by Tommy Dakar
'I hope he finds what he's looking for.'
'What is he looking for?'
'What we all are, I suppose, a few threads, a handful of common denominators, something to make it all a little easier to accept.'
'He's going the wrong way about it, then. The answers, if there are any, lie with us, with people. He's just getting off the track by living alone like that. Getting cold.'
'Maybe. But maybe he thinks there's more to it than just humanity. Maybe he's right, maybe it's necessary to make a contact with nature again, like reassessing the situation. Perhaps we are too removed from it all.'
'It's possible, but I'm not convinced either that we are out-of-touch with our roots or that even if we are it's a bad thing.'
'It's not a question of good or bad, I don't think, not for him anyway. It's more a question of understanding. He's confused, he doesn't understand a city. To him it's like a cancer.'
'And he's looking for a cure. Or rather, he's pretending that the disease doesn't exist. He's simply run off to hide, hasn't he?'
'I don't think so, I don't think he's forgotten that he was born in a large town or that he spent ten years working in a city. It's too ingrained, maybe even goes too deep for him to be able to survive out there. But I doubt it. No, I don't think he's running way. Rather I think he's searching for something and he thinks he'll find it there, alone.'
'That's another thing, why alone? I believe that if there is anything to understand, if you must ask and then answer 'why?', then you have to live among people. Isolation can solve nothing. After all, humanity is a group thing."
'That's fine if you are sure of yourself, or if you feel capable of communicating, but Richard's not like that, he's confused and a loner. He was always uneasy in company, even with me in some ways, I never seemed to get through to him.'
'I am a rock, I am an island.'
'More or less. He feels it will decide something. At least he made the attempt, I quite admire him.'
'Did he ask you to go with him?'
'No. He knew I wouldn't, and he knew he shouldn't, too. It was alone or not at all.'
'Why? Is he incapable of love?'
'No. No, it's just that he can't understand how beauty and filth can coexist. Love and torture were two opposites he couldn't reconcile.'
'Do you think he'll stick it out?'
'I know he will. Either until he feels able to return, or never. He's doing it for a reason, he won't finish until he's resolved his purpose.'
'Do you miss him?'
(Pause)
'I wish him the best, nothing but the best.'