He could hear the argument even before making it up the steps to their cabin. Mr. Garner and the new guy, Griffin. Not very clear what they were saying, just heated exchanges that shook the walls as he stepped over a large pile of trash on the kitchen floor. They were fighting about how each of them got here and how just yesterday each were in “some other place”. Whatever that ment. From Maxwells perspective there was only ever this place.
He cleared a spot on the counter and laid out what was left of their supplies. When the dust settled they would want to know how bad off they were. If that mattered.
“If that matters now….” He heard Griffin say over and over.
“As if that mattered.”
Maxwell couldn’t help but think that somewhere in the fog of waiting he had forgotten just what they were doing here. Or had he thought that already. Had he said it? The uncertainty grew moment by moment and with each shake his mind lost more and more focus.
“What were all the drugs for then, the test?” Yelled Mr. Garner over the shape of Griffins tone.
“You can’t tell me all of it was pointless, that we laid there bleeding out night after night for nothing!!!”
“That is exactly what I’m saying. WE were never there, they never ran any test and the whole thing was a figment of our imaginations!”
Though Griffin did his best to convey this, Mr. G was having none of it. He simply could not believe that an entire month, a brutaly painful month at that was mearly…made up, fake, a trick of the mind. Nothing could convince him.
“Your asking me to take what your saying on faith alone, knowing that you experienced, from what you’ve told me, much of the same shit.”
From that came a defening silince, a calm so eery that with a sudden swallow would the world brake; shattered by the quack of ushering spit. Maxwell crept closer to the door, just beyond their dispute waining. He could hear them speaking lower now, almost rushed, as if they were aware of him spying and now align by common threat to uncapture his attention.
“Why don’t you ust come in, if your really there.”
Matthew Newton
DOC #81868
