Nightly Surprises

After forty-two years of marriage, she said, You'll agree with what I decided, I think.

Which is?

That we don't know each other at all. Your depths are inaccessible to me.

I wouldn't put it that way.

I hadn't imagined you capable of this. I was speechless last night, after I heard ... and to think that for all these years ... Sure, at first a person will say: he surprises me often, and whenever his mystery ends and the surprises end, love will be done. Later you find that's all blather, because you only really want one kind of surprise, the good kind, the kind renewing faith in life and love. And after a while of course when the surprises do end and you're stuck together in the predictable, nothing you do can upset the world, the world you share. But then last night I found out, and didn't know what to say...

You don't need to say a thing. There's nothing to say. What's done is done.

Well, give me this, at least. You don't know me at all, either.

I wouldn't say that. I know a bit about you, I think. Forty two years don't pass with nothing to show, after all.

Do you know my moods? Can you see me react? Look at my face. Look into my eyes. Now tell me: what will I do? Or, better, what have I done?

What have you done?

You've got no idea. Look me in the eye. Who am I?

What a question. I don't know where you're headed with this.

Who are you? Who knows. Who am I? Who am I?

Calm down. Please.

Sure. I'm going to straighen things out here, since you look lost. Did you notice that the wine tasted odd? Kind of bitter? Now, a question: the flavor, is it the wine itself, or something I put in your glass, or in the bottle, something I'll notice as well?

You can't be speaking serious—

If you don't find an answer soon, before ten, the answer will find you.

He looked at his watch, his face tight with fear: it was nine minutes till ten.