a girlfriend, one-day getting tenure, and most importantly, not having to die alone.

  “Tomorrow,” he said. “And the day after that, and the day after that.”

  “So if the painting helps, how is it any different to praying? Tomorrow is the little-death you have every day you’re alive. There is no tomorrow. There is only ever today. And there is no death too.”

  “That’s presumptuous. I don’t know I can be that certain about anything.”

  “Do you think cats believe in God or is it just people?”

  “I believe cats are conscious, just like plants and trees, but not conscious like we are. They may be as conscious and self-aware as a two-year-old.”

  “Does a cat know it’s going to die?”

  “I believe a cat knows that things can kill it, like a wolf or a semi-trailer. But I don’t think that a cat knows it will die, irrespective of however many threats it avoids. Children for that matter are no different. God is a grownup vice.”

  “Well if that cat doesn’t know it’s gonna die because its consciousness is too small, what don’t WE know about that is just as serious as that? Is our consciousness small compared to something else out there? Is there an awareness or an understanding that we’re too infantile and unevolved to perceive?”

  “That’s a good question. And that’s why we have science; to ask questions and to harshly prove every answer we think we’ve come across – with more questions.”

  “What if the next serious thing is in fact, God?”

  “Well, then it will have been science that brought us there.”

  “What’s the difference?”

  “Faith asks why whereas science asks how. If there was a god, it would be more interested in seeing a mathematical proof than grazed and bloody knees.”

  “So that’s the point of your research, to prove that God doesn’t exist?”

  “You’re missing the point,” said Isaac, barely holding onto his own point.

  “Do you have faith?” she asked.

  “I told you, I don’t believe in God.”

  “That’s not what I said.”

  “It’s the same thing.”

  “In your experiments, do you believe, outside of reason that you will get the result you are looking for?”

  “We try not to look for results. As a scientist, you get whatever results are given. You ask a question, but you don’t ask a question hoping you will get a specific answer.”

  “Surely you’ve crossed your fingers for something.”

  “For getting published I suppose. But I don’t think that God is going to intervene divinely and have my submission accepted.”

  “That’s not what I said. I asked if you had faith; if you believed, beyond all reason, that there was a chance you could get published even if you had no proof, and that, like a child, you hoped.”

  His mind was befuddled by the listless sway of the drugs.

  “I submit my article to the best of my ability and whether it does or does not get accepted is not weighed in any way by me ruminating over it.”

  “Do you like movies?” she asked.

  She could flip the discussion a thousand ways and still, she’d never be as dizzy as him. She hadn’t raised her voice once. And she hadn’t seemed disturbed, perturbed, or upset in any way by any of the answers he had given which gave Isaac no insight whatsoever into what she herself believed.

  “Of course,” he said.

  “When you watch a movie, do you criticize it because it would never happen like that in real life? Or do you forget the laws of physics and give yourself to the story, believe in the protagonist, and even take from it, a lesson for your own life? Isn’t that a kind of faith? To believe in something that may not be true for the sake of a better experience?”

  “Movies are escaping reality, God is subjectifying it. There is nothing about a movie that is real. There are no endings in life. Nothing ever has a plot or a reason. Nothing is ever wrapped up or resolved. People die. Relationships end. And everything just goes on. That’s life. You watch a movie accepting that it has no bearings on life whatsoever because life is meaningless and inconsequential. And sometimes bad things happen.”

  “Life has no meaning at all?”

  “If you pick one pillar from your youth, one defining moment where you’re moored to as a way of measuring who you are and how far you’ve come; I guarantee that every five years or so you change and because you change, so does your explanation of that life-changing event. The meaning of that event – the why – changes because you change. You’ll always see it in a light that contrasts against the person you think you are now. That meaning will change a hundred times in your lifetime; maybe even tenfold more. For that reason alone, if there are so many meanings to one event then the event itself is meaningless. Life is fantastic, but it has no meaning. That’s not a bad thing. It’s just what is. One day you’ll die and you’ll never know. That’s life. Unresolved.”

  “Should I order the pizza? Are you hungry?”

  He was famished.

  “Let me just go upstairs for a second. I’ll call you up when I’m done.”

  Then she got up and left. Isaac had absolutely no idea what she meant. He hoped it meant they were going to cuddle. On the other hand, what if she was in fact, only talking about ordering a pizza? Women, to him, were like a Russian novel; they were impossible to read. He wished she had a tail; at least with cats and dogs, he could tell if they were hungry, playful or mad.

  “You can come up,” she said, her voice almost lifeless. “I’m ready.”

  Still, he had no idea what she meant. As he walked towards the stairs he caught one more glance at the kitchen sink and his attention hanged there, much like the cups and plates, suspended by a feeling that something was wrong.

  Hers was the first bedroom at the top of the stairs and she lay on her bed naked with the dim light only barely catching her prosaic expression. Either she had already ordered the pizza or there was never going to be any in the first place.

  “Did you bring a condom?” she said. “If not it’s ok, just don’t cum inside.”

  She spoke as if she were ordering that pizza, making compromises here or there for what toppings and borders she wanted compared to what they had in the store. She didn't at all seem bothered or upset. In fact, she sounded as if she felt nothing at all. There was no joy in her whatsoever.

  Isaac stood in the doorway looking at the room down the hall. The door was closed but it was covered from top to bottom in stickers and pictures of Transformers and dinosaurs that had been cut out of comic books and magazines – and the light was on inside.

  Beside him, through the doorway, Beth lay lifeless, like a patient on an operating table, with the bedsheet barely covering the tips of her ankles.

  “What are you waiting for?” she said. “Take your clothes off.”

  Isaac started to undress but he did so slowly. The way she lay on the bed and in how she spoke, it worried him. She didn’t at all look like she wanted any of this to happen. She didn’t smile. She didn’t leer. She didn’t play with herself or look like she was having any fun at all. She didn’t look bored; she looked disconnected – disassociated from where they were, what they were about to do, and from her own self.

  Isaac stood there naked unable to be aroused. It wasn’t her body that was the problem. She was magnificent. Just as she was when she had first came down the stairs, she was stunning, beautiful, and without fault. It wasn’t her naked body. Not so much as how her naked body lay – flat, inanimate, almost corpse-like.

  “Hurry up,” she said, for the first time showing unsteady nerve.

  Still, Isaac stood there naked and flaccid, unsure what to say.

  “Come here,” she said. “I’ll suck you off.”

  Her eyes looked impatient – full of glare.

  Isaac walked slowly over to her side of the bed. The second he was about to speak – and maybe even protest – she took him in her mouth, shutting her eyes as she did, masturbating him roughly in a bid to make him hard. And the whole time, her face was without any expression at all.

  “Ok,” she said, lying back on the bed. “You can start.”

  Again Isaac stared at her. She looked as if someone had placed her there and asked her not to move. She was lying on her stomach, her waist was hoisted into the air, and worst of all; her eyes were still clasped shut.

  “I should go,” he said, already reaching for his clothes on the floor.

  “What do you mean?”

  She turned, her face shaped like an eviction notice.

  “What are you doing?”

  “I can’t,” said Isaac. “I’m sorry. You’re beautiful, you are. It’s just...”

  “Then what’s the problem?”

  “I don’t know. You don’t look like you’re into it.”

  “What the hell am I supposed to look like? What do you even care?”

  “I’m sorry. I can’t. I mean, your son…”

  “My son?”

  “The photos. I don’t know. I saw the table is set for two. There’s a kid’s plate and SpongeBob cup.”

  Beth sat upright, her eyes lit up with scorching offense.

  “What does that have to do with this?”

  “I don’t know. It’s just weird.”

  “What? I’m a mother so I can’t be a woman? Is that it?”

  “No, it’s not that it’s just…”

  “What?

  “Well, what if he comes home?”

  “Oh fuck you,” she said, covering her body in the bedsheet.

  “I’m sorry, it’s just I get neurotic. I saw the table and thought, what if he comes home?”

  “He’s not coming home,” said Beth, her voice breaking for the first time.

  “I know but….”

  “Shut up. For the love of God just stop speaking. Stop thinking. Stop being you for a second.”

  “You’re right,” he said.

  “Ok?”

  “Ok.”

  “Can we just do this then?”

  And then she turned onto her belly again, shut her eyes, and hoisted her hips. Her face, though, was no longer ambivalent; it was scrunched up like a piece of paper. She looked mean and intolerant.

  “What’s taking so long,” she said.

  Isaac didn’t reply. He was frozen, separate from his body and incapable of moving a single muscle; he couldn’t even think. He didn’t have the words; not for her, not even for himself.

  “You’re ruining this,” she said, her voice sounding strained and impatient yet at the same time, were he to snap out of it and start fucking her now, entirely forgiving.

  Maybe a couple of seconds passed where nobody said a thing. Isaac was silently hoping some giant claw would come down out of the roof, sweep him up, and carry him off. And he could have been his own Deus Ex-Machina were he to have the fortitude and backbone to actually say that he wanted to leave.

  Those couple of seconds felt like a couple of weeks.

  “Ok, what is it now?” she said, standing up.

  Isaac turned to the bedroom across the hall; and so did Beth.

  “Oh for fuck’s sake,” she said.

  Isaac’s face was shaped like a wet paper bag.

  “He won’t come home.”

  “I know but…”

  “You’re really gonna make me go there. Holy shit. You’re a fucking nightmare.”

  “I’m sorry, it’s just…”

  “He’s dead, ok? Dead. D.E.A-fucking-D. Dead. He’s not coming home. There. Are you happy? Does that please your stupid neurotic head? Now, can we do this or what?”

  “Jesus. Oh fuck me, I’m sorry.”

  Instantly the air spoiled, the mood turned bad. They both stood there naked but neither of them felt aroused nor even capable of arousal. They looked weird and uncomfortable.

  “It’s not your problem,” said Beth.

  “Do you wanna talk about it? I mean, are you ok?”

  Were this a movie, he would sweep her into his arms as an orchestra built to a tear-jerking crescendo, and they would ride off into the sunset together on his horse with a thousand butterflies and hummingbirds fluttering around them.

  “Am I ok? Do I look ok? Do I sound ok? No, I don’t want to talk about it,” she said. “I want to fuck. I want you to shut up and fuck me. I don’t want to talk to you. I don’t want to kiss you. I don’t want to even look at you. I just want you to fuck me, ok? Can you do that? Huh? Can you fuck me?”

  “What? You still want to have sex?”

  “Jesus Christ, you’re insufferable. I’m naked. I just sucked your dick. What do you think?”

  “Yeah but, isn’t it weird now?”

  “Weird? Yes. You went and made it weird. But I’m ok with that. Are you ok with that?”