His Monday started off uneventful, as standard as they come, hangover and all which caused his day to be experienced in much of a haze, he liked this and was largely a reason why he drank, how it seemed to fast-forward the time at work and alleviate any of his usual existential suffering as his mind was too preoccupied with going in pointless circles, it was like he only came to consciousness after lunch when his boring 'work' day was already half over. The rest of the afternoon was torn between unproductively working on his poem and thinking of what to say to Ner/Sarah, he decided it shouldn't always be his responsibility to dictate the conversation, he would let them compete against each other with as little of his guidance as possible.

"Say something, anything" he ended up texting them both just before finishing his shift.

Ner was first to reply with "You are Justin Timberlake?" at first he thought this was just a completely random thing she had said but then he cringed and visibly shuddered when he realised she was probably making a reference to one of his songs. He searched it up and sure enough it was the title and presumably the lyrics of a song of his.

Does she really think this is funny? the joke can be boiled down to 'you said something that someone else said and I connected the two', she has never been funny but I guess that is funny, when unfunny people try to be funny, it's endearing and relatable, I know I'm funny but I also know I'm not funny to most people. But really? out of all the things she could have said she chose this? it was so quick too like she didn't even try to think of something meaningful, she knows I'm suffering and I'm desperately trying to understand what is happening between us and she cant even offer me anything of substance when I ask for it. It would have been funnier if it was completely random, like if she asked me if I was some famous person and there was no connection just to fuck with me, sort of like an invite into a roleplay, one of those sort of roleplays when you just talk nonsense but there is still a story within it. It would have been funnier if the reference was wrong, like she said Justin Bieber and the song was Justin Timberlake, then there would be an interesting layer of wondering whether it was intentional or not to misattribute the quote, practically anything would have been funnier, that is what is funny about it though, I guess, how it is the least funny thing possible but I'm not sure this was intended. Really though, why is she trying to be funny anyway? there are endless topics that need to be addressed between us and I gave her a chance to pick one and she hid from them all. Not even that, she could have just opened a conversation about anything but what do you even say to her response? there is no possible interesting way to respond to what she had said, that is the mark of a poor conversationalist, they don't create opportunities for the other person to shine. I know she isn't a poor conversationalist, she just doesn't care, probably intentionally, it seems like she has told herself that she will never put effort mental or otherwise into me again, she is disgusting.

Sarah text back about 10 minutes later as he was collecting his things to leave "There is a type of mushroom that basically turns ants into zombies", he sat back down and leaned back in his chair and just stared at the wall for a while in awe of what she had said. His mind was trying to work out why she had chosen this particular thing to say but it was distracted by a warm haze of childish enchantment, he tried to refocus but could only focus on how his breathing was now irregular, slow and deliberate and he could feel the air filling his chest. He searched it up on his phone and it was even more interesting than she had said, the fungi essentially got the ants to do its bidding for it, not just zombies but zombie slaves, more like they were hypnotised.

He wanted to break their ritual so badly and text her back if only to praise her response but decided against it, he hated the hold she already had on him and didn't want to indulge it any further than he already did.

I barely know this girl and she already shows an infinite amount more care than Ner, she actually listens to what I say and tries to say something important back. I understand, asking someone to just say something and forcing the conversational pressure onto them is kind of an asshole thing to do but surely anyone who cares for you will understand that you have deeper and more honest motives than simply using them. Was I using them though? sure, I was asking them to work and come up with something for my benefit but it shouldn't really be counted as work if they care for me, that is sort of the mutual lie or contract of a relationship 'i will do things for you in the hopes you will do things for me'. I was essentially cashing in some of this with them, asking for a favour in the relationship and this girl obliged even though I barely know her and haven't really done anything for her while Ner's response basically told me 'you have no credit', she doesn't think I do anything for her or she would be willing to do something for me. Not only that but she must think I can't do anything for her in the future either as the pendulum goes both ways. What the fuck is wrong with this woman? I would do anything for her if she only asked, even if she doesn't ask I still try to do everything that she needs but she doesn't want it, she doesn't want to be loved. I knew this when I met her though, it is part of what I liked about her, it's kind of poetic to love someone even if they don't want it, even if they think they don't deserve it but I guess I had the hopes that one day she would learn how to be loved but I guess she never will. It seems it comes natural to Sarah though, she is so open and willing to not judge my motives for things, what am I thinking? how do I know it comes natural, for all I know she has gone through love hell and back, for all I know she is using AI for her responses, for all I know this is an intentional angle she is playing. Does it matter though? she is far more interesting and makes me feel like I'm far more interesting.

He needed a reset, he knew if he went home to a familiar place a familiar haze of emotions would wash over him, subconscious influences from his past, he wanted to go somewhere relatively new and disconnected from his life so he could think about something else. He would normally go to the park but this was now connected emotionally to Sarah and he wanted a break from thinking about women, he felt embarrassed over how much they turned his mind inside out and made him re evaluate his whole entire existence, he wanted to go to a different park but couldn't think of one that interested him, he remembered a cemetery on the edge of town, one that he had only seen from the outside and drove out there. Although he could have driven inside and into the parking lot he left his car outside on the road and walked through the gate thinking it was more respectful to not have a car enter a cemetery even if there was a place designed for it. He could only see a few people in the distance of the park.

5pm on a Monday, not exactly prime time for a cemetery. Is there a prime time for a cemetery? surely statistically there has to be, a prime time for grief as if it kept a schedule, as if peoples feelings of love for their lost ones came and went in a largely predictable manner based on something as arbitrary as the current rotation of the earth and its position in orbit around the sun. That's not really arbitrary though, cosmic positioning, that's probably the least arbitrary thing in existence, but I guess it is or at least should be arbitrary in relation to human emotional states. There are two ways a 'prime time' for grief might not be significant though, the peak time might not be much higher than the rest of the time or there might be an average schedule but the variance from this average is so sporadic that predicting based on the average isn't very worthwhile.

I wonder if anyone has done this research on this, collected the data for how many people visit at what time of day, week or year. Would that be an unethical thing to do? surely it is just data and it is neutral to gather on its own. It feels a little harsh though, to reduce people's grief to a point of data, an entry into a spreadsheet. Say you do the analysis and you find that there is a statistically significant time of day when the most people visit, now you can undermine the people who visit at that time by saying their grief isn't as real, that it's not independent of arbitrary things like time of day, at least to some degree some of them wouldn't be here if not for the time of day. Does that mean the opposite is true? the people who grieve at the least popular times are those whose grief is the most real and eternal, their grief lives outside any ties to reality and comes from something supernatural like their soul. Variance complicates things though, on average this would be true but some of the people grieving at the most popular times just accidentally happened to need to grieve at that time, they weren't like the 'fake' grievers who only grieved when the weather was nicest, when they had their lunch break or whatever.

Maybe there are 'better' explanations for the 'prime time' that don't undermine the depths of their grief like maybe they aren't directly influenced by something arbitrary like the time of day or the weather but are influenced by something that correlates with these things. Like maybe on average peoples brains just think faster at a certain time of day/week/year, maybe it is Tuesday midday at the start of summer, when they aren't still tired from the weekend party but aren't yet tired from the work week, when they aren't tired from the morning but aren't yet tired from the day, when they aren't cold from winter but not yet tired of the heat. Maybe peoples brains just work fastest at a time like this and think about the most things and statistically are more likely to remember their grief to such a degree and need to act on it. Maybe there is some seasonal influence on nostalgia, like maybe people have better memories from summertime so when it hits summer they get more nostalgic over the past memories with their lost loved ones. Seasonal depression is a real thing but I think that's an exceptional case as really that's a completely different type of depression, really all it says is 'people are less happy when they cant do things that they like' or 'people feel uncomfortable or feel like their city is ugly or they are sick all the time', they shouldn't really call it depression, perhaps this is intentional undermining of language, though I guess it's because often times 'fake' seasonal depression snowballs into real depression to a degree. I guess the true is with peak time grief, sure, they might have started grieving from a summer memory but then they remember all the memories, sure the grief is artificially induced from arbitrary times but it snowballs into actual grief. This still undermines their grief to some extent though, surely if they actually truly grieved they wouldn't 'forget' it ever, it would be constant with them. Is it possible for something to be constant though, even if it is there at all times in some form it still statistically has to grow and shrink in depth from time to time and have statistically significant 'prime time'.

Like Ner is always in my mind but there are definitely times when she is more prominent than others, is now just one of those times when she is less prominent? it certainly is starting to feel like a general trend rather than a momentary variation.

He kept walking around the cemetery, mostly lost in his own thoughts but he would read every name on the tombstones feeling as if it was his duty to honor their names, to his surprise none of the 20 or so names matched those of significant people in his life, he thought about how this must be statistically significant to find no matches out of so many 'random' names. He ran the numbers through his head and concluded that it was only slightly unlikely and not worthy of being deemed of some great significance. He thought about the people in their graves.

Would they mind that I am here? am I insulting their rest or adding to it? I guess it varies, if they were standing above their graves and watching their surroundings, most of them are probably happy to see anyone after years in the same place with nothing to do but reflect on when they had agency over reality. They probably get the same few visitors all the time, most people don't believe in the sentimental, they claim they do, they act like they do when it's convenient but when no one is watching they make excuses to themselves that it doesn't matter, they feel like they don't need to do something 'pointless' like go to a certain place on earth to honor their loved one, they can do it from their comfy warm couch, 'it is all the same to the dead' they tell themselves.

It probably is all the same to the dead but even if it is, there are unintended consequences of actually doing it that they don't realise, not least of which is the act of participating in human rituals in our culture that have been passed down through generations. I guess I am a little bit of an insult to these people, I am not exactly pleasant on the eyes, there is nothing particularly wrong with me but I just don't look like a well adjusted adult, maybe this is refreshing for some of the resting souls, or maybe it is an insult, here they are laying unable to ever influence the world in any shape or form on their own volition anymore and here is some grown man-child lost in his own fantasy world who doesn't even care about his waning time on this earth enough or those around him to dress himself proper and keep a tidy haircut. I'm an insult to the dead, that's going to change though, I'm going to write this poem and then I will write more, it might not be the most explicit way to influence the world but in the long run there is a chance it will. I will start building a real life together with a girl too whether that is Ner or Sarah, I'm fucking delusional, I just met Sarah and I'm already talking about dropping my girlfriend to build a life together. What I meant is a girl like Sarah, maybe Ner can become more like Sarah, maybe I can help her, I don't deserve Sarah anyway, I deserve a girl like Ner. I wonder how many graves are next to a loved one, do people get buried together in the same grave? surely that happens, I wonder how often, I wonder if anyone has done the numbers. I wonder what was the average length of relationship with their loved one when they died, like did they on average meet in the latter part of their life or were they together forever, it seems these days relationships are on average shorter, I guess it's the result of a more fast paced society which encourages and even forces people to change more frequently, they no longer stay the same as the person who was fallen in love with. There are other factors though, like it's easier to meet new people and divorce these days but who knows what direction the causation goes, maybe some of these other factors came about due to increased frequency of change, like divorce was made easier due to people changing so often not exactly on its own accord, regardless, it would turn into its own cause, whatever the reason for divorce becoming easier whether it was a consequence of some other factor or purely arbitrary or artificially forced, now it will facilitate a society that is less scared of divorce and the slippery slope will keep sliding.

I wonder how many times the average person here was married, I guess that's an easy stat to look up but maybe it's slightly different here, here meaning in a cemetery, maybe there is variation between the different ways people are 'disposed' of. Maybe people who are cremated are less sentimental over life and therefore don't take their choices as seriously and so they marry more often than those who choose to be buried, those who think their body is eternal and divine. That's an odd thought, it's sort of like the argument of faith, if you believe your life has more worth and your choices are more meaningful then you will make more meaningful choices. Maybe those who married a lot got exactly what they wanted though, a chaotic life, they probably take pride in how many times they got back up and tried again to find their 'one', not realising the need to keep doing this was primarily their own creation and if they took a little less pride in it and felt more shame for their repeated attempts then they might actually learn to make better choices. I guess people only have limited brain power anyway, if they put their effort into making better choices in terms of partners they will sacrifice in other areas and make poorer choices there. I don't believe this completely, I think trying more in any meaningful area of life has a net positive impact as most of the effort you steal from elsewhere is usually taken from a far less productive area of life.

This park is really nice, really well kept, much better than the parks for the living. No noisy people, no dog poo, the trees are trimmed nicer, it's a wonder there aren't more people visiting it simply as a place to escape from the concrete jungle. I get that people think it's probably a little insulting to go to these peoples graves simply as a way to have 'fun' but it's strange that absolutely everyone feels this same way, I guess some of them avoid it because it depresses them to confront death, it's still strange that everyone is this way though, you would think that some people would think it's ok from time to time, to go once a year or something but it seems no one does, they only visit when they 'need' to. It's like that idea for a term I had, one that I actually came up with a name for 'over bias', it's like they think 99% of the time that it's a bad idea to visit the cemetery for a walk but everyday they see this 99% and come to this same conclusion, they don't visit it on 1% of their walks. It's kind of like if you were gambling on some magic coin that had a 51% chance to be heads, you wouldn't bet heads only 51% of the time, you would bet it 100% of the time and so would 100% of people. Hmmm, that's not the best example because it's too concrete and there aren't unintended consequences from betting heads 100% of the time, like heads doesn't care it is being bet on too much and tails doesn't care either.

A better example is 'racism'. Like say for example poor people were slightly more likely to be criminals than rich people and minorities were slightly more likely to be poor and therefore more likely to be criminals, this means that on average if the police had to choose one random person to stop then they should choose a minority every single time as anything else would be a less efficient use of their time as it would have a slightly lower chance of stopping a criminal. Theoretically it is right for police to be biased against minorities but they're even more biased than would be 'fair'. This gets complicated though as only stopping minorities removes the most important part of policing for others, namely the perceived threat of police action. So let's say 60% of crime is done by minorities, then in a perfect fair world minorities would be stopped 60% of the time but in reality each time the police are making a choice on who to stop it is best to pick a minority, but this has unintended consequences, the minorities feel (rightfully) picked on for being focused and it creates a false sense of security for non minorities who now think it is unlikely for them to be stopped. So the true best action of how often to stop minorities would be somewhere between 60% but less than 100%, however much less depends on how negatively it impacts their lives to be focused and how much you remove the perceived threat of policing from non minorities.

If you stumble upon this narrative on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen from Royal Road. Please report it.

In reality though people don't really understand that it is 'right' to focus minorities so much or even the 'fair' 60% of the time, they think they should only be focused according to their proportion of their population. I get it, I really do, they are trying to will into existence the reality they want to live in where everyone is judged on an individual basis such as choices and not something they cant control like race. They don't understand that there will always be statistical trends in both things people cant control and things people can control, there are always trends and averages in everything, it's just a matter of how significant they are. Like how the cemetery has a peak time, people cant handle when you make connections between things if they think the connection undermines something good. They take it too personally as if correlating two things is assuming causation, I guess it is assuming causation to some degree otherwise you would just talk about the two things on their own, but it's interesting to talk about things that shouldn't be connected but are, even if it's not direct. Even if the causation is a 'bad' thing, at least labelling the bad thing allows you to deal with it better.

The thing with over bias is that people seem to over estimate the bias and this in turn causes them to over respond to it and over compensate, it is a general trend, when people try to artificially control something they end up making it less efficient, but I guess to a degree forced inefficiencies in the name of what is 'right' is what a civilised society is all about. Say police stopped minorities 90% of the time rather than the 60% so they are over biased, eventually this statistic might come out and police would consciously (largely due to pressure) cut down on how often they stop minorities artificially, it doesn't matter if they over compensate below 60% or somewhere between it is still artificially over compensating, in reality the most efficient action is likely closer to that 90% to not waste police resources and the tax money of those who are paying to be protected.

I haven't even given the dead much of a second thought, poor people, no one cares about them, maybe one gardener and a family member making an annual visit but by the looks of most of these gravestones, even that is rare. It's even more insulting when people make an attempt at an effort then give up than when they make no effort at all, like some of these graves have pot plants on them, well they used to, now they are just pots of dirt, so insulting. At least some of them have nice trees over their graves, that's how i want to go, to be buried under a young tree and have my nutrients absorbed into it, trees are resilient, they don't care if no human takes care of them, mother nature takes care of them, it's when humans get involved in nature that nature becomes dependent on humans and eventually fail. Like pot plants, they are artificially restricted to a small supply of nutrients and don't have proper mechanisms to thrive which is fine if humans perform upkeep but left to their own devices they cant handle it.

Ast didn't realise but he was now approaching one of the only other two people in the park, a man slightly separated from what looked to be his wife, he was well dressed and probably in his late 40's. Ast assumed he was visiting his parents or grandparents but really it could be anyone such as an ex wife, people lived crazy lives. As they passed each other they exchanged glances, the mans face showed little expression but due to the fixated expression it seemed to Ast that he was putting in a lot of conscious effort into preventing expression, possibly an intent to hide emotion from his wife, maybe out of embarrassment or maybe to act as a pillar of strength for her to lean on. Ast's expression was much the same but not for the same reasons, it was just how he tried to keep his face at all times to prevent any unintended expressions which he now found ironic as he was reading so much into the other mans face but this was an exceptional situation. Ast seemed to hear from the mans expression unsaid words such as "I understand what you feel, nobody else in this whole city really understands how we feel right now but we understand how tragic life is", but Ast didn't understand how he felt, he thought he did but couldn't know for sure, he felt like he was insulting the man by unintentionally being an imposter, an intruder into his world of grief but perhaps he was a comfort and Ast's 'lie' was nothing but positive. Maybe the man would be better off in the long run if he believed nobody else understood, then he would reach the true depths of grief faster and perhaps that was needed to eventually escape. Maybe the man didn't want to feel like anyone else understood, a world where his grief was common was not a nice world to live in, it is one thing to feel immense grief yourself, people can handle that, they even like suffering to a degree but to know other people have to feel it is tough, it makes the universe seem inhumanely cruel.

He kept on walking, at least half of the graves were decrepit and almost half were for people who died younger than Ast is now. There was no one who would do anything with Ast's body, nobody who cared for him or knew him, Ner probably didn't have any legal rights. He wondered what even was the default disposal for a body by public services if there were no family members to take charge, surely it was just cremation but what would they do with the ashes? maybe there was some shared grave site where he would be sprinkled among 1000s of others who had no family, the remnants of existence fused with all the other losers and scattered to the wind. He thought he should look it up later, his lawyer was constantly pressuring him to make a will but he never gave it a second thought, he didn't feel as if reality would go on in any meaningful sense beyond his life.

He walked down a path of grass between some graves and stepped on some berries on the ground, not a variety he had ever seen before and probably not edible but still full of nutrients and now he had taken a bunch of them from the ground and stolen the nutrients away from the dead and carried them away on the soles of his boots. He wondered what would be the best course of action, if he should go on and take them away or to scrape his boots off on the grass, that would probably damage the grass and insult the dead even further he thought. He concluded he should have been more careful in the first place.

Maybe this is why people don't come here for leisure, the risk of unintended consequences and insults to the dead is just too high. I wonder how many people do come here for leisure though, I wonder if anyone has ever met anyone romantically while in a cemetery for leisure, I'm sure it happens at funerals but the chance of two people around the same age of opposing gender just visiting a cemetery for fun and striking up a conversation and hitting it off like I did with Sarah, it's possible that has never happened. It would be poetic, not just for the near impossibility of it happening but also it's like a metaphor, people finding a new life while surrounded by death, I guess that's why it happens at funerals to the extent that it does but this is different, funeral meetings feel forced, poetry exists within the unforced. Maybe I should make this my poem instead, could I explain that to people though, would they accept two people visiting a cemetery just for fun? I will ask Ner what she thinks about this.

"I am coming over, question mark?" he text her and started to leave the cemetery the same way he came, noticing all sorts of little small details which he missed on the way in, the most notable of which was just outside the gate. There was a large hole in the hedge surrounding the grounds near the gate, while it was starting to regrow he concluded that someone must have crashed a car into it. He had no idea how that could have happened, it was a straight road with no turns nearby but it certainly looked like it. He thought of the symbolism, probably some kid on a drunken joyride, not only did they literally insult the dead by desecrating their resting grounds but they metaphorically insulted them too by being reckless with their own life. He wondered if the offender even made this connection, whether they even gave more than a second thought to what they crashed into on a symbolic level, most people don't think symbolically, it doesn't provide any short term material benefit to them and they live day to day. He couldn't blame them really, most people have too many real problems to deal with, most people these days couldn't even afford a tombstone so offending those that can isn't a huge concern.

"K..." Ner text back just as he was reaching his car.

Why the fucking ellipsis? what is wrong with this girl? I'm trying to make things right and she acts like I'm a bother, women are so disgusting, they don't feel empathy.

He spent most of this ride to her in anger, going through everything wrong with the average woman but in the end it provided him a bit of peace, she wasn't rude to him because he wasn't worthy of care, it was just her nature like you don't get angry at a dog being stupid for chasing its tail, it doesn't know any better. When he reached her house his anger had calmed down but he still knocked unusually furiously on her door.

"What's wrong?" she said as she answered the door, she looked beautiful today, she had recently dyed her hair the near white colour he loved, her makeup was immaculate and she looked well rested. He did not expect to find her this way, he had expected and hoped she would be as miserable as he was with how they no longer seemed to be able to meaningfully connect and their relationship seemingly ending.

"I just wanted to talk to you, I miss you" these words just spilled out and he immediately regretted them, he had wanted to keep the conversation casual and avoid any serious discussion but couldn't help himself.

"I miss you too" she said, his eye twitched.

How dare she say this? you don't get to claim you miss someone if you are actively preventing the two of you from being together and refusing to engage in or start any conversation. Now isn't the time for this.

After realising he didn't have anything he wanted to say to this, she invited him inside and they sat down on her couch before a tv on mute. The couch wasn't very comfortable, it was a very old style and ugly but it added a sort of aesthetic that Ast liked, it was a reminder of more simpler times, he had never asked her why she had this particular couch, if she chose an old couch to remind her of her youth or just happened to acquire it, he considered asking her now but decided to stick to the script he had been planning in the back of his mind.

"I was just at the cemetery" he started when she let out a little gasp which was more just like an urgent gathering of air for what she wanted to interject with.

"Oh god, what happened?"

As if she really cares, she probably just feels bad now knowing that she had totally disregarded anything going on in my life or how I feel in her recent weeks of distance.

"Nothing, I was just going for a walk" he paused but she didn't say anything, she just looked at him intently with her hand now placed on his knee "you know, it's strange how there was no one there" again he waited but she didn't say anything "it's like if I go to Laurent Park there are always people everywhere... do you think many people go to a cemetery unless they have a real reason to?"

"I don't know, why are you asking this?"

"What do you mean why am I asking? it's because I think it's an interesting question and I wanted to share the idea with you"

"Well... it's nothing I really thought about, I don't think cemeteries are that interesting"

"Fuck, it doesn't have to be about cemeteries, that's just an example, it's about people doing things for no reason"

"I never really thought about it"

"Well, would you go to a cemetery just for a walk? do you know others who do"

"Probably not, sure, I had friends who would just go to relax and read or talk with their lost friends"

"That's using the cemetery for it's proper purpose though, I just mean without a proper reason, no connection to the cemetery"

"Why wouldn't you just go to the park? it seems a bit disrespectful"

"You can do both, how is it disrespectful?"

"I don't know, like cemeteries shouldn't be busy public hangout spots? they should be peaceful and reserved for people using them to mourn"

"Well sure, you respect this and be quiet" he retorted

"I just think if everyone did it then it would ruin the cemetery"

"Sure but nobody does it so one or two people wont ruin it, if anything it gives the dead some purpose in the world"

"I don't know, why are you so obsessed with this?"

"I'm not, I just think it's interesting, well, I had an idea"

"Ok"

"You want to know it?"

"I guess"

"Thanks... well, when people ask us how we met we should tell them that we met at the cemetery, we were both just there on walks, it would be romantic"

"How.. how is that romantic, what is wrong with you?"

"You said it yourself, how rare it is for people to go there just for a walk, imagine how rare it is for people to meet there outside of funerals, maybe it has never ever happened in the world, isn't that romantic? also it would be symbolic, people starting a new life in a place among the dead"

"It doesn't happen for good reason, what is wrong with the story of how we met?"

"But if it happened it wouldn't be for bad reasons, there is nothing wrong, it's just a boring story, what is wrong with my story?"

"Nothing wrong with boring, it wouldn't be true"

"I meant like generic, like our story has probably happened a lot, or rather people can imagine it happening to them, it's that common, true..."

"Yes, you're always going on about not lying..."

"It would be less like a lie, it's something that could have happened, like in another parallel universe we could have met that way, why should we not get to have a more romantic meeting story just because we happen to be in this universe?"

"But it didn't happen and it would make us seem less real"

"Think of it more like a romantic inside joke, it would be fun to make up the details. Who would even care that it's a lie? when people ask for the story of how we met, they don't actually care for the true answer, they just want to hear an interesting story"

"How do you know what they want? I'm sure everyone is different"

"You have to treat them as what they are on average, you cant just alter your story for everyone, if you did then it might be found out that it's a lie"

"Or you can just not lie to them???"

"But you're lying for everyone's benefit, we get a fun romantic joke and they get a story which shows them the world can be interesting"

"It's just not something that could happen, I wouldn't go to a cemetery just 'for fun'"

"You could though? you are a human, you can do whatever you want"

"I couldn't because I wouldn't, I don't just do things without a reason"

"What the fuck, of course you do"

"No, well, I don't know, I'd never do -that-, if someone went to a cemetery for a walk it wouldn't be me"

"It could be though, no?"

"I'm not going to tell this story to people, why are you so obsessed with it?"

"I told you, what the fuck, it's just interesting, why do you always think I must have some hidden motive?"

"Because you do?"

"Fuck off"

"You are always trying to say weird things to bait an emotional reaction out of me, i'm tired of it"

"You have no idea, if I didn't say weird things then nothing would be said, you wouldn't even respond"

"Sometimes things don't need to be said, Ast"

"Obviously, but sometimes they do"

"You just like messing with me like I'm some pet to you, you never thought of me as real, with my own interests outside those that benefit you"

"Are you serious right now? I love you and I'm obsessed over you, I say these weird things because I love to know what you think about them"

"You could ask me like I'm a real human"

"I thought you understood"

"You thought wrong"

A long silence occurred, Ner was looking at Ast but he was looking down at the mat under her coffee table

"I say them exactly because I think you're real and your responses surprise me, if you weren't real then your actual response wouldn't matter, I could just imagine them" he said

"Listen to yourself, admitting you're constantly judging me over my responses to your ridiculous statements, you need help"

"Me? I'm the most real person in this relationship, what about you? say anything of substance and you completely close off, if it was up to you all we would talk about would be the weather or the latest tv show"

"That's not true but if it was then what is the problem? not everything has to be deep and profound, you're not even deep or profound"

"I'm not trying to be, I'm just trying to be... something, you know? like a human"

"An asshole"

"Are you ok? It makes no sense for you to be so mad at me right now"

"I'm fine, I'm not mad at you, I'm just saying what is true"

"You don't think this, you're just mad at something, probably because I wanted to do something romantic and you don't want anything good in your life, you're probably upset I can think of romantic things and you can't"

"Here he goes, psychoanalyzing me again"

"I'm not, it's true, it's the reason you liked me in the first place, you even admitted it"

"Here he goes, blah blah blah"

"Did you not say: I like you because I don't feel like I have to try so hard around you?"

"Maybe I did, I say a lot of things"

"I guess you do, you say things without thought, your words are fickle and not well thought out"

"You're so mad, you know I'm right"

"You don't know shit, you probably haven't had an original thought in your life"

"Just because something is original doesn't make it good"

"Here she goes, reciting some buzz phrase she got out of a self help book"

"You could do with some self help"

"Or I could do with a girlfriend who wants to help and be helped"

"You cant help anyone"

"Yeah, what would I know?"

"Nothing"

"Right, as opposed to you?"

"Right"

"Whatever, I came here to try and help our relationship and you didn't want to help, you wouldn't even tell people a little harmless lie for me"

"It's not all about you"

"Whatever" he said slowly as if he was sighing at the same time, got up and left without looking at her, she didn't say anything or react, like she had been waiting for it. He drove home on the verge of tears, he spent the whole evening at his computer trying to desperately distract himself from his sadness over the whole situation but ended up just replaying the conversation in his head over and over, trying to remember more and more accurately how she said things. She had a demeanor of indifference as if how their argument played out had no significance to her, she had responded so quickly as if her words had no significance to her. He text her just before bed "I still like you" but she didn't respond.