We are fulfilled only when we aspire to nothing, when we are impregnated by that nothing to the point of intoxication—EM Cioran
We wake the next morning to Kimmie begging for food.
"I haven't eaten in days!"
"That's because I don't want anything in your gastrointestinal system when I shoot you 'cause you might shit yourself and I wouldn't want you to be embarrassed while you're dead."
"Is that true?" Anna says.
"No," I say. "I just haven't had time to go to the store."
Miss Miller laughs.
"Can you feed her?" I ask.
"We're out of almost everything."
"What aren't we out of."
"Peanuts."
"Would you please feed her some peanuts?"
Kimmie hears this from the other room.
"I'm tired of fucking peanuts!"
"Well. Beggars can't be choosers."
"I'm not a beggar—I'm a hostage!"
"They always get an attitude like this after a certain amount of time," I say to Anna.
"You want me to go to the store?"
"No! We can't be seen around town right now. After we do her we're—"
"Getting on a plane?"
"—Fuck no. You think we're going anywhere near an airport?"
"We're driving."
"Yeah."
"To Uruguay."
"We're gonna have to go soon. The rock field is getting full."
"We're driving to Uruguay?"
"Damn right."
"You're not kidding, are you."
"I am not kidding."
"What will we do for money?"
"I have money."
"How do you have money? All you do is sit around your house and look at girls' vaginas under a microscope!"
"Well. I used to execute contracts."
"Execute?"
"It's really best not to ask questions, Anna."
Anna scowls at me.
"Do you want details?"
"No no no no no no no. I don't want any details on contracts you used to execute. I just want to know we're taken care of."
"We're taken care of."
"Good."
She kisses me on the cheek.
Then she goes to the crate to check on Kimmie.
"Did you get her peanuts?"
"Yeah."
"Is she happy?"
"Yeah. She's real happy. She and George Washington Carver are having a picnic in there. He's explaining his three-hundred fifty uses for peanuts and every time he does one she flashes her pussy as a sign of appreciation."
"Jesus, you're jaded."
"Are we really going to Uruguay?"
"I'd like to."
"Ok, well I'd like to help. And I don't mean with the driving. I wanna be equal partners in what we do. With the girls."
"Equal partners all the way to the end?"
"Yeah. All the way to the end."
"Are you ready for that?"
"It doesn't even scare me. Why is that?"
"Do you want my professional opinion?"
"I'd like your professorial opinion, if you have one."
Anna's eyes flash.
"It's because..there are things much scarier than serial killers and torture murderers and so forth—all those things are natural to humans..they're part of human nature. There are things..events..on this planet far scarier than you and I."
"Alien abductions?"
"No."
"Why not?"
"Because you know all about them. They don't challenge your imagination. Think of the thing that challenges your imagination the most..and there..you will find the scariest thing there is."