Achilles: I am mad. I wish them dead. All of them. There are already a few million dead, but they were the wrong ones. Why is it that only the wrong ones get massacred?
Tortoise: The Veda that you are reading is souring your mind, I told you this before. You have a ridiculously early morning flight tomorrow that takes you from your paradise to the entrails of that province in the north hat you do not want to call home. You can not escape! Stop trying! Go to sleep!
Achilles: Have I lost it all this time? You are harassing me! You are tormenting me! I do not know if I am holding my breath and waiting for you to disappear, or if I am just waiting for you to croak over and encounter death. And it is true that here I feel at home, and there I feel foreign. It is true that here I am embraced by adored muses. I do not like perfection and manicured cobble stones over there, I like rot and decay here. You, I never cared for you!
Tortoise: Your care or lack thereof has never impressed me, much less even if it is about me that you do not care. What blessing to not be cared for by you! You can not even care for yourself! I am here, you have nobody else, and that flight will go with or without you. This is not Lisbon, and you know it. You just chose to ignore the truth, and reality is never a thing that impressed you or made a dent in your thinking. Should I ask you the hard questions?
Achilles: Genius! You are here to ask me the hard questions! You are here to keep me company! I am mad, you know that. Was I born mad? Tell me! Will somebody tell me if I was already mad when I screamed at the stench of air in my lungs for the first time? Air, how can animals breathe the stuff? Fish suffocate on it! Do you remember when I was born? Where you there already then? Now I am just furious. Furious. That is all, furious. Thank you and that flight is going to be awfully early tomorrow and sleep is for the dead.
Tortoise: I remember you from way back when. I know your gentle fury better than you can imagine that anybody may know you. I have watched you dancing at night. I have seen you seduce the innocent and then at the last minute, you smile, and leave them to their innocence. You leave the innocent in pain. Most would have rather have had the abuse of your insolence, than the pain of your abandonment.
Achilles: If I listen to you I would think that you are describing a monster. Are you describing a human monster. Am I that monster that you describe? I know to know you, and I know where you came from. But that you would speak of me now so, I do wonder if you do not have me confused with some other…
Tortoise: Love is a possibility that you have considered. Still, you are the one who leaves them aroused and wanting. You control it all, you even control their breath, and then you just ignore it all. I do not understand your pleasure, and I do not understand your love. I have seen you. I have seen your pain. I have seen you laugh in pain.
Achilles: Pathetic! I have no love. I will not love. I refuse, I do not believe in love. One has to believe in it, if it is going to be happening. I do not believe. Not in death either.
Tortoise: There is no fear in you. Where have you lost your fear? You have nothing that you believe in, do you?
Achilles: Fear. Death. Love. Tell me you old fool, tell me… why would I want to believe?
Tortoise: Heuristics, you old tattle! Return to your heuristics, then learn fear. Tomorrow is here.
public man 