Classes and Fog.

Voice: It's about time. I've been waiting forever, trying to get your attention.

Weaver: I know it's been a while, but you said that you were always here when I needed you, and I haven't needed you for a while now.

Voice: I take offense to that. I'm your friend too, you know. Not just your confidante.

Weaver: I know. I said I'm sorry.

Voice: Apology accepted.

Weaver: You certainly succeeded in getting my attention though, I have to say. All this mist is a beautiful thing.

Voice: The mist was Vancouver. I just helped you see me in it.

Weaver: Aside from the fact that I can't see you at all... How could I not? I've been heading towards this my entire life. I wonder if that's what all this obsession with mist all these years has been about. People look around outside and shrug, continuing on their normal paths. Some are too oblivious to even really notice the splendor in it. Some have lived with it forever and are jaded, and still others simply look around at the inaction of everybody else and mimic it, ruthlessly subduing their natural inclination to stop and admire it.

Voice: But such will always be people.

Weaver: The other day on the bus, watching them sluggishly refuse to move to the back and make room, I could help but think that they're all useless sheep.

Voice: All of them? Really?

Weaver: Pretty much. I don't want to have contempt for the human race in general, but sometimes...

Voice: Look below the surface skin and see the individual talents. Everyone has a purpose. Everyone has a role to play.

Weaver: I suppose.

Voice: Is this really why you came back to see me?

Weaver: To be honest, I'm not sure why I came back to see you. Just lonely, I guess. So much has changed so fast. And yet not fast at all. I've been preparing for this my whole life.

Voice: Preparing to move out and go to University?

Weaver: Not quite... Although I've been preparing to move out for some time. But it feels like my entire life has been training and finally I've moved into the last legs: practical application of knowledge.

Voice: What is University, if not practical?

Weaver: It's showing me the other side so that I can reject it. It's showing me that I'm capable of pursuing, but not meant to live in, this academic world.

Voice: Are you enjoying these lessons?

Weaver: Very much so, in some ways. And I love Vancouver so much, I feel so much like I belong here, and despite the occasional sheeplike quality that the masses have, I like the population here in general. Kellin loves it too, and it's good for him.... And I love him.

Voice: Then what's the problem?

Weaver: The problem is that I only have him. I would love some friends... Well, that's not true. I don't want friends... I want more family. I'm finding it harder and harder to translate from offhand banter to close friendship. I don't want to have to deal with people in order to get to the close friend stage.

Voice: Nothing worth having comes free. Suck it up or stop bitching.

Weaver: Okay, let me rephrase that... I haven't really met anyone that I want to make that effort for. Or anyone who seems to want to make that effort for me. And the few possibilities that I've had... it just didn't happen. There was no mesh.

Voice: Well, the way I see it, there are two possibilities... The first is that one of you didn't try hard enough, or you didn't open up and let them in. The other is that it just wasn't there, and no matter how hard either of you try, if it's just not there then it's just not there.

Weaver: Which do you think it is?

Voice: I think you answered your own question before, when you said there was no mesh. Sometimes one will form by chance or time, but if it doesn't... what can you really do?

Weaver: That's what I was asking you.

Voice: You can continue to try, and put it out there. How much you work at it is up to you. The more you do, the more chance you have of stumbling upon it, but also the more energy you'll use up in the process.

Weaver: A fair trade, I suppose.

Voice (beginning to fade): Was that all?

Weaver: Not quite. I just want to talk a little. Possibly at you, if not with you.

Voice: There's no time here. Speak all you want.

Weaver: It's getting faster. The spiral is getting smaller.

Voice: Downward spirals always get smaller at the bottom. It's their nature.

Weaver: It's getting smaller, and all of us here who are drifting along it are spinning quicker. It's driving people insane.

Voice: There's always a balance.

Weaver: Yes, some people are rising to the occasion. It seems like everyone is drifting to either one side or another... the grey area is shrinking too. It's not long now until we hit the bottom.

Voice: Where are you going with this?

Weaver: I don't know. Just feel the need to comment on it every once in a while. I look around at the papers and everything turned on it's ear. When I first heard the Olympics were coming to Vancouver I was so excited. They came to Montreal a decade or more before I was born and they came to Calgary only a few years before. I thought that they were finally catching up to me in Van.

Voice: My guess that the spinning of the spiral changed something.

Weaver: Yes, of course. It changes everything. All of a sudden I question the Olympics themselves. What are they? A chance for athletes to prove their skills, certainly. But there are separate events that mean as much or more to the individual sports.

Voice: They don't have it all together in one place.

Weaver: But who cares if they're together in one place? I'll tell you who... the media. The advertising people, and therefore the entire population. And that's what's making them cling so tenuously to an event that has no purpose other than to help enslave the masses.

Voice: That's a strong term.

Weaver: You haven't read the papers. The economy's going down the shithole, whether from actual recession or just public paranoia, and the city is spending more and more and more every week on underbudgeted costs for the Olympics. They're asking to 'temporarily' suspend the public's right to vote on whether or not they can take more money to fill these extra costs. Because there was some sort of kerfuffle over who got to vote for Vancouver to have the Olympics in the first place, this issue is dividing the province somewhat.

Voice: And people are standing for this?

Weaver: People are divided. That's a problem. It makes me wonder whether it will be these Olympics that break Vancouver.

Voice: It makes sense.

Weaver: Let's look at Van. BC is years ahead of other provinces for being Green, and the people are mostly tuned in. People are prepared (generally) for what's to come. The climate's changing, but not radically.

Voice: Then how did this Olympic thing come into being?

Weaver: Tuned in doesn't mean there aren't capitalist pigs, useless sheep, and all the other little bits and pieces that make up society. And all of the Olympic building is based on projected income that the Games will generate. But what if the Games don't generate it? What if in the end the Games only do exactly what they look like they're doing now: choke the city to death? The games are in 2010... That's long enough to really get themselves even more fucked into a hole than they are. But the worst effects usually aren't felt right away. What if they just hide the symptoms and it festers, getting worse until in 2012 shit just... collapses? Or something similar?

Voice: It could happen.

Weaver: I'm afraid it will happen. I know I'm supposed to be here for a reason, and not just because here is where I fit. It needs me as much as I need it.

Voice: I guess we'll see.

Weaver: I guess we will... I've got to go now.

Voice: I know. You said what you needed to.

Weaver: I'll be back.

Voice: I know. You'll be back when you need to be. I'll be here.

Weaver: I'm sorry it's been so long.

Voice: Waiting isn't so bad as all of that. There's no time here, and I watch.

Weaver: I love you.

Voice (fading): I love you too.

Lah.