JOANNA
Hello, Maria.
MARIA
Hello, Joanne. It is pleasant to go for a walk on a sunny day in Studio City, California. How much more pleasant is it to share a walk with someone such as yourself, namely, a friend who combines a sound character with a lovely face.
JOANNA
I can only agree with your sentiment, Maria, and return the kind words. What topic shall we choose to discuss on our walk?
MARIA
It is fitting for two free women to discuss topics that pertain to the lives of the free, do you not agree?
JOANNE
I do. Let us then eschew base concerns — the obtaining of money and boyfriends and jobs, and like matters.
MARIA
Let us. I propose a topic which is of concern to all free mortals, being perhaps only not of concern to immortal beings, should there be any such. I propose we discuss a thought that has occured to me and has in fact provided me comfort through many an anxious night. Namely, I believe it is possible there may be life after death.
JOANNE
Maria, you surprise me.
MARIA
How so, Joanne?
JOANNE
You have always struck me as a woman of sound intellect and of a courageous disposition and this is one of the reasons that I value your friendship. I can make no sense of the idea that life can continue after death, since life is the action of a material being which upon death dissolves. What meaning can there be in the notion of life continuing after death?
MARIA
It occurs to me that I do not understand how it is that I exist now. Each moment seems to me a precious gift vouchsafed upon me by I do not know what. If it is nonetheless true that I do exist now, how can it be any harder to understand that at some future time I will exist as well.
JOANNE
Allow me to re-state your point so I am be assured of understanding it. Are you saying that just as at some time you did not exist and now you do, so you believe in some future state you will exist in a different fashion than you currently do, although not one that you can currently make sense of.
MARIA
You restate my point better than I am able to state it myself, as an experienced musician is able to take up a tune hummed by one less skilled at the musical art and work it up into a pleasing theme.
JOANNE
But although I have restated it more clearly to my limited comprehension, nevertheless I find I am unable to understand it. I can understand an analogy between two things that exist. I can understand an analogy between a tennis ball and the Earth for example as both resemble each other in some respects, namely sphericality, while at the same time they are dissimilar in other respects such as size and composition. But how can I understand an analogy between our current state of life, including as it does everything we have ever experienced, and some supposed other state? The other state seems to be dissimilar in all ways that can be conceived.
MARIA
Your point hits a mark, but perhaps not the mark you intend.
JOANNE
How so? If I have failed to think clearly as a friend I believe your responsibility to correct me, and if you, out of a misplaced kindness, failed to apply a fittingly astringent punishment to as it were the bare back of my mind, I would count you as no better than an enemy.
MARIA
Then I will apply these scourges quickly in the manner of a physician rather than slowly in the manner of a masseuse, achieving my result emphasizing effectiveness rather than pleasure. Although you cannot conceive of the analogy that I present it is in no way correct that those analogies that cannot be conceived cannot nevertheless be apropos. For example if I discuss to a child how he will feel when he achieves romantic feelings — i speak of a child who has not reached puberty —
JOANNE
I understand–
MARIA
I can state that his love for his mate in the future will be like his love for his mother. This analogy will be entirely beyond him. It is nevertheless true. Just as dinosaurs when subjected to the weight of the Earth over millions of years become the petroleum that fuels our cars…
-END OF FRAGMENT