Time

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She sat on the curb and he lay on the hood of his car. They hadn’t talked in months. College kept them apart. Now together for spring break, they faced graduation and an uncertain future.

“What you going to do now?” she asked, picking at the asphalt at her feet. She never could sit still, always moving, ripping, tearing, picking. Always destructive, making her mark. She couldn’t help it.

He closed his eyes in thought, considering her question. He opened his mouth, shut it and then spoke, slowly and enunciating every syllable. “Plastics.”

“What?”

“It’s a line from a movie.” He paused. “The Graduate, to be exact.”

They sat in silence for a while, he complacently, she fuming.

“Why did you quote a movie?” Her words were short and clipped.

“Dunno.” His eyes were still closed and his mind was wandering. He didn’t understand why she cared. “Just felt like it.”

“Doesn’t it bother you? Quoting movies like you don’t have original thought?” She stood up and paced. Her footfalls fell quick and violent on his ears. “We act like clones, not individuals. Everything that happens has happened before. Everything that is thought and said has been thought or said before and usually by someone more famous. It’s like, I don’t know, but something.”

“Infinite cyclical time.” He opened his eyes and she stared at him, mouth open. She shut it and he smiled wryly.

“I’ve thought about it some.”

“Then why’d you quote a movie?” The frustration was gone. She was no longer angry, only surprised.

“I gave up.”

“Gave up? What is there to give up against?”

“Immortality. Personal distinction. Escaping the cyclical nature of time. Take your pick, it’s really all the same.” They sat in silence again as she considered his words. He wasn’t really thinking at all, just sitting, eyes shut, mind somewhere. She was thinking hard, eyes narrowed, brow furrowed. She didn’t understand.

“I don’t understand.”

“Understand what?” He had forgotten what they were talking about in his reverie. He did it all the time, escaped into his head. It used to drive her nuts. It still did.

“What you just said. Immortality, personal whatever.”

“Distinction.” His eyes were closed. He looked completely relaxed, reclined as he was against the windshield, arms across his chest.

“Yes that.” She was angry again. Frustrated with him. She had forgotten how hard he could be to talk to. “Are you saying that you don’t want to be an individual, to be distinct?”

“No.”

“That’s what I don’t understand! What have you given up against?” Her voice cracked and his eyes opened. She was near tears. He didn’t know she was so invested. He didn’t know it mattered so much.

He sat up and studied her, his mind actually considering the matter at hand. How to phrase this so she understands. He thought in weird ways. Time away from his childhood friends had taught him that. College and growing up had taught him that. Speaking required a great deal of thought these days.

“I’ve given up trying to live in linear time. It’s not linear.”

“What do you mean linear time?”

“You said that it feels like everything repeats. Everything has been done, thought, said before. Infinite cyclical time. I’ve given up trying to fight against that.”

Her eyes weren’t watery anymore. She understood his earlier statement, but now she looked concerned. She worried for his welfare.

“So you are happy to think thoughts that aren’t original, do things that have been done before?”

“Yes.” When she opened her mouth to condemn him, he continued. “That doesn’t mean I am not an individual.”

“But how can you be without original thought or actions?”

He was growing impatient. He didn’t understand why it mattered so much. The future was just the future. “You seem to think original thought, actions, etc are all impossible.”

She opened her mouth to argue but closed it when she couldn’t think of anything to say. It did feel that way, didn’t it.

“Look.” He sat up, put his hands on his knees and explained. “Take two shirts both with red and blue stripes, but one has horizontal stripes and one has vertical. They are the same colors, same cut, but they are different.”

“Shirts don’t think.” She was picking at the asphalt again. Destruction always made her feel better.

“Okay, then take me. I don’t believe in God. Not an original thought. And take that guy.” He pointed to a guy making out with his girlfriend against the stone wall. Both were oblivious to the pair now watching them, considering their beliefs. “Pretend for sake of argument that he doesn’t believe in God either. But he likes broccoli. I hate broccoli. Again neither original thoughts, but we are two separate individuals, disguisable when compared, even though we both have unoriginal thoughts. Combination matters. Order matters. You don’t have to be original to be different.”

She was silent. She had nothing to say. She looked again at the pair against the wall. The guy now had his hand up the girl’s skirt. Was he an individual?

“I don’t have to be original to be different.” Her voice was full of wonder and an unspoken question, but she didn’t look at him. He smiled slightly, ruefully, at her. She needed to matter so badly. She needed to be an individual, but her own conviction wasn’t enough, she needed others to affirm her thoughts.

She gave him so much power. The power to create or destroy at will.

“No.” She looked at him, eyes hopeful, vulnerable. Funny how the two so often went together. “No, you don’t.”

She smiled for the first time tonight and let the asphalt pieces she had picked up fall through her fingers. She stood up and sat on the hood next to him. He was reclining again, eyes closed, arms crossed. Comfortable in his position, in his body, in himself. As always.

She pulled her legs up to her chest, rested her chin on her knees and wrapped her arms around her legs. She was comfortable in his company, sitting like this, on the hood of his car. It felt like high school again, before she tried to be an adult and failed miserably. Now that college was over, she got another shot. A fresh start.

“So what are you going to do now?”

“I don’t know. Eat, breathe, make love.”

“You are going to live.” It wasn’t a question.

“Yes.” She pulled her legs closer in and smiled again.

And together they watched the sun come up and another new day begin.