Free The Sunset Limited: A Novel in Dramatic Form by Cormac McCarthy Page A

and stay off the express. Stay on the platform with your fellow commuter. You might even want to nod at him. Maybe even say hello. All of them is travelers too. And they’s some of em been places that most people dont want to go to. They didnt neither. They might even tell you how they got there andmaybe save you a trip you’ll be thankful you didnt take.
White
   
Yes. Well, that’s not going to happen.
Black
   
Why not?
White
   
Because I dont believe in that world. I just want to take the train. Look, why dont I just go?
Black
   
How about some more coffee?
White
   
No thank you.
Black
   
What can I do?
White
   
Maybe you just need to accept that you’re in over your head.
Black
   
I do accept it. It dont let me off the hook though.
White
   
You think I dont understand. But I’m not sure you’d want to listen to the things I do understand.
Black
   
Try me.
White
   
It would just upset you.
Black
   
I been upset before.
White
   
It’s worse than you think.
Black
   
That’s all right.
White
   
You dont want to hear this.
Black
   
Yes I do. I got no choice.

The professor leans back and studies the black.
White
   
Okay. Maybe you’re right. Well, here’s my news, Reverend. I yearn for the darkness. I pray for death. Real death. If I thought that in death I would meet the people I’ve known in life I dont know what I’d do. That would be the ultimate horror. The ultimate despair. If I had to meet my mother again and start all of that all over, only this time without the prospect of death to look forward to? Well. That would be the final nightmare. Kafka on wheels.
Black
   
Damn, Professor. You dont want to see you own mama?
White
   
No. I dont. I told you this would upset you. I want the dead to be dead. Forever. And Iwant to be one of them. Except that of course you cant be one of them. You cant be one of the dead because what has no existence can have no community. No community. My heart warms just thinking about it. Silence. Blackness. Aloneness. Peace. And all of it only a heartbeat away.
Black
   
Damn, Professor.
White
   
Let me finish. I dont regard my state of mind as some pessimistic view of the world. I regard it as the world itself. Evolution cannot avoid bringing intelligent life ultimately to an awareness of one thing above all else and that one thing is futility.
Black
   
Mm. If I’m understandin you right you sayin that everbody that aint just eat up with the dumb-ass ought to be suicidal.
White
   
Yes.
Black
   
You aint shittin me?
White
   
No. I’m not shitting you. If people saw the world for what it truly is. Saw their lives for what they truly are. Without dreams or illusions. I dont believe they could offer the firstreason why they should not elect to die as soon as possible.
Black
   
Damn, Professor.
White
   
(Coldly)
I dont believe in God. Can you understand that? Look around you man. Cant you see? The clamor and din of those in torment has to be the sound most pleasing to his ear. And I loathe these discussions. The argument of the village atheist whose single passion is to revile endlessly that which he denies the existence of in the first place. Your fellowship is a fellowship of pain and nothing more. And if that pain were actually collective instead of simply reiterative then the sheer weight of it would drag the world from the walls of the universe and send it crashing and burning through whatever night it might yet be capable of engendering until it was not even ash. And justice? Brotherhood? Eternal life? Good god, man. Show me a religion that prepares one for death. For nothingness. There’s a church I might enter. Yours prepares one only for more life. For dreams and illusions and lies. If you could banish the fear of death from men’s hearts they wouldnt live a day. Who would want this nightmare if not for fear of the next? The shadow of the axe hangs over every joy. Every