“What did he resent?”
“Just that—”
“Was he skinnier than me?”
“Maybe. . yeah. Or, like, less muscular. He was maybe a little bit taller but really small.”
“What did he resent?”
“I think ‘resent’ isn’t the right word. I think. . no, he did resent it because I weighed more than him and I think he didn’t like that he had to put up with it, instead of being with a naturally smaller body.”
“Then wouldn’t he care if you ate a lot?”
“Yeah, but we never stopped eating a lot.”
“Oh,” said Paul.
“Or maybe he would care, but not that much. I don’t know. What is my body. . do you have problems with my body?”
“No. . what problems?”
“Or, do you like it?”
“Yeah,” said Paul at a higher pitch than normal.
“If you don’t you can. . something,” said Erin lightly.
“No, yeah, I do,” said Paul. “What would your ideal body be?”
“For me?”
“For a boyfriend,” said Paul.
“I don’t think I’ve thought that. Just, like, skinny and healthy looking. Like, I’ve never minded if. . hm.”
“Not ‘minded.’ ‘Ideal.’ ”
“Oh. Then yeah.”
“What,” said Paul.
“I guess weigh a little more than me. Enough to not be self-conscious about it. Or just not care. I don’t know. What about—”
“I think my ideal is, like, the same, I think, or—”
“Really?” said Erin.
“Yeah,” said Paul, who was an inch taller than Erin and weighed a little less.
“Oh,” said Erin anxiously.
“Or, like—” said Paul.
“The same,” said Erin.
“But I think overall it doesn’t matter that much.”
“Yeah,” said Erin.
“Because Michelle. .”
“She seemed really skinny,” said Erin.
“I think what matters to me most, in terms of that, is just that things aren’t getting worse.”
“Yeah,” said Erin. “Me too.”
“I think I can get fixated on that neurotically.”
“I do with myself definitely,” said Erin. “You mean for yourself?”
“No,” said Paul. “Other people.”
“How do you mean?”
“I can become fixated on it.”
“On, like, in what way?”
“On what the other person weighs.”
“Oh,” said Erin.
“I feel like it’s neurotic to some degree,” said Paul.
“I don’t care that much,” said Erin ambiguously.
“If they weighed the ideal I would find some other neurotic thing to focus on.”
“You would find something else to focus on?”
“Yeah,” said Paul.
“Like body-wise, or something else — wise?”
“Something else — wise.”
“Oh,” said Erin.
“It’s not a solution, or something, to find someone with the ideal. . but focusing on not getting worse seems fine to me.”
“Yeah,” said Erin.
“Yeah,” said Paul slowly.
“Yeah,” said Erin. “That seems like. .”
“You have to focus on something, and—”
“7-Eleven,” said Erin pointing.
“Huh?” said Paul, distracted from the conversation for the first time since he heard the piano, and couldn’t remember what he’d wanted to say. He followed Erin into 7-Eleven, feeling imponderable to himself, like his brain was of him, external as a color, shooting away from its source.
“I feel irritated by all the stuff going on,” said Erin on a wide sidewalk parallel to a four-lane street, outside the area of closed-off streets, around twenty minutes later. “Or like I can’t concentrate on talking.” Paul had become quiet after 7-Eleven and had talked slowly and incoherently, he felt, on topics that didn’t interest him, with increasing calmness, and now felt peacefully catatonic, like a person in a photograph, except for a pressure to speak and a vague awareness that he couldn’t remember what Erin had last said.
“Do you feel anything from the MDMA?”
“Yeah,” said Paul in a bored voice.
“How do you feel?”
“About what?” said Paul.
“Do you feel happy? Or do you feel what?”
“Right now?” said Paul, as if stalling.
“Yeah,” said Erin.
“Yeah, happy,” said Paul looking down a little, aware his face hadn’t moved in a long time. “Physically uncomfortable a little. I want to poop.”
“You what? What was the last thing?”
“I want to poop,” mumbled Paul.
“I feel like I want to hit people, a little,” said Erin grinning.
“Let’s go in one of those places,” said Paul slowly, with a sensation of not being prepared to speak and not yet knowing what he was saying. He listened to what he’d said and pointed at a building that said PARTY WORLD and, seeing his arm, in his vision, sensed he hadn’t carried his MacBook in a long time and should offer to carry it soon.
“Yeah,” said Erin distractedly.
They walked silently for around forty seconds.
“What are you thinking about?”
“I don’t know,” said Paul honestly. “What are you?”
“I thought ‘I wonder what we’re going to do.’ Then I thought ‘we aren’t talking anymore — oh no, why aren’t we talking anymore.’ You’re not upset about anything?”
Paul shook his head repeatedly.
“Okay, okay,” said Erin.
“No,” thought Paul emotionlessly.
“People seem to be looking a lot, at the computer.”
“I haven’t. . noticed anyone,” said Paul.
“Oh,” said Erin uncertainly. “I haven’t—”
“I haven’t been looking at anyone.”
“I haven’t either, really, except sometimes if I look out somebody will be looking. I forgot we’re not in America.”
“I like how quiet it is,” said Paul.
“Me too,” said Erin.
“In New York it would be so loud.”
“Yeah. There would be, like, layers upon layers of noises.”
“I don’t like places. . where everyone working is a minority. . because I feel like there’s too many different. . I don’t know,” said Paul with a feeling like he unequivocally did not want to be talking about what he was talking about, but had accidentally focused on it, like a telescope a child had turned, away from a constellation, toward a wall.
“Like, visually?”
“Um, no,” said Paul. “Just that. . they know they’re minorities. .”
“That they, like, band together?”
“Um, no,” said Paul on a down escalator into the MRT station they exited around an hour ago.
“What are we doing?” said Erin in a quiet, confused voice. Paul felt his diagonal movement as a humorless, surreal activity — a deepening, forward and down.
“Minorities,” said Erin at a normal volume. “What were you saying?”
“Just that. . here, when you see someone, you don’t know. . that. . they live like two hours away and are um. . poor, or whatever,” said Paul very slowly, like he was improvising an erasure poem from a mental image of a page of text.
“Is this the mall? Thing?”
“No, bathroom,” mumbled Paul.
“Huh?” said Erin.
“Bathroom,” said Paul after a few seconds.
• • •
In the MRT station Paul said he tried masturbating and couldn’t and that he was worried he vomited some of his MDMA earlier, because he didn’t feel much. Erin said she felt like she was “feeling it a lot more” than Paul and laughed a little and said Paul should “go back and take more.”
“Really?” said Paul quietly.
“Yeah. Because I feel like if you were also feeling it. .”