This Pair

"Would you die if you ate a whole thing of salami?"

"What? No."

They sat on a felled tree that hung nearly thirty feet over the soggy edge of a creek. She was barefoot, and he wore tattered, once-white running shoes. The sun was somewhere high in the sky, but it could barely reach them through the dense brush.

"I think you would die. Think about it."

"One of the big ones? Or just a little one?"

"Yeah, a big one." He held his hands about five feet apart.

"Well, yeah, you might die. But I know someone who ate a small one, and he didn't die so..." Her eyes finished the sentence. The water slipped quietly over rocks and reeds beneath them.

"You can die so easily."

"Yeah," she said.

He accidentally touched her skinny leg just above the knee. "Sorry." She ignored it and bit at her fingernails. They were quiet for a while.

"Are you miserable?" she asked. He paused and thought.

"Yeah." He softly punched his neck a few times. "Yeah, I am. I think it's because I'm so disappointed in myself. You know what I always see?"

"What?"

"I always see melted plastic all over everything. It comes down in big sheets and softens and coats whatever it covers. It's sickening. I told my aunt about it, and she made me see a psychologist."

"Really?"

"Yeah, and you know what the psychologist told me?" He snapped a piece of bark off the tree and threw it in the creek. "She said that feelings of despair never go away. I have to learn to live with it. I have to find ways to be happy."

"That sucks. What did you say?"

"Me? Nothing." She smiled and tilted her head to the side. "What should I have said?"

"You should have been like, 'Bitch! I'll teach you a thing or two about despair.' Fwap!" She swung her arm in front of her face. A piece of her hair slipped into her mouth. She spit it out. They laughed. And after their joy subsided they leaned in toward each other as if examining a map together. He tugged on a ratty string tied around her wrist.

"What's that for?"

"It's a bracelet."

"It's just string."

"So."

He shrugged.

"Hey," she said. "Do you ever look down into a well and think this is what life is like?"

"Yeah. Do you ever look at a lopsided birthday cake and think this is what life is like?"

"Yeah." She laughed and unthinkingly tapped his arm. "Do you ever blackout in the shower and hit your head on the faucet and die?"

"Yeah."

"Yeah, me too."

"Want to leave now? It'll be dark soon."

"Sure." She placed her palms on the tree to hoist herself up.

"Wait." Suddenly, his head hurt. A bird cried out, and he saw a colossal piece of flat, nearly black plastic lower from some unknown source above. He watched it fall atop her head, flattening and consuming loose stray hairs as it crept down over her pale ears and onto the sides of her face. He felt it run like velvet over his own head. His face felt numb. He said no. His eyes, his pair of eyes, betrayed him. He lost his vision. He pressed his palms over his ears.

Night never came. Quiet, amateur screams filled the air like clothes on the floor.