The Believer

We tried until we found it cruel.

We tried until we find it cruel.

We tried until we...

Hey. Come back.

No, I'm totally here, I'm just,

you ever get something stuck in your head, but it's blocked?

Where you can feel it, but you can't rationalize

how it's in your head in the first place?

So no, my mind wasn't wandering.

I actually heard every word you said in your little rant.

I was just thinking of that lullaby.

Tried until we find it cruel.

And though you make a good case

against moderate centrist liberalism,

The fact that you can chop off the moral feet

of the left wing doesn't thereby mean

you've solidified the rank.

You lost me.

Why are they calling themselves

the party of family values?

I'm saying they don't care about half the people

in the equation, which they are saying.

They're saying God doesn't care about half the people

in the equation.

As if God's not gonna provide compassion

to those who deserve it.

Well, who says that everyone deserves compassion?

I think the mistake people make is to think

that everyone deserves compassion.

As if there are no consequences.

But if I'm the creator and I made you,

I'm gonna automatically care about you

because I made you.

You make a batch of muffins.

You like every muffin you make? Ever made a bad muffin?

You're really comparing the human race to a bakery,

are you?

I don't like how our political divide

seems to bleed into our dinner table.

Wow, really?

What?

You just pulled away, twice.

No, I didn't.

You'd crucify me if I did that, just saying.

It's not true.

Why are we always fighting?

We're not.

- Yes. - Not always.

Ever since the thing.

Don't say that.

Ever since the thing?

Can we just be nice to each other for an evening?

Yeah.

Good.

That's exactly my...

'Cause I don't like all this back and forth.

Great.

So?

Will you?

Will I?

Stop fighting?

Oh my God. I'm not the one who's fighting.

You're, you're fighting. I'm saying we need to calm down...

Luke.

When you say that I need to stop fighting

like I'm the sole perpetrator,

it's like you're dumping all this shit on me.

Why are you so closed minded?

I'm saying that you need to take responsibility,

that we need to stay grounded.

Don't go there.

Why?

At the end of the day, current events aside,

abstract rhetoric aside, that's what I'm wanting to know,

why you did what you did last month.

And this is a recurring problem?

Recurring?

It's to the point where I can't even remember

what normal looked like.

Can't remember if we ever had a normal.

It's like she's been insane since the dawn of man.

When's the last time you told her

that you'd like the two of you to express more love?

I know, I get that you're telling me not to point fingers,

that I should be more self-reflecting,

and there's two sides to every story.

Done.

That I'm projecting childhood trauma or abandonment issues

and a self-fulfilling prophecy of shame.

I'm not here to be that voice.

I'm here to tell you genuinely, yes, it hurts.

Isolation hurts.

When she crawls into bed, stays on her side.

When she doesn't laugh at your cute jokes.

She doesn't use kind words, yeah.

And I'm still unemployed.

Not the sexiest thing to whisper to a woman.

Two minutes, 14 seconds.

But when you emerge into this world

as a human being, you get issued a set of problems.

Now, to deny those problems is to deny your essence.

I'm not here to tell you you're weak for wanting love.

I'm here to tell ya that you're human.

So you'll do it? You'll prescribe hypnosis?

No. What I'm saying is that...

Two minutes, 14 seconds means I'm continuing

to lose cognitive function and aphasia,

and I'm weak, I'm so weak.

You literally know more psychological terms

- than I do. - Women are attracted

to robust men, yet I'm about to suffocate her.

My endocrine system and skeletal structure

are continuing to show quantifiable regression,

- and there's this. - It's a maze.

- It's just a maze. - It's not just a maze.

No, it is literally a maze.

It is not proof of psychological decay.

Look, Lucas.

What makes you think we're not in the midst

of hypnosis right now?

Um, we're, we're not, but that's my point.

Your brain, by your own admission, is so scrambled

you can't keep track of what's what.

And that's fine in the safety of an office, but at home,

alone with a woman who you think has wronged you.

She didn't wrong me.

I'm about to suffocate her.

It's not the first time you brought that up.

Hm.

Yeah, it's a medical condition,

but it's not like polio or cancer.

Can they even ask that though?

Isn't that against employment law or California law?

Yeah, I was down for a couple of weeks feeling feeble

but I'm a whole lot better now, high energy even.

It's a medical condition,

but it's not like medical, medical as in.

Uh-huh.

No, no no no no.

It's, it's nothing like that.

Mentally, I'm alert.

It's just physically I'm not gonna be an inside linebacker

anytime soon.

Right.

Listen, thanks.

I'll send you my updated resume

and if anything's to come up then you, uh-huh.

Yeah, just keep me in the rotation.

Thanks.

What?

What?

I don't think you're being safe.

Not safe. Okay.

It's a book.

About angels and demons here on Earth.

Fighting.

And?

And I'm not thrilled to see this.

What, that I've taken the time

to find a credible reference?

That you're still living in denial.

My eyes are open.

Great.

Are yours? Are your eyes open?

Credible reference, this?

There are testimonials, documentaries, citation.

Okay. I need to make something very clear to you...

You don't believe in hope?

Not in the way that you frame it.

I've firmly regarded, and please listen carefully,

'cause I'm gonna say this over and over until I puke.

I firmly regard what you did last month

as your own conscious and selfish choice.

I'm offering you profound wisdom.

It was your own choice, Violet.

You said that already.

Not a demon, or a demon's manipulation of you.

Fine.

So when you come at me with these allegories

and these schoolyard fables, I just want you to know

that I'm over here, cringing.

Cringing at the disrespect that's being shown

to the institution of logic itself.

As if logic is a sacred shrine,

and you're desecrating that shrine.

Logic is not a shrine.

Logic isn't the enemy of faith.

Logic can be its bodyguard.

You took the heart out of faith.

You took the life out of our child.

No, I didn't.

Lucas, I moved him in another direction.

I used ideals beyond mankind's common understanding.

Can you not dwell on something

you're not willing to study objectively.

There was a life here.

Don't touch me.

And now that life is gone.

It's not in my womb, but that doesn't mean

it ceased to exist.