Richie was mildly disoriented when he realized he and Dave were the same person. This sort of cognitive moment tends to undermine a guy's sense of self. But it didn't stop there. When Richie looked around the room, he realized he was also Kate and Lorraine and Ted and Lenny. Heck, he was also the dying philodendran on the windowsill. Suddenly he felt enormous compassion for all these variations on himself, or rather "ourself", which he thought was a more appropriate label. The pain of loneliness and the fear of death were suddenly swept away by this one blinding flash of insight. It was so obvious! There are no separate forms of life. Life was life, just sort of wandering around looking at itself, loving itself, and unfortunately killing itself. Which is when Richie woke up, shit, showered and shaved, went to work, worried about nonsense, drove home, watched a supposedly funny show, had a stiff drink and went to sleep again.
posted by 123454321 at 7:46 PM