#* s2.

wouldn't this all be easier? if he could just, you know, chalk all this up to one big, elaborate joke? oh, he's sure it would be. for someone else, anyone else, some place far, far, ... far away from here. the lucky son of a bitch.  ❝  diane –  ❞  sam begins, pausing for ( for what? she's waiting, you dope! ) just a second, to, well, gather his thoughts. figure out how to put this delicately. try so damn hard not to balloon - burst a laugh straight in her face.  ❝  look, diane –   ❞  and now he's just stalling for time. it's now or never, and every second he takes is a second longer she'll be looking at him like that.  ❝  well, you'd be a worm, diane ...   ❞  he says, plainly, as if this is the wholehearted, eloquent response he's been waiting for.

it isn't. oh, boy, is it not that.

after all of those false starts, tattletales of thoughtful redirections, diane had expected sam to come up with at least something. something she may analyze about him – about them. she hadn’t anticipated keats, no, but she isn’t entirely confident what to make of him restating the, well, components of the hypothetical ( truthfully, she does not wish to ). her brow furls, and it furls, as she looks left, looks right, looks undecidedly at him.

she intends for an even tone, but it enters the air as perplexed, “yes.”

surely it cannot end on the uninspired ground of empiricism: in worms and dirt? ( it isn’t about the worm, sam, but that which the worm conveys of the imagination and philosophies of the person to whom such an object is posed. )