Conversation · Dolores Dei

"Yes, Harry, it's me." She sighs.

Means pain.

"You're the symbol of pain."

"Great. Now I'm the symbol of pain." The smile immediately disappears from her face. The air remains just as cold.

I don't want to say that.

Why? That's what dolor means.

It's Dolores Dei. That's all.

The mysterious smile on her lips keeps stretching wider, as if she's forgotten you're there. In some great and calming thought. Then she notices you -- and it's immediately gone.

The DEATH BLOW is coming.

"It wasn't me. It was my hand." (Raise your right hand.) "My fingers called you."

"They shouldn't have. They really shouldn't. I was in Mirova already. Safe. In the warmth of the night. Wrapped in my future love. There, I think of you less and less, whole weeks go by without me remembering you..."

"Months already. Soon it will be years without the hurt. I sit there in Mirova -- in the holy gratitude of my bliss -- I put my hand on my belly and smile...

"Let's talk about SOMETHING ELSE."

"There is nothing else."

"You're my wife."

"No, Harry." She shakes her head.

"We were married. You wrote me the letter I threw away..."

"Not married. We were engaged then, living in a little house on the outskirts of Central Jamrock, past the lake that formed when a mainline pipe burst in the early Twenties. At the end of a street called..."

It opens up in front of you, with cracked asphalt, and maple leaves brushing your feet. Halos of street lights hang above you, hunched shadows carry grocery bags home. The lights are on -- in the little match box on the corner.

"Voyager Road."

"Voyager Road 21A." She nods sadly. "It was so long ago. It was a million years ago, Harry. No -- a hundred million years ago. I loved you more than you will ever know. I loved you more than anyone has ever loved anyone."

"But it is gone now. Nothing came of it. No children, nothing built. We live in the coldest of all possible worlds, Harry, orbiting the most distant star. It is agony, sheer agony..." She shakes her head slowly: "How bad I have to go to the aerodrome."

"I get it. I get it, you have to go to the aerodrome!"

"I really, really, really have to go there. No human being in the history of the world has ever had to go to the aerodrome as much as I have to go there now. You see, Harry..."

"I have to go there even more than I used to love you. And that's saying something." She looks at her travel bag.

"I'll let you go there once you answer all my questions."

"The questions will not bring those times back, Harry." She shakes her head slowly.

"Would you fucking stop it with the aerodrome already!"

"No, Harry. No human being in the history of the world has ever had to go to the aerodrome as much as I have to go there now. You see..."

"What?"

"A street called Voyager Road." She smiles, sadly. "It was a million years ago, Harry. No -- it was a hundred million years ago. We were so, so young then. I loved you more than you will ever know. I loved you more than anyone has ever loved anyone."

"I don't wanna know! Stop."

"It was a hundred million years ago, Harry... No, make it a thousand million years ago. Practically on another planet." She looks at her travel bag, thoughtfully: "Have I told you how bad I need to go to the aerodrome?"

"You're..." (Point to your head.) "The mourning."

"The morning? I don't understand."

"It's probably better that you don't."

"Yes. It really, really is better that I don't."

"No. I meant mourning. I'm grieving -- but you're not even dead."

"Oh my god, Harry! Stop. I don't want to hear anything about the mourning, mourning someone who's still alive -- any of that!"

"I can't do that anymore. I'm not eighty years old, I'm thirty two. People my age are not supposed to mourn..." She breathes out, it sounds more angry than a sigh.

This... is a bit much for me. It feels like your ribs are cracking around your heart.

"Good. I think I feel a heart attack coming."

"Then why are we doing this?" The advisor to the queen of Suresne sighs and looks down -- at the crumbling asphalt.

"That's so hurtful."

"Then why are we doing it?" The advisor to the queen of Suresne sighs and looks down -- at the crumbling asphalt.

Just rub your chest and moan.

The advisor to the queen of Suresne sighs and looks down -- at the crumbling asphalt. There is nothing she can do about your chest pain.

"On second thought -- you're Dolores Dei, queen regnant of the territories of Mundi and Insulinde -- and nothing else." (Conclude.)

"Yes, Harry. I am. Things have gotten much better for me -- now that I am the ruler of the known world..." She pulls up the silvery sleeve of her gown, to check the time. "Oh god, it's already so late, I have to go, Harry."

A tiny golden watch with red straps... around her bony little wrist.

"You're just an evil ape. We're all just evil apes."

"You don't have to hate the world." She looks around her, at the evening light. "Can't you see how kind and beautiful everything is? I don't have time to deal with your pessimism -- there are so many people at the stop at this hour. They're all going to the aerodrome."

"Forget about the aerodrome for one second... I lost. And it was you who I lost to."

"It wasn't a fight. I was never fighting you."

"I didn't want to fight you. You're the tiny ape I loved."

She shakes her head. "Let's stop it with the apes, this isn't going anywhere."

You told her you loved her. She has to feel something.

"You're right, yes. So paranoid of me. There is no antagonism between us."

"You're right. I was angry at you. But I truly am not anymore. My life is in a very good place..." She glances over her shoulder.

"It's always a fight with these tiny apes. Someone always loses."