Conversation · Dolores Dei

"At first, yes. I was angry at you. But I truly am not anymore. My life is in a very good place..." She glances over her shoulder.

"Evil aerodrome, taking everything away from me."

"Don't think like that, Harry..." She smiles.

She's really sorry she made you think like that about her beloved aerodrome.

"In the aerodrome there are silver-rotored ships, and beautiful flying trains I will go away on. It's a nice, peaceful place."

"Beautiful world. Beautiful aerodrome."

"See?" She smiles -- as if a weight is lifted off her shoulders.

The weight is you and your hate.

"But-- I thought if I threw the damned letter away it would help."

"It doesn't look like it did, Harry. I'm sorry. I shouldn't have wrote you any letters. I was too young then..."

"You're... the ex-something."

"Wasn't I Dolores Dei just a second ago? Now I'm the ex-thing... You're confusing me. Look, I have to be at the Lausanne Aerodrome at 10:20 PM. I still have a light rail to catch..."

She keeps glancing over her shoulder nervously. "I haven't even bought the tickets yet..."

We all told you. Everyone warned you.

Shut up, I'm talking to her.

That's the problem. Look at what's pouring out of you...

"I should have gone even deeper, to a place where I never met you. Because it's impossible to meet people in the ABYSS OF THE VOID!"

"Great," she nods. "It's the abyss of the void. Soon it will be 'the gloaming'; then it will be the 'world-ending'... My friends are waiting for me on the platform, Harry. It's impolite to..."

WHAT?!

"You know what is impolite? Consigning a lieutenant detective of the Revachol Citizen's Militia to ETERNAL DAMNATION."

"I am impolite with you, Harry, because you are the past. Me and those friends will have good times, together, in the future..." The evening wind blows in, the gown wraps around her like a white flag. She says:

"This is how human beings operate."

I was wrong. You don't have power over her anymore. You shouldn't have said that. I am wrong about everything. You should go on without me.

"This is so grotesque."

"It is. Useless..." The evening wind blows in as she says the words, her gown wraps around her like a white flag.

A thousand times, you beaten animal. A thousand times you've raised that fabric. What is underneath has always calmed you, centred you. Made you sane.

In your mind you could still climb inside her bed. Still the only man...

Say nothing. Just look at her.

She does not look back, instead eyes her fingernails. They're bitten, frayed. The evening wind blows in, the gown wraps around her like a white flag.

"Cool. Your friends. Say hi to your friends for me then."

"I will," she says. The evening wind blows in and the gown wraps around her like a white flag.

"The Ancient Reptilian Brain was right. It was foolish of me to resurface to the loss."

"I don't know what that means..." She sighs with frustration. "My friends are waiting for me on the platform. I can't let them wait -- it's impolite."

"I'm glad we're having this conversation. I'm getting so much closure."

"I'm glad too, but I have to go. My friends are waiting for me on the platform. I can't let them wait -- it's impolite."

"I should have stayed down."

She sighs with frustration: "My friends are waiting for me on the platform. I can't let them wait -- it's impolite."

Who, everyone?

Everyone.

Literally all of you.

"But you said I have a vast soul and you will always come back to it."

"We both said a lot of things. We were very young."

It was her. I can feel it. I can see it in her tender, long fingers. In her wrists... Her hand wrote it. Said those things.

"Actually, you didn't say it. You wrote it in a letter, a handwritten letter. I kept it in my paperwork."

"As queen regnant I write a lot of letters." She brushes a strand of white hair out her eye.

You need to recite it to her. For effect. All of it. No summaries.

Yeah. Put a stake through your heart. She'll get hurt too -- collateral damage.

She won't get hurt, she'll bend out of the way.

"You know what I mean. You left me a letter saying you will always come back to me. That you can't believe how happy you are with me." (Summarize.)

"Okay, Harry." She sighs. "Okay. It was morning and you slept. The room smelled of cigarettes and rowans. There was hoarfrost on the ground, when I left. It was autumn, the first one we had together. But you have to understand -- it was a million years ago. No..."

"... it was a hundred million years ago. I was someone else then -- filled to the brim with love for you. Hanging on your every word. Oh Harry, you were the coolest... But I am no longer that person. This..." She points to herself. "... has taken her place. It will devour you. Harry -- I will eat your mind."

The light of the video rental shines through her dress now. A Dolorian figure, cut in black, moves below. It's still her. Her legs, her breasts, her hips...

"Voyager Road -- I know that place. Where is it?"

"It's here, Harry." She looks around. "We are on Voyager Road. At the end of it -- three hundred metres from the stop. We used to come here to rent videos."

"The house..."

"There." She points across the water, into the darkness. "You could not pay the electrical bill. It became a lightless tomb. The years you spent training for the militia, my parents' money... It was not good."

Surely the alcohol didn't help either.

"Was I... were we drinking?"

She looks at her toenails sticking out from under the gown. "Everyone has a little glass of wine every now and then. I certainly do. It's a queen regnant thing. I don't think it was the alcohol -- it was inevitability."

See. If you drank with her, you'd be cool again. If you drank with her, you could have sex on alcohol...