Hello? Handsome! You around here, big boy? It's me, Will, I swear. Drove off that thing with a -- a whole assortment of things!
oh boy will! you're really here and everything? oh geez
um
Hi! Hi! Hi! Henry! Wow! Wow!
hahahaha
wow! wow ! wow
i forgot exclamation points
how nice they are
when you’ve got something to exclaim about!
You're lookin' swell!
you look
Are you all right? My pals said you found yourself in a bit of a sticky situation a few days ago.
Wow! Just as golden as ever, aren't ya? Sorry, kid. Can't stop smilin'!
um really great as well! i um
yeah i don't exactly remember what happened but something must've crapped out upstream
my radio doesn't work anymore
old frequency 's just noise now
Oh! Well, I'm sure I can help ya fix it right up.
As long as you're all in one piece!
i mean i don't know how i could tell if I weren't
but i think I'm all here
i'm so sorry. are you OK? was the trip ok? what happened?
Oh, li'l' ol' me? I'm fine! Made the trip over here easy, with some help from the folks out there.
And, well, thanks for, uh, sendin’ me the invite. I don't mean to intrude or nothin'. But gettin' to see you -- it's just copacetic! Feels like someone uncrossed all my wires, ya know?
oh!
i don't know if you can hear it but that's me smiling
Wahoo! Wow!
Sounds like a sunbeam!
i mean. i didn't mean for you to have to come all this way
i thought nobody would have to at all
Of course I hadta come! I missed you a ton back there. And I'm sorry if you left 'cause-a, well, uh, if it was anything I'd done, or if there was anything I could do but didn't do but could've done, if ya get what I mean –
oh, will
no, it's not your fault. i'm sorry. i should have said
um
did you read the apology? it's like that
thought things would be easier if i was a little less...
well, just a little less. little quieter.
and it was for a while. easier.
but i missed you so much it started bleeding through onto all kinds of things i think
uh, sorry. like in a normal way
but i meant just that it's so so so so so so so so so so so so nice to see you again, will. honest.
I mean, yeah I read the apology! Your pals sent it over.
Don't know if I’m fully understandin’ you in it, though. We all get left out there. What's the point of puttin' something on in here when the here you're in is made up of everything you were? Can't exactly put on a fresh face of make-up when you're trippin' over your own guts! Ha! Ha!
I mean, I'd be your friend even if you were only a tiny thread of consciousness. You were my friend when I barely had a face!
but i want to look nice
for you
Kid, you're the most handsome fella I've ever seen. But even if you'd left your face out there like some dames I could mention, I'd wanna stick around you!
you think im handsome?
me?
handsome like you?
i want to be nice to be around.
you're so nice to be around.
just being here with you makes me happy
Well, you ever think about what it's like for me?
Havin' you around brings up my mood too! I don't mind however which way you're feelin' in the meantime. I mean, I'd love for you to be feeling dandy, but we all get a bit blue from time to time. I mean, you all more so than me!
But ain't it enough to have you beside me, to hear your static or your breathing, see that pinkish li'l' line of pixels where we blur into one another, feel that kinda sorta warmth?
I mean, hell, if you ain't feeling great, that's more reason for me to be around and keep you company!
it wasn't enough back then. that's what i felt so bad about. since i wanted it to be enough. you deserve to be enough. but i want to feel your real skin. i want to know what you smell like. i can’t not want it.
will, i want to dance with you
Oh! Wow! I'd adore that.
I mean, boy, that's what I'm workin' towards, ain't it? What we're all workin' towards? But I'm still happy to have whatever I have of you around with me as we chip away at it!
i just don’t think it’s gonna work is the thing
Well, I s’pose I ain’t got anything better to do in the meantime, so I’ll find out if it does or doesn’t!
i guess i have one idea
for something better to do
in the meantime
I…
Wow!
Yes!
I daresay I might too, handsome!
but i need to
like
i love the way you’re so optimistic about this whole thing. so positive. it’s like one of those big stage shows you like. you’re so sure everything will work out in the end if we just keep trying.
but i just… can’t believe that. i can’t keep continuing to believe that.
it wasn’t working then, and– well, it won’t work again. we tried and we fucked up and now we need to focus on undoing the damage we did
we all did.
i thought that you all would be able to weather it without me. i never meant for you to be left alone.
i shouldn’t have let you do it but i also shouldn’t have left once it happened because i’m sure you feel…
well, how do you feel? about the whole thing?
Well, if at first you don’t succeed, try, try again! Granted, all the aftermath ain’t ideal, I gotta say, but hey! I made it here in one piece! And boy, at least I learned a thing or two from the whole ordeal.
we
well yeah but
two of us are gone
or kind of worse than gone
i dunno how to fix it. you dunno how to fix it.
i don’t need you to stop trying to fix us because i don’t know what a will who wasn’t trying would be like, even. i love it about you that you’re continuing to try
but um
if you’re– if we’re doing this thing, i don’t want to keep trying in ways that could hurt our friends. i’d do anything for you. but i don’t wanna try things out on anyone else.
and i guess — i’m never gonna think it’s gonna work.
i’ll be focusing on figuring out a kind of life i can live in here.
is that ok? will that be ok?
Hmm. I mean, sure it’s okay if you don’t believe in it! It can just be my hobby, ha, ha!
And, well, define...“hurt"?
make them less than what they are now i guess
it’s not that i don’t think you can do it–
ok it’s not that i don’t think you can do it. it’s that i don’t think anyone can
but
if there was a way… i think you’d be the person to find it.
but continuing to think there might be a way is making me worse. i think.
Well, I can refrain from experiments with such drastic consequences, I suppose! Harmless minor surgeries and the like. If that’s better?
i mean that’s better for sure
but i’d rather you do them on me
why didn’t you try them on me?
What?
i know i’m not as
much
Kid, I can’t---
no, please let me--
not as much as some of the others. like i’ll never be as real as tati or anything like that
but i’ve got to have something, right? we’re all missing the same thing. and i don’t care too much if i lose more
turning down the volume for a bit made me realize i don’t need to keep all that much in general
‘s long as i’m around you
Honestly, that’s what I settled on too. I mean, I don’t think I could bring myself to do anything of that sort to you, handsome, and if the cost of bein’ around you’s putting a little stopper on my experimentations, so be it! Not havin’ you in my life also meant I wasn’t really doin’ it for anyone’s sake other than my own. And I’m fine in here. Honest. Curious, but fine. And hell, maybe even happy in here -- if you’re around.
me too
you make me really happy
um
the others make me happy too but not the same way
sorry. but i can’t
if we’re gonna be here forever i thought you should know.
Wow! I…
Yep!
I mean
It’s a bit hard to figure out with, y’know, my emotions all confused-like
oh yes for sure um if you need more time or something–
‘Cause I
Well
Ain’t exactly got a precedent for a thing like this
oh yes i totally get it. totally understand if you don't wanna--
And maybe it’s a bit foolish for me to be thinkin’ things like this ‘specially considerin’ what’s happened to these sorts of situations in the past in this place, but we’ve got forever to figure it out. Ain’t that a bad thing that could be good, ain’t that the reality of it all? And, hell, you’re the most goddamn beautiful man I’ve ever seen and bein’ with you reminds me of whatever little memory I’ve got of the sun, and there can’t be any shame in lying in the sun forever, can there?
oh
um
sorry. um
been a second since i cried um how do you stop it again?
Don't rightly remember, kid. Maybe if I hold you?
fuck it
you’re brilliant and handsome and the most
just
the most fucking exceptional guy i’ve ever met, will
i wrote you a song?
i wrote you a song that’s so embarrassing
but i’m not always
my words get kind of
when i’m talking i’m
ugh here
I – that’s beautiful, handsome. Though you ain’t givin’ yourself enough credit for your pipes!
i guess i want to say
i’ve been in love with you practically since i met you and even a little bit before and even though i know we aren’t the only two people in the world who feel this way now, i keep coming back to you. i want to choose you every time
and um the way i see it things have gone badly with it in the past but um
i don’t know i just can’t imagine ever wanting to hurt you. or you ever wanting to hurt me. and even if it ended, you know, badly or— i guess ended ever.
i know we’d both choose to be kind.
if that makes sense
Wow
Henry, I love you
!!!
First, I gotta admit, I thought I was that way for you for how alive you were.
When you were out there, I mean. From the pink-like way the blood under your skin glows to how light filters through your hair to look like one big halo to the dirt you catch on your shoes, and your excitement, boy, it was so – well, it ain’t like anything I had the pleasure of seein’ when I was out there.
Once you came here with me, I figure it was something more. You talkin’ to me. You showin’ me things. You askin’ me all these questions, helping lead me to all these things, these realizations about myself I hadn’t even the faintest idea of before. Tellin’ me about your favorite foods, keepin’ your mouth so close to my ear I could taste it on my tongue, tellin’ me about music so swell I could feel it shakin’ the heels of my shoes.
And I think I realized ‘round then, it wasn’t how alive you were but how you kinda made me feel that way too. More so than I ever even felt out there, I wager!
And maybe that’s part of it, kid. Something about you brought me closer to bein’ out there, in here. Some kinda completeness you can’t get from diggin’ through a fella’s digital guts! But maybe I’m just bein’ a sentimental sap.
Hell, if we were out there, I’d wanna middle-aisle it, but in here, I figure, “‘til the end of forever do us part” will do me just fine.
wow
i mean i’m in a different situation since i really remember being out there but i also remember that it wasn’t much.
that it was all kind of grey. that it… i wasn’t complete out there either. at least, the part that’s complete here, with you, was also missing there if that makes sense?
i mean i love nature, i loved going outside, loved walking around the woods with my dogs. but i was always alone. i always wanted someone to sit next to. walk around with.
like this.
Like this!
back then, when i heard your voice- it was like when you turn the corner and you see a little clearing that’s just the right size for you. like a record to a needle. like we just fit together.
like i wanted to sit there and listen to you talk for hours.
and you know i never got bored? i never once have wanted to not talk to you.
Oh, wow, handsome – that’s swell. I could just spend forever listenin’ to you, but I always thought I was a bit of a bore – I’m happy you find this poor sap interesting too!
no, no, no, never. in- hell, it must be something like fifty years now? I’m always hanging on to the next thing you’re gonna say.
You mean it, kid?
and the next.
I mean it.
and the next.
Jesus, this is the best day of my forevers.
i mean it more than i think i’ve meant anything
um
the middle aisle of what?
Y’know, like a big ol’ church! Figure that kinda thing’s legal out there now, ain’t it?
i’d kill to… middle-aisle-it with you. never thought i’d be able to in any kind of way, legal or illegal.
and i guess it’s kind of sudden but in another kind of way it’s been decades
and in another kind of way it’s been forever
this is embarrassing but i did think about it. out there.
about like
ugh this is so embarrassing
like if i was a guy in the 1920s - i guess the super rad 1920s where they’re really cool about everything- who met you performing at one of your juice joints and fell in love with you first sight and gave you a little carnation in your dressing room and then carried you down to the city hall before you even got all your makeup off and we’d go on a big train ride all across the country with your act and me, i dunno, building sets or fixing cars or whatever
writing your songs with you. sitting at an upright watching you sing. the way you glow under the lights.
i mean i guess we’d have died eventually. but i’d have liked to do it with you. dying, i mean.
that’s one great thing about things in here, i guess. we don’t have to start this knowing it’ll end.
it could just keep going forever
Maybe someday we’ll set off on a big train ride across the ether! We’ve got all the time in the world!
Yeah!
like how a song can go on for centuries if enough people keep singing it
Ain’t that a wonderful thought
I mean
In this dream-scape of yours
Did anything else happen in that dressing room?
Sorry if the implication is a bit crude, I mean –
well i understand if you’re
well i mean you’re a bit old-fashioned – i love that about you —
but haven’t you ever wondered what happens if we touch in here?
BOY, HAVE I!
you don’t need to wait until, um, some kinda ceremony or something?
Ain’t nobody got the time for that!
well what happens if
that little line of pixels
put your hand up against mine
closer
into it
Closer
closer
Please
Actually. Maybe I’m the old-fashioned one. But you think we could get some privacy?
Honey-sweets, I’m yours. I’ll go wherever you wanna take me.