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Portrait of an apocalypse
V.: If I could, then what I would do is erase everything that we've ever done, and go back to the beginning, to a fresh page, and start all over again with a new pencil and a fat eraser for big mistakes, like Hitler and, say, Dollywood.
M.: To the beginning? Like, the Adam and Eve beginning?
V.: If you believe in all that, then, yeah. If you don't, then all the way back to the moment we had our first conscious thought.
M.: Why?
V.: Because what we are today, what we have become, is just ugly and perverted and dirty and grimy and clingy and weepy and angry and...and hurty.
M.: Hurty.
V.: Well, hurtful. But you know what I mean.
M.: Yes, but: erase it all and we wouldn't ever know again what we know now.
V.: Sure we would. Human knowledge takes the same path.
M.: But it might take longer. What if, say, Watson and Crick don't discover DNA because their lab catches fire or something? What if Michael Jordan can't play basketball because his mother stumbles and he drops and becomes crippled? What if there is no Watson or Crick or Jordan because you went back to the beginning and changed everything?
V.: It would be a good thing. Trust me. We would idolize other people and have new great minds. We would discover all of the same things and maybe more. What if our great minds now are limited, are compromised? We might never know about things like Flabilliosis Gummoxer because they're not thinking far enough outside of the box.
M.: Fla...nevermind.
V.: You get what I'm saying? I mean: come on. We could undo the whole Adam-ate-the-apple thing, probably, if it really happened. We could decide to be vegetarians from birth, and avoid getting eaten by things we're trying to eat.
M.: Okay, but: you wouldn't exist anymore.
V.:
M.: You see? You erase it all, you erase it all.
V.: ... Wait, but I wouldn't know that I didn't exist, because I wouldn't exist. It wouldn't be a problem. Think about how many people don't exist right now. You don't hear them whining about it, do you?
M.: There might be no ice cream, because someone wouldn't think about mixing eggs and milk and all that other weird stuff and freezing it to just so and then sinking it in root beer. Because there wouldn't be root beer, either.
V.: You're missing the point. We could create new ice creams. We could create new great things. We wouldn't know about the old stuff, because it would've been erased, and therefore, we wouldn't miss it.
M.: Okay, how about this. No Nicole Kidman.
V.:
M.:
V.:
M.:
V.:
M.:
V.:
M.: That's what I thought.
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