“Wait a moment,” the man says, as if he were interrupting Neena, who hasn’t said a single word since this interview began (so this is still the interview from before, or a second one?). Her resolute silence may not be as significant as it might first appear inasmuch as not a single question has been asked of her in all this time, however long this time has been, at least not anything that Neena might have reasonably recognized as a question.
She watches, both curious and squeamish, as the man slowly, almost too slowly to be endured, sharpens a pencil with the cuticle blade of a small pen-knife, seemingly with the ludicrous intention of removing the unwanted wood in one continuous shaving, like one might peel an apple, or even a potato, in some senseless demonstration of dexterity. Suddenly the man laughs, for no discernible reason, a short, harsh, barking noise, like a bull-seal with laryngitis. On second thought, the abrupt sound may not be a laugh at all; perhaps it is an order, or even a request of some kind, intended for a subordinate outside the room, or standing unseen behind Neena. Then again, upon continued reflection, maybe it is a laugh, after all, the kind that refers to nothing in particular, just something that bubbles up from time to time, unidentifiable emotional flotsam left-over from a decaying memory submerged deep beneath the surface. Useless, it is, to speculate any further…
A hidden fan turns on automatically, and then stops, according to some pre-established schedule, synchronized to nothing discernible in the atmosphere or temperature of the room. Neena is left musing, vaguely, what makes her automatically assume it’s a fan, since, as she herself noted, it is hidden.
She is so obsessed in these senseless reflections and others exactly like them, wondering if the room itself is real, for instance, or just an empty space hastily enclosed between portable cardboard walls, like a temporary stage-set for street mimes, that she entirely misses what the man says next, which is just as well, because, truthfully, she’s not certain that he’s said anything at all.
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