The day is ours, said G.
All these years later, and nothing much has been done, said R.
About it, said G.
Thanks to you, said R.
And us, said G.
Mostly you, said R. Let the record show: it was mostly you.
Clambering up, G. assumed a feral squatting position atop my charge’s chest.
Don’t give in, pal, he hissed down at my charge. Though the seas may rise and the mountains turn to mud and subsume the farms and the forests burn and entire prairies be denuded and through sleeping cities race the very flames of Hell—
You didn’t do it, said R., scrambling up adeptly onto the shoulders of his ferally squatting friend.
You did not do it, said G.
And even if, it turns out, you did do it? said R. Or contributed to it disproportionally? By pointedly refusing to use your considerable power to, even in the slightest way, acknowledge, stop, or slightly slow it—
Admit no wrongdoing, said G.
Nobody can touch you, said R. Unless you recant. The world’s still out there, filled with our enemies, bitching as usual. Let them flail! You stand at the threshold of the next world, dear friend, victorious and unrebuked.
Leap, said G.
Leap across, intoned all the replicas at once.
If you, in fact, altered the world, the physical world? said R.
So be it, said G.
Who doesn’t? said R.
All is illusion, said G.
Leave with thy victory intact, said R.
The two original Mels situated themselves in the middle of the room, threw back their heads, spread their arms wide, and the replicas shrank down and each scurried back up into the respective rear of its original until only the two original Mels remained, wincing somewhat at the discomfort associated with the ongoing, continual rear reentry of their miniature selves.
You two were never welcome here, my charge said. You’re not welcome here now.
True, said R.
Hurtful, said G.
Yet look, said R. Here we are.
In the very bedroom of your dying, said G.
The two men bowed formally, G. inadvertently expelling, as he bowed, a final replica just then reentering his rear, which plopped to the floor, then doggedly began ascending that same leg again.
We’ll be waiting, said G.
In the bushes, said R.
Near the redwood fence, said G.
