Right As Rain

"It's raining really badly over here"

"Oh yeah? Everything's alright up here. The sun. Blue skies.The neighbours were playing on their trampoline. Who even buys trampolines anymore?"

"That's cool! Show me a picture. No, no, wait. Record it"

"Really though. These people are lower middle class, much like most of this neighbourhood. They have a small patch of patio in their backyard. They barely have any grass. But they choose to fit in a trampoline at the back of their house anyway".

"I think it's charming"

"I guess so"

"What would you have them put?"

"A garden"

"Maybe their kids are the rowdy types. They need some bounciness in their lives"

"I guess. I just..it looks really squashed in between everything. Could be dangerous?"

"Is this..."

"Like Rear Window except I'm not in a wheelchair?"

"Am I Grace Kelly?"

"What?"

"In that movie. She's in it right?"

"I don't remember. Could be. I don't know much about that era of cinema. Every actor looks like a corruption or an improvement from Warren Beatty or James Stewart".

"Pretty sure those two aren't from the same era"

"No? Well, goes to show"

"Do you think that when you really love something, you have to know every single detail about it?"

"I don't know"

"I used to write notes, you know. On people I like. So that I remember their likes and dislikes. Like making my own posts on GameFAQs or something. It's strange now that I think about it. Takes the romance out of it everything"

"Funny thing is that a lot of romance is planned"

"Really?"

"Yeah, I mean if you think of the capital R, Romance, but also the lowercase r, romance, it's all derived from story in which a character is spontaneously expressive or emotional about their love for someone right? Grand gestures or small. We fall in love with the spontaneity, but the spontaneity was written, way before".

"Right"

"So you gotta work behind the scenes. I mean don't tell people you write notes about them. Just remember it. They like the thought of you remembering it"

"What if they find it? I mean wouldn't that be romantic too? I've seen movies with scenes like that. I think"

"Yeah, but I think in those movies, the diary or journal or whatever is found after someone dies right?"

"Right"

"I guess you can't hit on me now"

"Hahah wait what? I wasn't..wait why?"

"You told me you write notes about people"

"Used to. Also-"

"-means you can't be romantic with me anymore"

"You think someone is gonna read this and think 'Oh this is the cringey part where they comment on the conversation they're having where all the little flaws are exposed that's supposed to prevent them from falling for each other but they do anyway'"

"There has to be a name for that on The AV Club. Like on their list of film tropes. Every Netflix coming of age romance has something like that"

"Yeah! Or sexual deviancy"

"What?"

"No, as in...ugh I don't like that word 'deviancy'. I mean you know, sexual diversity. Like there's this movie trailer I saw about this Asian girl who feels alone in this outback town on the mountains. She gets to know a guy who likes a girl, and she helps him write a love letter for her. Turns out she likes her too! And I think she likes both the guy and the girl. Like the tagline is "Love isn't just about finding the perfect half""

"Hey...I wanna say 'that's interesting'

"Haha what, say it".

"That's interesting"

"Yeah, but I feel like when they know that's what they're doing it gets more difficult"

"They?"

"Yeah, filmmakers"

"As in, you don't have to be on-the-nose about it?"

"On-the-nose?"

"Yeah. Like too obvious. Don't make that the point of the story"

"Why are there so many rules in storytelling when there are so many kinds of stories"

"I think it's coz we're all attempting to find some universal way to tell the best ones"

"Isn't it weird that this is a blogpost where you're writing a dialog between two people, but you don't know who the people are?"

"They're you and I"

"Who are we?"

"You know how earlier this quarantine, I was talking about stream-of-consciousness. Like I should just write with automatism, like the Surrealist Manifesto Andre Breton right. Like I shouldn't plan things, I should write what I feel without structure. Just the impression of my thoughts"

"This is ceasing to become a conversation, you're just explaining things now"

"Yeah, well I decided maybe this time, I frame the stream-of-consciousness thing like a conversation between two people. Because you know, consciousness is about conversations you have with yourself anyway, the awareness that there is an inside you and an outside you is a consciousness"

"You can't just have the other guy, aka me say 'Yes' all the time. That feels self-absorbed. You don't wanna do that"

"What if I snap-"

"-in two"

"Or...what if I feel less alone"

"Then you wouldn't need me really. You just need you"

"Why isn't this thing I'm writing on a thing we talk to"

"Yeah but it's not responding"

"Sometimes you have two human beings talk to each other, but only one person really says anything"

"This is getting stupid. Aren't you gonna go sleep and masturbate?"

"Hm. Play some Stardew Valley maybe"

"You were supposed to get your shit together. Tomorrow's Ramadhan"

"What does that mean to us?"

"Nothing"

"Well?"

"Still, deadlines. Maybe the air of ritual makes it easier to discipline yourself"

"Sigh, I'm gonna start praying again huh"

"Probably"

"You're doing really well"

"Me?"

"Yeah. You just need to write things down, dedicate yourself to a word-count per day, and you're set. Even if it is three essays"

"3000-word essays. Oh hey notice how I'm not the advisor anymore? I'm the advisee"

"Stop commenting on it"

"This makes me think about Community"

"Dan Harmon saying that all of the characters are just different versions of him?"

"Aren't all characters made by filmmakers and authors like that?"

"It's strange"

"I'm sleepy"

"How do we do this without cue signs. Maybe we'd be more real if we yawned or something or we said things with qualifications at the end, like if I say something angrily, it would say "he said 'angrily'", he said with circumspect

"But we don't want to be real"

"No, I guess not"

"Oh man it's gonna be a long day tomorrow. I never could use that literally. Like...because there are seasons here. So days do get longer"

"I said I was going to sleep"

"Okay. You'll probably be awake later anyway. Just not in text form"

"Let me sleep"

"Okay"

"No, I mean it. Get me out of this conversation"

Okay.