JESSIE: I’m going to kill myself, Mama.
MAMA (returning to the sofa): Very funny. Very funny.
JESSIE: I am.
MAMA: You are not! Don’t even say such a thing, Jessie.
JESSIE: How would you know if I didn’t say it? You want it to be a surprise? You’re lying in your bed or maybe you’re just brushing your teeth and you hear this… noise down the hall?
MAMA: Kill yourself.
JESSIE: Shoot myself.
MAMA: It must be time for your medicine.
JESSIE: Took it already.
MAMA: What’s the matter with you?
JESSIE: Not a thing. Feel fine.
MAMA: You feel fine. You're just going to kill yourself.
JESSIE: Waited until I felt good enough, in fact.
MAMA: Don't make jokes, Jessie. I'm too old for jokes.
JESSIE: It's not a joke, Mama. Mama, I know you used to ride the bus. Riding the bus and it's hot and bumpy and crowded and too noisy and more than anything in the world you want to get off and the only reason in the world you don't get off is it's still fifty blocks from where you're going? Well, I can get off right now if I want to, because even if I ride fifty more years and get off then, it's the same place when I step down to it. Whenever I feel like it, I can get off. As soon as I've had enough, it's my stop. I've had enough.
"I miss you," she said.
"I'm right here."
"I wish you were here. Or that I was there. I wish that there was some chance of talking like this after tonight, or seeing each other. Like, really seeing each other. Of being alone, together."
"Why can't there be?" he asked.
She laughed. That's when she realized she was crying.
"Eleanor..."
"Stop. Don't say my name like that. It only makes it worse."
"Makes what worse?"
"Everything," she said.
sufi
Mevlana Jalaluddin Rumi says...
The breeze at dawn has secrets to tell you, don't go back to sleep!
You must ask for what you really want, don't go back to sleep!
People are going back and forth across the doorsill, the door is round and open,
don't go back to sleep!
I would love to kiss you, the price of kissing is your life.
Now, my loving is
Maman died today. Or yesterday maybe, I don't know.
Listen, folk, ere it's too late,
Or you'll live to rue your fate.
Time is flying every day,
Stolen by the men in gray.
Listen, folk, and heed our warning,
Or you'll wake up one fine morning
Robbed of time and quite bereft,
Not a single minute left.
Don't save time, then, save your city,
For those time-thieves have no pity.
Fight back hard, and do it soon.
Be there Sunday afternoon!
Translated by J. Maxwell Brownjohn
"Folks don't like to have somebody around knowing more than they do. It aggravates them. You're not gonna change any of them by talking right, they've got to want to learn themselves, and when they don't want to learn there's nothing you can do but your mouth shut or talk their language."
-Calpurnia
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