(This takes place as Javier gets to know The Archivist, the first new person they’ve met in some time.)

(Cat purring & recorder whirrs, fade in on:)

JAVIER: I'm not really scared by any of it anymore. I think when I couldn’t talk about it, that was when it scared me the most. Because I’d think of the last moment I saw my sister and think, what if this happens to everyone else I know, and that secret horrible thing was just hiding in me and terrifying me. But now that I can say it ...

ARCHIVIST: It doesn’t have so much power.

JAVIER: Exactly. I think a lot of people won’t say the things that matter to them, because they feel like …feel all sorts of things. Maybe … like it matters less once it’s out there, like describing something makes it simple. But you can try to describe something for a thousand years and it’ll never be perfect, but that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t try. So --
(laughs)
That’s my very long-winded answer. Sorry.

ARCHIVIST: No, this is great. This is great. I completely agree. I want to talk about things. I want to stop being scared of what already happened. I don’t know how that even -- it doesn’t make sense.

JAVIER: Okay, then.

ARCHIVIST: Okay.

JAVIER: Where were you from, before everything?

(The Archivist takes a deep breath and hits stop on the recorder. The whirring ends.)

ARCHIVIST: Baltimore.

JAVIER: Yeah?
(beat)
Did you like it?

ARCHIVIST: I loved it.

JAVIER: How long’s it been since you talked about it?

ARCHIVIST: Thirteen years.

(The flickering of the fire rises, then fades into music.)