– Did it hurt?
– Say what?
– Did it hurt?
– Did it hurt.
– When you fell off the table.
– Oh har.
– Hold on I’ll have one of them pilsners and what are you having.
– I’ll have some of yours.
– A pilsner please so anyway…
– Yeah what do you think, yes it hurt.
– At least you fell on the cushion.
– To be perfectly honest I thought you would catch me.
– I do seem to, don’t I.
– You do seem to yes.
– Here you go. In your special glass which I keep chilled for such occasions.
– Thanks. You always catch me.
– In a special pouch I have devised that keeps your glass chilled. I do. I do always catch you.
– Why do you always catch me?
– I think the question could be posited, why are you always caught?
– Because you always catch me!
– You could not be caught. You could be not-caught.
– How.
– You could leave.
– How.
– I could get up to go to the men’s room and you could leave.
– How.
– I’m just saying it could happen.
– All sorts of things ‘might happen’.
– I’m just saying.
– I could fall off the table again.
– Please don’t.
– How.
– How should you not fall off the table? I’m no expert, but
– No, how could I leave.
– I could fall asleep.
– Here? At the bar? Is it that kind of date?
– No, at home.
– How am I supposed to climb all that way down?
– A daring escape maybe.
– On my hoverboard no doubt.
– A moonless midnight. I’m asleep. Or am I? But you can’t wait. You squeeze between the bars and
– On my… on my ultra-light.
– No trace left behind. Three black rose petals left by my head, on the pillow.
– With only my trusty Cracker Jack decoder ring to aid me.
– It could happen.
– Anything could happen, yes.
– Anything could happen.
– Anything could happen.
– I believe tonight is proof of this.
– This is certainly anything.
– A ton santé.
– It’s presumptuous to use the informal is it not?
– Is it that sort of date?
– Kidnapping is that sort of date, yes.
– Is it kidnapping when you’re asking for it?
– Right, my huge neon sign that says CHECK OUT MY STOCKHOLM SYNDROME.
– I could get that on a t-shirt for you.
– Kidnapping is a serious crime in California. If convicted, you face up to 11 years in state prison and a strike on your criminal record under California’s Three Strikes law. (18 U.S.C. Section 1201)
– So beautiful and so fierce.
– I googled it.
– So resourceful.
– Are you growing?
– We’re not in California though, are we.
– Are you growing?
– And I’m not going to take you to California. I don’t know anything about California. A weird peninsula off the eastern coast of Brobdingnag.
– Am I shrinking?
– Here’s what I know about California: nothing.
– Answer me!
– I am not and you are not. That is ridiculous.
– Why is this happening? Why are you so fucking big?
– We signed up for the same flash dating service I think.
– That’s why you’re so big?
– That is a pre-existing condition.
– What are some other pre-existing conditions?
– Diabetes. The heartbreak of psoriasis. Idiopathic arthralgia. This list is not complete.
– So tell me.
– I am so big because you are so small.
– Is that solipsism?
– I don’t think so. That would be “you are small because I am so big”.
– I feel tiny.
– Tell me what that feels like.
– I thought I knew what tiny was. I’m 5’1”. Nope. Not even close.
– What do I look like?
– To be perfectly honest, you look good. I would probably give you a second glance. Third and fourth glances? Not outside of the realm of possibility.
– My heart sings.
– However the number of glances I give you has been taken out of my hands.
– My heart sings loud hosannas.
– In fact the number of glances I give you is in your hands.
– Yes I will have another pilsener please how about you?
– I’ll have some of yours. Your immense hands which tore off my roof.
– Like crêpe paper.
– I sent my info to this stupid fucking dating website and you tore off my roof.
– If I recall it didn’t cost anything.
– The roof? I replaced the roof three years ago and it did in fact cost something.
– The website.
– Small mercy.
– I think if you pay to have yourself kidnapped the police get confused.
– So why does my smallness have anything to do with you being so big?
– It doesn’t and it does.
– Thank you Oracle of Delphi.
– I mean I was big before I ever knew who you were. When I was born, even then you would have fit in my hand.
– Oh God baby hands are gross you think they’ll be soft and pink and they’re all smeared and they smell like [waves dismissively].
– Pardon?
– [waves dismissively]
– In any case.
– And now you’re a big boy.
– Well I had no idea how big.
– How is that even possible.
– I’m not even the tallest person on my block. I’ve never been the tallest person.
– So that’s why you’ve kidnapped me?
– I didn’t kidnap you.
– Oh, is it that kind of date?
– You could have hidden. Or ran.
– I was in bed.
– People in bed do amazing things every day. Francis Poulenc wrote “Litanies à la Vièrge Noire” in bed.
– I was asleep.
– So was he.
– Whoops I don’t think it was “Litanies à la Vièrge Noire”, I think.
– The ceiling bursts asunder. When ‘asunder’ gets used you know nothing good is happening.
– It was “Vexations” comes to think of it.
– That was Satie. A brief moment where I can see the full moon before it’s blotted out.
– There was a great article in the New Yorker about it.
– With astounding agility for such monstrous fingers, the bed sheet is plucked away from me. I am naked in the light of the full moon with only my book to cover my lusciousness.
– This guy my sister knows has a cousin who played “Vexations” the full six hundred or whatever times and his eyeballs turned black.
– The book is a new translation of The Life of Gargantua and of Pantagruel.
– That wasn’t in the New Yorker. That was something my sister told me.
– It was then that I knew I was small.
– It was then that I knew I was big.
– It was then that I was taken here.
– It was then that I took you here.
– It was then that I was placed in my bed in a cage of ivory.
– It was then that I placed you in your bed in a cage of ivory.
– It was then that I knew that every fairy tale was true.
– It was then that I knew that every fairy tale was true.
– It was then that I spent one hundred days and one hundred nights singing one hundred songs.
– It was then that I spent one hundred days and one hundred nights hearing one hundred angels.
– It was then that you took me here to a chain bar I do not recognize.
– It was then that I had a coupon for double appetizers, yes.
– It was then that I discovered that I did not know every fairy tale.
– New fairy tales are written every day.
– Do they usually involve felony?
– Every fairy tale ever written involves at least one felony. Every fairy tale is the story of a felony.
– Is it that kind of date?
– A ton santé.