Sixth Scene

Whitley Sands.

Aren’t you worried you’ll be seen? I ask.

Maybe I’d like to be seen, Priya says. With my … young … lover.

Walking.

It’s like there’s some absolute divide between us and everyone else, Priya says. Because we’re … infatuated or whatever it is. Because we’re living more intensely. Romance makes you feel exalted, doesn’t it? It makes you high. You feel like some secret aristocrat who knows the secret of everything …

Lovers are smug, I say.  They’re always kinda in love with themselves. With their love.

You always have to put a downer on everything, Priya says.

It’s like nature’s thrown us a treat and we’re supposed to be grateful, I say. To moon over one another in gratitude. When really it’s part of the whole machine.

What machine? Priya asks.

The natural machine, I say. The machine of nature. Romance is nature’s honey trap. That’s what it’s called isn’t it: when they lure you in via someone pretty? Some hottie specifically sent out to target you? … See, nature wants us trapped. Confined. Seeking all our salvation from romantic love …

So where should we seek it? Priya asks.

In being against nature, I say. Against everything. All these feelings … This elation … This craving … It’s all it’s supposed to be. That’s the very sane madness of lovers. Our rational irrationality. Our law-abiding prohibition. To which we totally succumb …

But it is an exception, Priya says. It’s like a reprieve. It’s like we’ve been let off from ordinary life. The usual rules don’t apply, right?

Sure, it’s like a reprieve, I say. It’s like we’re exempt.

God, you’re so meta, Priya says. You can’t just experience stuff. You can’t just give yourself over to things.

Can you? I ask.

This is our … secret kingdom, Priya says. How we are together. How we hang out.

The way we fuck, even … Something … new has come into the world. Don’t you feel that?

It doesn’t matter what we feel, I say.

Look around you, Priya says. The sky’s doing its sky thing, the sea’s doing its sea thing. And we’re supposed to be doing our lovers on the beach thing. Just being happy, or whatever. And instead, we have to be meta. Have to talk about life instead of living it. We have to ask our questions.

It just means we’re conscious, I say. We’re awake.

It means we’re detached and in denial, Priya says.

Maybe it’s natural for think we can be against nature, Priya says. Maybe that’s human hubris.

What we are is a capacity to negate nature, I say. To say no – a great no to it all.

So what are we doing, walking on the beach hand in hand? Priya says.

Being smug, I say.