We are smoking cigarettes on the front porch. It's 25 degrees and it's hard to tell our breath from the smoke. I say:

"The thing is, that's what I used to do. Write about me. About us."

"Yeah. I miss it."

"I can't anymore. It's like I've done that. And now I can't. It's boring to me. And it also just freaks me out."

"Yeah."

"And so I do this new thing. Which is just so meta...the narrator within the narrator within the narrator...god."

"You think people get that?"

"I don't know. If they do, they probably think I'm trying too hard to be clever. But it's just what's coming out..."

You draw on your cigarette the way you do. Loudly. Exhale. You say:

"Hmm. Maybe it's all meta. All writing."

The air feels like imminent snow. I say:

"Maybe in some way it is. I suppose it doesn't matter."

"Hmm."

"That's the trouble, really."

"What?"

"That it just doesn't matter."

Category: Nada