JESS: Hey, Martha. In a… metaphysical sense, I guess, as you are not here, neither will you hear this.
I’ve been gone… [SIGH] I don’t know. It's hard to tell these days. I know we’ve had our long-running “time is fake” joke that became less and less of a joke the longer I thought about it but– it's- … it’s never been more apparent than it is now.
I remembered the other day I had a professor once teach us that time is meaningless, in mostly a scientific sense, without a reference point. That the truly immeasurable and indeterminate procession of existence, the culmination of the past, present, and future and the weight of it all, is really just a measurement we use to have a sense of scope or scale. And that it really doesn’t matter because most of ‘time’, if we’re looking at it as a quantifiable thing that has been happening and happening and will continue to happen, most of it has happened in ways that we cannot even fathom. Time is so immense that we actually can’t understand it, and our part in which we are aware of it is really so brief in the grand scheme of things that… is there really a point in abiding it? [SIGHS]
This phone, miraculously, is still mostly working. Enough to do this, at least. It has stopped displaying dates and times. It's just– blank where those things used to be. But I think the sun was supposed to rise a while ago. Call it a weird gut-feeling.
I didn’t sleep a wink last night, tonight, maybe, but it's still dark. So I guess there’s time. [FAINT LAUGH] Whatever that means.
[SNIFFLE]
I’m holed up right now in what used to be someone’s house. It was weird, the way it was still standing amidst rotten and picked over piles of rubble. It's not in like, perfect or even good condition by any means, but… it's something of a house. It used to be a home.
I’m too scared to go up to the uh, second floor, in case there’s structural damage. Or things I don’t want to find. I’ve really avoided any room that’s not the living room or the kitchen. It's just– instinctively, that feels important. Closed doors should stay closed sometimes. Doors that should never be opened.
Anyways, I um… I had [SIGH. BREATH] I had an awful terrible thought yesterday. It's why I didn’t sleep. I’m scared to say it but it's been weighing down on me so much and I don’t know if just getting it out there will be better than keeping it in and letting it fester and stew but…
Sometimes… When the silence is especially heavy and I think too long about the emptiness and the coldness of this world… [INHALE]
I think I might be dead.
[INHALE]
Maybe I died. [SNIFF] I’m pretty sure I didn’t. I’m pretty sure I remember what happened but… it's really easy to believe sometimes.
[WIND STARTS RISING FAINTLY]
I was remembering the other night– cause all I can really do in this place is wander and think and think– and I was remembering Elliot’s phone call. You know, the one he made when he was… and I was thinking about what he said. That he was somewhere. That he was dead but he was somewhere and it was a place.
And this place, Martha… there is so much lost here. So much… gone. And there’s no one to look for it, no one to find it, no one-…
And is death– this great, undefinable, unknowable dream of a thing– is it maybe just being lost and not looked for?
Or is it just that thinking that I’m dead, and thinking you know I’m dead is easier than thinking that you’re looking for me? That you’re missing me as much as I miss you and– and who knows what happens next?
Doors have been opened and closed and… and this is the doorstep I’ve ended up on.
[SIGH, STATIC AND DISTORTION OVER:]
If this isn’t death, I guess I’ll wander through it ‘til I die; and if it is… I guess I’ll wander still.
Til you forget me.
[STATIC AND WIND, END]