"Rich."

….and my job title.

"Vacant lot."

"Huh?" That was unexpected.

"Never mind."

"Okay………….."

"Next question."

"What state do you live in?"

"Quiet panic."

"Ha!" - a quick bark, cut short when he realized I was serious.

He paused, grew thoughtful. "Is that near Florida?" - trying to lighten the mood.

"It's near everything. It travels with me."

He looked a little dazed. "Where were you born?"

"I don't remember. I was very young."

"Hmmmm…" Frustration? "Let's try this. What do you do for a living?"

"Breathe. Eat. Sleep. Shit."

"Right, right." Definitely frustration. "I mean - what's your occupation?"

"I show up at an office every day. I get paid for it. Then I breathe, eat, sleep and………"

"I know, I know." He was getting a little angry. Maybe I'd cut him some slack.

"I design web sites." That almost hurt. Too honest.

"Wellll…………" Relief, flooding in. "How long have you been………..?"

"Forever. A week. I don't know. It pays the bills."

Relief, flooding back out. "Do you have any hobbies?"

"Masturbation."

"Huh." I didn't know a man could turn that color. "Okay - how about goals?"

"Retirement. And living long enough to retire."

"Come now. That's all?"

"It's all I have left."

"Surely you must have desires, dreams………"

"Scattered, like dry leaves in an angry little wind." Nice image. I'll have to remember that one.

He paused, and gazed at me. I gazed back.

"We're getting nowhere here."

"I'm used to that."

That puzzled him. "Used to what?"

"Getting nowhere. I do that a lot."

"Really." He thinks he may be on to something. "And why is that?"

"Why? Why do I get nowhere? Because that's all any of us get. We get something we call life, then we get dead."

"Boy, that's some outlook. Have you always been so cynical?"

"I'm not a cynic; I'm a realist."

"Surely you must agree that some of us get more out of life than others." Interviewer becomes analyst.

"Some of us acquire more. In the end, we all just get dead."

Another pause. I knew what he was thinking, but I didn't know how he'd phrase it.

"Ummmmmmmm………"

Apparently, he didn't either.

"There's more to life than acquisition. How about achievement? Some of us achieve, and others observe."

"Yep. And then we all die."

"But the ones who achieve leave a legacy. They're remembered, long after they're gone."

"They're still dead." I was beginning to enjoy this.

His voice went up a few decibels. "But they've contributed something! Our lives have been made better, in some way, because they lived!"

He was getting angry again. Maybe I'd throw him another bone.

"Like I said - they're still dead." Nahhhh.

He actually rose from his chair and stalked about the room. "You are absolutely maddening."

I had no idea I had such power. "I don't intend to be. I just think these are simple truths."

He made a show of collecting himself, and sat back down. Stared at me for a long moment. He was trying to decide whether to pursue this further, or change the subject. "Do you like to read?"

Was he changing the subject, or just pursuing from an oblique angle? I played along, to buy time. "Love it."

"Are there any writers, dead or alive, whom you consider important?"

Same subject, new angle. "Sure. Many."

"Name a few."

"Shakespeare. Some of the Russians. Homer, although he didn't really write anything down. Maybe Poe."

"And you can quote from their writings?"

Where the hell was he going with this? "Sure. A little."

"So, in the end, they've achieved a measure of immortality. You remember them. Future generations will remember them. They've been gone a long time, some of them for centuries, but they're still adding something to your life."

Oh, for Christ's sake. "Yep. That's true."

He thought he'd made a point. "Doesn't that make them more important than casual observers? Than the millions of bystanders who contributed nothing?"

Now I was a little angry. "Important? Bullshit. At the end of the day, their writing was no more important than the petty chanting rage of birds. A tree in the forest trades carbon dioxide for oxygen. Its impact on my life is more immediate, and more positive, than every word that's ever been written. Take away the writers and my life may be diminished. Take away the trees and my life is over! That's important!" Whew!! I hadn't intended to raise my voice.

He opened his mouth. Closed it again. Finally - "You're a bitter man."

"Could be. I haven't tasted myself in a while." Nothing like a good non sequitur to break the tension.

He just shook his head slowly and stared. "You apparently have no faith in anything."

"Not true. I have absolute faith that the universe is unaware of our existence, in spite of our best efforts and our massive ego. I have faith that Man created God in his own image. And I have faith that there's nothing magical or spiritual about our presence here."

"You don't believe we have a soul?"

"Good grief, you're turning into a missionary on me. No, I don't believe in a soul. When you blow out a candle the smoke lingers for a while, then dissipates. The bigger the candle, the longer the smoke hangs in the air. Some of us are just bigger candles than others."

"And there are no miracles?"

"Oh, sure, there are miracles."

"Huh?" He was actually startled.

"Not in the sense you're getting at, though. I've been to Lourdes, and I've seen priests there, standing around in little black clumps, muttering about the miraculous healing powers of the waters. And I've seen the dozens of gift shops there, charging twenty dollars for a tin cross that's worth about a dime, and it's all shit. You want a miracle? Some time in the dim past of this planet, the conditions were exactly right for a chemical reaction to occur, and suddenly there was life. That's miraculous. But it's a natural miracle, not part of some grand master plan." I barely got the last few words out before I started to cough. I coughed for a full five minutes, deep, racking, fluid. Talking this much always stirs up my bronchitis. Damn cigarettes.

He brought me a glass of water. I think he was relieved at the interruption.

I thanked him for the water and drank some, although I knew it wouldn't help. Once the coughing starts it just has to run its course. The rest of this interview was going to be punctuated by my hacking and wheezing, and there was nothing I could do about it. I unwrapped a cough drop and popped it into my mouth, knowing it wouldn't help. But it made my breath smell better. There was no place to toss the wrapper, so I stuck it in my shirt pocket.

"Are you okay to continue?" he sounded like he wanted me to say I couldn't.

"Sure. What the hell."

"So - in your opinion, life has no purpose, no meaning."

"Right." I could go on all day if he stuck to questions I could answer with one word.

"And the concept of morality, of right and wrong, doesn't really exist."

"Yep." This was easy.

"Then why do you go on?"

Damn. I knew it was too good to be true. "Because I believe that we go from a state of awareness to absolute nothingness. Zip. Zero. It happens to all of us, sooner or later. That's the reason for my quiet panic. I don't think there's a reason for me to exist, but as long as I do I want to hold on to it."

"Do you enjoy your life?"

I would have laughed, but it would have started another coughing fit. "I've had some very good times. They're all pretty much in the past, but that whole idea of simply ceasing to exist just terrifies me."

"So you do everything you can to prolong your existence?"

He had me there. I'm a wreck. I smoke, I'm fifty pounds overweight, completely sedentary. "Not really." There's an understatement. I coughed, for emphasis.

"Why is that?"

Good question. This guy was getting to be a pain in the ass. "I honestly don't know."

"You're a bundle of contradictions. Life is meaningless, yet you cling to it. You're afraid to die, but live as though you have a death wish. I don't know whether you're very complex, or just very confused."

"One has nothing to do with the other. Geniuses are just as confused as morons. They're just confused about different things."

"Based on your responses, you're either a genius or a moron, then." Hmmmm. Getting a little testy.

"Yes, I am."

"Which one do you think you are?"

"Both."

I think that was the point at which he gave up on the interview. It might go on a little longer, but he was just going through the motions. He was convinced that I was irrational, and there was nothing to be gained by this exercise. But he was still curious. "Were you this………. ummmm……… different as a child?"

"I don't know. Yeah, maybe."

"Happy?"

"Huh? Now?"

"No, as a child. Were you a happy child?"

"Most of the time, no."

"Why was that?"

"Well, let's see. I was overweight, had bad eyesight, lousy, brown teeth and terrible acne. I was lazy and sloppy. My brother was six years older, so he was always bigger, stronger and faster. My father was smarter, and my mother was popular and funny. I was the youngest in my family, and the youngest among all my cousins and the kids in my neighborhood." (Cough cough.) "So I compensated by being a smartass and a tough little prick. Luckily, I was big for my age." (Cough cough.)

"How were your grades in school?"

"Terrific. Perennial honor role."

"Well, that's something to be proud of."

"Not really. I never worked at it. Never studied. I just absorbed shit, like a dry sponge. Like I said, I was very lazy. I probably could've accomplished a lot more in my life if I'd had any kind of work ethic."

"Is that why you're so negative now? You've adopted this attitude that nobody's life is important because you feel that you've wasted your own?" Very shrewd. I had to give him points for that.

Now it was my turn to pause, to think a little. (Cough cough.) "Maybe, but only partly. There was more to it than that."

"Would you care to expand…………?"

"Well, once upon a time, there was a wonderful poet inside me. But the damn thing died."

He sat back, clicked his ball point a few times, and rose from his seat. "I think that will conclude this interview. Thanks for your time."